Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 08-2546
VIDAL PASTRANA-LÓPEZ,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
PUERTO RICO FIRE DEPARTMENT, ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Jaime Pieras, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella, Stahl and Lipez,
Circuit Judges.
Julio C. Alejandro on brief for appellant.
Irene S. Soroeta-Kodesh, Solicitor General; Leticia
Casalduc-Rabell, Deputy Solicitor General; Zaira Z. Girón-Anadón,
Deputy Solicitor General; Susana I. Peñagarcíano-Brown, Assistant
Solicitor General, on brief for appellees.
July 23, 2009
Per Curiam. This is an appeal from the dismissal of a
complaint alleging that the lead plaintiff, Vidal Pastrana-López
("Pastrana"),1 was terminated from his position in the Puerto Rico
Fire Department in retaliation for publicly expressing his views
concerning corruption at the Department. The sole issue on appeal
is whether the district court erred in determining that the
applicable one-year statute of limitations began to run when
Pastrana was notified of his proposed termination and that the
complaint, filed more than one year after that notice, was
therefore untimely. For the reasons discussed below, we conclude
that the district court did err in that respect--at least on the
present record.
The parties correctly agree that section 1983 claims
carry a one-year statute of limitations in Puerto Rico, Morán Vega
v. Cruz Burgos, 537 F.3d 14, 20 (1st Cir. 2008); that such claims
accrue "'when the plaintiff knows, or has reason to know of the
injury on which the action is based,'" id. (quoting Marrero-
Gutierrez v. Molina, 491 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 2007)); and that, in
wrongful discharge cases, a plaintiff has the requisite knowledge
when he "learns of the decision to terminate his employment,"
Rivera-Muriente v. Agosto-Alicea, 959 F.2d 349, 352-54 (1st Cir.
1
The other plaintiffs are Pastrana's wife and their conjugal
partnership.
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1992). The question here is when Pastrana learned of that
decision.
The district court held that Pastrana learned of the
decision on February 23, 2007, when he received a letter from the
Fire Chief, which "put [him] on notice that he was being dismissed,
and as such, marks the date of the accrual of [plaintiffs']
claim[s]." Although the court acknowledged that Pastrana's "pre-
termination hearing was held at a later date," that fact "d[id] not
alter [the court's] analysis."
In discounting the later dates of the pre-termination
hearing and of the post-hearing notice of dismissal that followed
it, the district court relied primarily on our decision in Rivera-
Muriente. That reliance was misplaced.
In Rivera-Muriente, the plaintiff Rivera's alleged injury
was that he was deprived of his employment without a pre-
termination hearing. Rivera-Muriente, 959 F.2d at 353. We held
that Rivera had notice of that injury when he was "cashiered"
(i.e., given his accumulated vacation pay) and that the statute of
limitations therefore began to run on that date, despite the fact
that he had never received any written notice of his termination or
any pre-termination hearing. Id. at 353-54. What mattered, we
held, was that, by that date, he "reliably knew that he had lost
his job." Id. at 354.
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By contrast, at least on the present record, it cannot be
said that Pastrana "reliably knew" of his termination when he
received the February 23rd letter. Rather, according to the
complaint, which is unrefuted by any evidence of the actual letter
itself, the letter was entitled "I Propose to Dismiss You"
(emphasis added). Only after Pastrana requested and received a
pre-termination hearing, was he notified, by letter dated April 2,
2007,2 of his actual termination. It was only then that he
"reliably knew" that he had been terminated. Because the
plaintiffs filed their complaint within a year of that notice, the
district court erred in holding that the complaint was time-barred.
Accordingly, the dismissal is vacated and the case remanded for
further proceedings. See 1st Cir. R. 27.0(c).
2
The only copy of that notice in the district court record is
in Spanish. Although the appellants included a certified English
translation of that document in their appendix, we cannot consider
it. Sanchez-Figueroa v. Banco Popular, 527 F.3d 209, 214 n.7 (1st
Cir. 2008), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 1328 (2009).
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