United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 07-1682
EFRAÍN MORÁN VEGA,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
VIRGINIA POLO CUEVAS; CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP MORÁN-POLO,
Plaintiffs,
v.
VICTOR R. CRUZ BURGOS; JANE DOE 03CV1902-1; CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP
CRUZ-DOE; MYRNA CRESPO-SAAVEDRA; JOHN DOE 03CV1902, CONJUGAL
PARTNERSHIP DOE-CRESPO; JOSÉ CORDERO-SERRANO, Director of the
General Services of the Department of Human Resources; JANE DOE
03CV1902-3; CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP CORDERO-DOE; FAUSTINO ACEVEDO-
CRUZ, Sub-Administrator of the Department of Labor for the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; JANE DOE 03CV1902-4; JOSÉ L. RIVERA;
JANE DOE 03CV1902-5; CONJUGAL PARTNERSHIP RIVERA-DOE; WILFREDO
RÍOS-SALDAÑA, Regional Director of the Department of Labor for
the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; JANE DOE 03CV1902-6; CONJUGAL
PARTNERSHIP RÍOS-DOE; JESÚS ROHENA; MARÍA DEL CARMEN FUENTES;
ROMÁN M. VELASCO-GONZÁLEZ,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Daniel R. Domínguez, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Chief Judge,
Lipez and Howard, Circuit Judges.
Marie Elsie López-Adames and Gonzáles-López & López-Adames
on brief for appellants.
Salvador J. Antonetti-Stutts, Solicitor General, Rosa Elena
Perez-Agosto, Assistant Solicitor General, Mariana D. Negrón-
Vargas, Deputy Solicitor General, and Maite D. Oronoz-Rodríguez,
Deputy Solicitor General, on brief for appellees.
LYNCH, Chief Judge. Efraín Morán Vega, a regional
manager of the Right to Work Administration ("RWA") of the
Department of Labor for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, was
suspended in December 2001 and threatened with firing. He brought
an administrative challenge and was reinstated in November 2005.
In August 2003, some twenty months after he was notified of the
suspension, Morán Vega, with his wife Virginia Polo Cuevas and
their conjugal partnership, (collectively "Morán Vega") sued his
superiors under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that his suspension was
politically motivated and violated his rights under the First
Amendment, and brought claims under state law.
The district court held the suit untimely and granted the
defendants' motion to dismiss, entering a final judgment on March
13, 2006. Morán Vega filed a motion for reconsideration, see Fed
R. Civ. P. 59(e), arguing that his administrative filing tolled the
statute of limitations and that the agency's delay in reinstating
him constituted a continuing violation that extended the
limitations period. The district court issued an order on March 2,
2007 denying that motion for reconsideration. We affirm.
I.
Morán Vega began working at the RWA on February 16, 1972.
Taking his allegations as true for purposes of the Rule 12(b)(6)
motion to dismiss, he was "openly known" as an active member of the
New Progressive Party ("NPP"). In the 2000 election, the NPP lost
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control of the government to its rival, the Popular Democratic
Party ("PDP").
The defendants, public officials of the Department of
Labor and supporters of the PDP,1 set out to have Morán Vega's
employment terminated because of his party membership. The new
administration created the position of Regional Director, which was
given supervisory authority over Morán Vega, and appointed a PDP
member named Wilfredo Ríos-Saldaña to the role. This appointment
was made to end Morán Vega's direct line of communication to the
Administrator, María del Carmen Fuentes. Morán Vega was ordered to
introduce Rios-Saldaña at a staff meeting as someone who could be
trusted by the RWA's administrator. These actions demonstrated an
"intention to humiliate" Morán Vega and created a hostile work
environment.
On October 23, 2001, Morán Vega ordered the RWA's
cleaning staff to clean a storage area and to remove inactive files
from previous years. When he arrived at the office on the
1
The defendants are Victor Cruz-Burgos, Secretary of the
Department of Labor; Myrna Crespo-Saavedra, Director of Human
Resources for the RWA; Faustino Acevedo-Cruz, Sub-Administrator of
the Department of Labor; María del Carmen Fuentes, Administrator of
the RWA; José Cordero-Serrano, Special Assistant to the
Administrator; José L. Rivera, Executive Assistant to the
Administrator; Wilfredo Ríos-Saldaña, Regional Director of the RWA;
and Jesús Rohena, Supervisor of the RWA's Insurance and
Unemployment Investigations Unit; and their respective conjugal
partnerships. Acevedo-Cruz, Rivera, and Ríos-Saldaña were named in
their official capacity; the other defendants were named in their
individual and official capacities. Defendant Román M. Velasco-
Gonzáles is the current Secretary of the Department of Labor.
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scheduled cleaning date, November 2, 2001, Morán Vega found
defendants José Rivera and Jesús Rohena waiting for him. Rivera,
the Supervisor of the RWA's Insurance and Unemployment
Investigations Unit, and Rohena, Special Assistant to the
Administrator of the RWA, accused Morán Vega of illegally
destroying public documents. They sealed the dumpster that the
cleaning staff used and took photographs.
On December 3, 2001, Fuentes sent Morán Vega a letter
formally accusing him of authorizing the destruction of documents
from active files. The letter notified Morán Vega that his
employment was suspended with pay and that the RWA intended to
dismiss him.
Morán Vega requested an administrative hearing from the
RWA on December 8, 2001. The agency initially denied receiving his
request and referred him to an external appellate board but, when
challenged, granted the request for hearing on December 27. The
RWA notified Morán Vega on January 8, 2002 that his hearing would
be held on January 25. Morán Vega objected to the initial examiner
because he claimed she had a conflict of interest related to
Fuentes. On November 15, 2002, Morán Vega was notified that a new
examiner had been assigned to his case and that his hearing would
be held on November 27. Morán Vega requested a new hearing date
due to his attorney's illness. His hearing was eventually held on
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December 19, 2002. The agency did not issue a decision in the
matter until November 9, 2005, when it reinstated him.
II.
Morán Vega brought suit on August 21, 2003 under 42
U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, 1986, and 1988, alleging violations of his
First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and bringing state law
claims under the court's supplemental jurisdiction. Morán Vega
claimed that the defendants had created a "politically motivated
environment" and suspended him because of his political beliefs,
and he sought compensatory and punitive damages, declaratory and
injunctive relief, and costs and attorney's fees.
On September 23, 2004, the district court entered an
order adopting a magistrate judge's report and recommendation and
granting a motion to dismiss filed by three of the defendants,
Crespo-Saavedra, Acevedo-Cruz, and Rivera. The court held the suit
barred by the one-year statute of limitations applicable to Section
1983 claims in Puerto Rico and dismissed the claims with prejudice.
The court concluded that the limitations period began running on
December 3, 2001, when Morán Vega received notice of his
suspension, and that he had failed to show that the agency's
failure to reinstate him constituted a continuing violation, which
would have brought his suit within the limitations period. Morán
Vega filed a motion for reconsideration on October 7, 2004 and a
second motion for reconsideration on June 20, 2005. The district
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court denied the first motion and found the second moot on August
9, 2005. Morán Vega attempted to file an interlocutory appeal on
September 7, 2005 but voluntarily dismissed it because the August
2005 order granting relief only to some defendants was not
appealable.
In an order entered on March 19, 2006, the district court
granted a separate motion to dismiss filed by the remaining
defendants. Judgment was entered on March 19, 2006. No appeal was
timely taken.
Plaintiffs filed a Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend
the judgment on March 30, 2006, and an "Informative Motion
Regarding New Case Law" on May 25, which argued that an intervening
change in the law had occurred, citing Valentín-Almeyda v.
Municipality of Aguadilla, 447 F.3d 85 (1st Cir. 2006), decided on
May 9, 2006.
The district court accepted the Rule 59(e) motion and
informative motion as timely. The court treated both motions
together and adjudicated the plaintiffs' request for
reconsideration only under the intervening change of law standard.2
2
Morán Vega raised additional arguments in this motion.
He had raised identical arguments which were rejected before
judgment issued. Those arguments were not proper for a motion for
reconsideration under Rule 59(e). A district court is entitled to
disregard arguments made in a Rule 59(e) motion that "could, and
should, have been made before judgment issued." ACA Fin. Guar.
Corp. v. Advest, Inc., 512 F.3d 46, 55 (1st Cir. 2008)(quoting FDIC
v. World Univ. Inc., 978 F.2d 10, 16 (1st Cir. 1992)).
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See Hayes v. Douglas Dynamics, Inc., 8 F.3d 88, 90 n.3 (1st Cir.
1993); see also 11 Wright, Miller & Kane, Federal Practice &
Procedure § 2810.1, at 124-27 (2d ed. 1995) (noting that a valid
Rule 59(e) claim may be based, inter alia, on an intervening change
in law). The court went over its prior holding, where it concluded
that plaintiffs had failed to meet the requirement under Puerto
Rico law that, to toll the statute of limitations, an
administrative filing and a later suit must involve identical
claims brought against identical "passive subjects," or defendants.
The court concluded that neither the relief sought nor the
defendants named were identical. The court held that Valentín-
Almeyda in fact supported its ruling because that case turned on
the fact that the plaintiff there, who brought an administrative
action alleging sexual harassment as well as a later Title VII
suit, had satisfied both requirements. The court also reviewed an
earlier Puerto Rico case cited by the plaintiffs, Ríos Quiñones v.
Administracion de Servicios Agricolas, 140 P.R. Dec. 868 (1996),
finding it inapposite as well. In Ríos, the administrative claim
and the suit had been brought against the same subjects. While
Ríos had held that the limitations period began on the date a
challenged transfer actually occurred rather than the date the
plaintiff learned of it, the court noted that federal law, which
determines the date of accrual in Section 1983 actions, differs.
The court entered its order denying reconsideration on March 2,
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2007, nearly a year after it had dismissed the case. Morán Vega's
notice of appeal, entered April 1, 2007, followed.
III.
Under Marie v. Allied Home Mortgage Corp., 402 F.3d 1
(1st Cir. 2005), we review both the order of dismissal and the
denial of reconsideration.
Under Marie, we review whether the appeal is timely filed
as to the underlying order for which reconsideration was sought and
whether Morán Vega intended to appeal the underlying order or only
the district court's ruling on the Rule 59(e) motion.
As we recognized in Marie, a timely filing of a Rule
59(e) motion tolls the thirty-day appeal period under Fed. R. App.
P. 4(a)(4)(A). Marie, 402 F.3d at 8 ("The thirty-day clock
restarts after the order denying the motion to alter or amend the
judgment."). Here, Morán Vega timely filed the Rule 59(e) motion
and filed the notice of appeal within thirty days of the district
court's order denying the Rule 59(e) motion, making the appeal of
the dismissal timely under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4)(A).
Our second inquiry under Marie focuses on what the
appellant actually intended to appeal. Here, as in Marie, the
notice of appeal named only the order denying Morán Vega's motion
for reconsideration. See Marie, 402 F.3d at 8. Nonetheless, in
determining what is actually being appealed, "we have been
liberal." Id. We consider the appellant's intent on the record as
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a whole and whether the appellant's unclear notice has misled the
appellee. Id. Here, Morán Vega "manifested an intent, however
awkwardly phrased, to appeal the underlying order" rather than
merely the denial of the motion for reconsideration. Id. at 9; see
also Zukowski v. St. Lukes Home Care Program, 326 F.3d 278, 283 n.4
(1st Cir. 2003). Further, appellees' brief also assumes that we
would review the district court's decision to grant the motion to
dismiss. See Marie, 402 F.3d at 9 n.5 (noting that any possible
prejudice arising out of the appellee's being misled by a faulty
notice of appeal was vitiated by her opportunity to file an
additional brief on the merits).
Our review of the district court's granting of the motion
to dismiss is de novo. Chmielinski v. Massachusetts, 513 F.3d 309,
314 (1st Cir. 2008). Morán Vega argues that the district court
erred by "not tak[ing] into consideration the [allegation] that at
least one discrete act had occurred within the statute of
limitations," erred by failing to consider a purported retaliation
claim, which was not time barred, and erred by relying on case law
that was "clearly inapplicable" to conclude that Morán Vega's
administrative filing did not toll the statute of limitations.
A. The Continuing Violation Theory
Morán Vega argues that a discrete, discriminatory act --
namely the fact that the administrative claim was still pending --
occurred less than one year before suit was filed in August 2003,
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and argues that this fact represents a continuing violation, which
"rewinds the clock for each discriminatory act along the way."
Morán Vega's continuing violation theory is unavailing.
Section 1983, which borrows its limitations period from state law,
carries a one-year statute of limitations in Puerto Rico. Morales-
Tañon v. P.R. Elec. Power Auth., 524 F.3d 15, 18 (1st Cir. 2008).
It is federal law, however, which determines when the statute of
limitations begins to run. Marrero-Gutierrez v. Molina, 491 F.3d
1, 5 (1st Cir. 2007). Section 1983 claims generally accrue "when
the plaintiff knows, or has reason to know of the injury on which
the action is based," id. (quoting Guzman-Rivera v. Rivera-Cruz, 29
F.3d 3, 5 (1st Cir. 1994)), and a plaintiff is deemed to know or
have reason to know "at the time of the act itself and not at the
point that the harmful consequences are felt," id. at 6 (emphasis
added). The clock thus began running, for purposes of section
1983, when Morán Vega received the letter notifying him of his
suspension on December 3. See generally Del. State Coll. v. Ricks,
449 U.S. 250, 261-62 (1980) (holding that the statute of
limitations in a Title VII case began to run when a university
professor received notice that his tenure would be denied not when
his employment ended one year later); accord Campbell v.
BankBoston, N.A., 327 F.3d 1, 10-11 (1st Cir. 2003).
The clock was not reset by Morán Vega's vague argument
that defendants handled his administrative claim in a
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discriminatory fashion. The district court correctly concluded
that Morán Vega "offered nothing more than conclusory claims of
political discrimination" to support this argument and failed even
to allege "that he was treated differently" because of his
political opinion or that other employees were treated more
favorably. See Doyle v. Hasbro, Inc., 103 F.3d 186, 190 (1st Cir.
1996) ("Although all inferences must be made in the plaintiffs'
favor [when reviewing a ruling on a motion to dismiss], this court
need not accept 'bald assertions, unsupportable conclusions,
periphrastic circumlocutions, and the like.'" (quoting Aulson v.
Blanchard, 83 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1996))).
Further, aside from Morán Vega's pending suspension, the
only allegedly discriminatory acts to which Morán Vega refers are
the fact that the RWA did not acknowledge his initial request,
delayed in appointing an examiner, and then appointed a biased
examiner. Even if these actions were discrete discriminatory acts
sufficient to restart the limitations period, the most recent --
the appointment of a biased examiner -- occurred in January 2002,
more than one year before plaintiffs filed suit.
B. The Retaliation Theory
Morán Vega also argues that he asserted a retaliation
claim which was not time-barred. The argument is that Morán Vega
engaged in protected activity by filing an administrative hearing
request and demanding that a biased officer be removed from his
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case and that the RWA retaliated with the adverse employment action
of delaying resolution of his claim.
This argument also fails. Morán Vega never sought
recovery for alleged retaliation in the amended complaint, which
sought recovery only for Morán Vega's suspension. The amended
complaint was filed well after the alleged protected activity and
the alleged adverse employment action. Morán Vega also made no
mention of a retaliation claim in the opposition to the motion to
dismiss filed by Crespo-Saavedra, Acevedo-Cruz, and Rivera. As we
held in Iverson v. City of Boston, 452 F.3d 94, 103 (1st Cir.
2006), Morán Vega's "failure to mention -- let alone adequately to
develop" the retaliation theory "in the[] opposition to
[defendants'] dispositive motion defeats the[] belated attempt to
advance the theory on appeal." Id.
C. Administrative Tolling Theory
Morán Vega also claims that the district court erred by
concluding that the filing of an administrative appeal on December
8, 2001 did not toll the statute of limitations. The argument is
that the August 2003 complaint was timely because a final decision
on the appeal did not issue until November 2005.3
3
Morán Vega does not challenge the district court's
application of Valentín-Almeyda before us. That claim is waived.
See McAdams v. Mass. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 391 F.3d 287, 298 (1st
Cir. 2004).
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Because Section 1983 borrows from state law to determine
the length of its limitations period, we look to state law for
tolling principles. Rodriguez Narvaez v. Nazario, 895 F.2d 38, 41-
42 (1st Cir. 1990). The applicable statute in Puerto Rico is
Article 1873 of the Civil Code, which provides that "[p]rescription
of actions is interrupted by their institution before the courts,
by extrajudicial claim of the creditor, and by any act of
acknowledgment of the debt by the debtor." P.R. Laws. Ann. tit.
31, § 5303. An extrajudicial claim, such as an administrative
appeal, must meet three requirements to toll the limitations
period:
The claim must be made by the holder of the
substantive right (or his legal
representative), . . . it must be addressed to
the debtor or passive subject of the right,
not to a third party, . . . and it must
require or demand the same conduct or relief
ultimately sought in the subsequent lawsuit.
Rodriguez Narvaez, 895 F.2d at 44 (internal citations omitted); see
also generally Rodríguez-García v. Municipality of Caguas, 354 F.3d
91, 97-99 (1st Cir. 2004); Cintron v. E.L.A., 127 P.R. Dec. 582
(1990) (holding that an administrative claim will toll the statute
of limitations only if there is an identity between the action
instituted and the action tolled).
Consequently, an administrative claim will toll the
limitations period only if it puts forth an "identical cause[] of
action," Benitez-Pons v. Puerto Rico, 136 F.3d 54, 59 (1st Cir.
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1998) (quoting Rodriguez Narvaez, 895 F.2d at 43 (internal
quotation marks omitted)), and only if "[t]he relief sought in the
extrajudicial claim [is] the same as that later sought in court."
Valentín-Almeyda, 447 F.3d at 101; see also Rodriguez Narvaez, 895
F.2d at 46.
Morán Vega's administrative claim does not meet these
requirements. The relief Morán Vega sought in his December 8, 2001
administrative filing was reinstatement, not the compensatory or
punitive damages which were sought in the August 2003 federal court
complaint. Moreover, Morán Vega has not shown that the claims
raised in the administrative complaint match the claims,
particularly the federal civil rights claims, put forth in the
August 2003 complaint. Compare Valentín-Almeyda, 447 F.3d at 101-
02 (finding the limitations period tolled in a Title VII case where
a plaintiff brought identical claims against identical defendants).
Finally, as the district court noted, even if the
December 8 filing succeeded in tolling the limitations period, it
would only start a new one-year period on the date of the filing,
not the date of the resolution of the claim. See Tokyo Marine &
Fire Ins. Co., Ltd. v. Perez & Cia., P.R., 142 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir.
1998) ("The prescriptive term is interrupted on the date on which
the defendant receives the extrajudicial claim.") (emphasis added).
Consequently, the December 8, 2001 filing would only extend the
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limitations period one year, leaving any claim filed after December
8, 2002 untimely.
The district court correctly rejected Morán Vega's
administrative tolling argument.
The judgment of dismissal is affirmed.
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