United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 06-1903
ISABEL TORRES-ÁLAMO,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
COMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO; DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE;
ROBERTO SÁNCHEZ-RAMOS, in his official capacity as Secretary
of the Department of Justice for Puerto Rico; PUERTO RICO
DEPARTMENT OF THE FAMILY; ABC INSURANCE COMPANY,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. José Antonio Fusté, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Torruella and Lipez, Circuit Judges,
and DiClerico, Jr.,* Senior District Judge.
Nicolás Nogueras, Jr. and Juan José Nolla-Acosta, on brief for
appellant.
Susana I. Peñagarícano-Brown, Assistant Solicitor General,
Salvador J. Antonetti-Stutts, Solicitor General, Mariana Negrón-
Vargas, Deputy Solicitor General, and Maite D. Oronoz-Rodríguez,
Deputy Solicitor General, on brief for appellees.
September 6, 2007
*
Of the District of New Hampshire, sitting by designation.
TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge. On September 8, 2005,
Appellant Isabel Torres-Álamo brought the present action against
Appellees the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ("Commonwealth"); the
Commonwealth's Department of Justice ("DOJ"); the Secretary of the
DOJ, Roberto Sánchez Ramos, in his official capacity; the Puerto
Rico Family Department ("Family Department"); and an unnamed
insurance company, seeking damages for alleged violations of the
Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101 et
seq.; Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII"), 42
U.S.C. §§ 2000e et seq.; the United States Constitution; and Puerto
Rico law.
Appellant, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, has
been employed as a social worker by the Family Department since
1965. The Family Department first accommodated Appellant's
arthritic condition in 1990 by giving her a secretary to help with
her daily duties. The Family Department discontinued the
secretary's assignment thirteen years later, in May 2003, having
decided that Appellant could function alone.
Appellant promptly requested that the secretary be
reassigned to her as a reasonable accommodation of her disorder,
but the request was denied. Appellant then filed a complaint with
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). The EEOC
closed the case on June 16, 2005, and issued a right-to-sue letter.
Accordingly, Appellant filed the present action before the U.S.
-2-
District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, requesting
declaratory and monetary relief.
On September 20, 2005, Appellees filed a motion to
dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) on the grounds that the ADA
claim was barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity. Oddly, Appellees'
motion to dismiss focused exclusively on Appellant's ADA claim and
did not make any arguments as to the balance of the complaint. On
February 16, 2006, the district court dismissed the ADA claim and
reviewed Appellant's Title VII and constitutional claims sua
sponte.
Appellant's complaint did not specify under which title
of the ADA she rested her claim. The district court and the
Appellee interpreted the complaint to bring a claim under Title I
of the ADA. However, in Appellant's response to Appellee's
12(b)(1) motion, she conceded that Board of Trustees of the Univ.
of Ala. v. Garrett, 531 U.S. 356 (2001) (declaring States immune to
claims under Title I of the ADA), protects States from being sued
under ADA Title I, and asserted that her claim was a retaliation
claim under Title V. This was the first time Appellant asserted a
specific title of the ADA under which she was bringing a claim.
The district court concluded that "Plaintiff cannot defeat the
preclusive effect of Garrett on her ADA claim by morphing it into
a Title V action at this post-motion stage. Plaintiff's complaint
simply makes no mention of a retaliatory response directed at
-3-
statutorily-protected conduct." The district court thereafter
dismissed Appellant's Title I claim as barred by Eleventh Amendment
immunity under Garrett, and refused to interpret Appellant's
complaint as alleging a Title V claim.1
The district court decided not to dismiss Appellant's
complaint in its entirety, however, because Appellees had not
adequately challenged Appellant's Title VII and constitutional
claims, and Appellant, therefore, had no notice to defend herself
on those counts.2 But the district court ordered Appellant to show
cause as to why her Title VII and constitutional claims should not
also be dismissed.
The district court's order to show cause explicitly
requested that Appellant (1) explain how her disability
discrimination allegations gave rise to a Title VII claim, given
that disabled persons are not protected under Title VII; and (2)
brief whether the ADA provided an exclusive remedy for disability-
based employment discrimination such that a constitutional claim
based on the same facts was barred.
1
The district court did not decide or even consider whether
Garrett would bar a Title V claim. But the district court did note
that, of the Courts of Appeal, only the Ninth Circuit has addressed
this issue. See Demshki v. Monteith, 255 F.3d 986 (9th Cir. 2001)
(extending Garrett to Title V of the ADA).
2
Because two of Appellant's federal claims survived the
Appellees' motion to dismiss, the district court did not dismiss
Appellant's supplemental Commonwealth claims.
-4-
After requesting and receiving two time extensions,
Appellant submitted a response to the district court. Appellant's
response did not, however, address the district court's order to
show cause. Indeed, the district court mused that when "[r]eading
[Appellant]'s response to the order to show cause, one wonders
whether she or her lawyer read [the] Opinion and Order at all."
Instead, Appellant moved to amend her complaint to add a new claim
of retaliation under Title V of the ADA, and a claim of age
discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
("ADEA"). On April 10, 2006, the district court dismissed
Appellant's Title VII and constitutional claims for failure to show
cause, and declined to continue to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over the Commonwealth claims. The district court then
denied Appellant's motion to amend on the grounds that she could
not amend because the complaint was already dismissed.
I. Discussion
A. The ADA Claim
We review de novo the district court's order barring
Appellant's claim under the ADA against the Commonwealth on the
grounds of Eleventh Amendment immunity. See In re Rivera Torres,
432 F.3d 20, 23 (1st Cir. 2005). Like the district court, we
interpret the Appellant's ADA claim to have been raised under Title
I.
-5-
The Supreme Court "has consistently held that an
unconsenting State is immune [under the Eleventh Amendment] from
suits brought in federal courts by her own citizens as well as by
citizens of another State." Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 662-
63 (1974). "Puerto Rico, despite the lack of formal statehood,
enjoys the shelter of the Eleventh Amendment in all respects,"
Ramírez v. P.R. Fire Serv., 715 F.2d 694, 697 (1st Cir. 1983), and
Eleventh Amendment immunity extends to state agencies such as
Puerto Rico's Family Department, González de Blasini v. Family
Dep't, 278 F. Supp. 2d 206, 210 (D.P.R. 2003).
Congress may abrogate the States' Eleventh Amendment
immunity when it unequivocally intends to do so "and acts pursuant
to a valid grant of constitutional authority." Garrett, 531 U.S.
at 363 (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). In
Garrett, however, the Supreme Court invalidated Congress's
abrogation of the States' immunity to claims under Title I of the
ADA. Id. at 374. Accordingly, the Commonwealth is immune to all
claims -- including Appellant's cause of action -- under Title I of
the ADA.
B. Failure to Show Cause
A district court, as part of its inherent power to manage
its own docket, may dismiss a case for any of the reasons
prescribed in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b), including
failure of the plaintiff to comply with any order of the court.
-6-
Cintrón-Lorenzo v. Departamento de Asuntos del Consumidor, 312 F.3d
522, 526 (1st Cir. 2002). We review the district court's dismissal
of Appellant's remaining claims for failure to show cause only for
abuse of discretion. Id.
Dismissal with prejudice is indeed a harsh sanction.
Malot v. Dorado Beach Cottages Assocs., 478 F.3d 40, 44 (1st Cir.
2007). In our review, we "balance the trial court's authority to
impose such a sanction against the obvious policy considerations
that favor disposition of the case on the merits." Batiz Chamorro
v. Puerto Rican Cars, Inc., 304 F.3d 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2002). When
balancing these interests, we give weight to substantive elements
of the sanction, including the severity of the party's violation,
mitigating excuses, and repetition of the violations, as well as
procedural elements, such as notice and the opportunity to be
heard. Benítez-García v. González-Vega, 468 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir.
2006).
Here, the district court's dismissal was not in any way
an abuse of discretion. The district court's order to show cause
clearly instructed Appellant to brief the court as to why her Title
VII and constitutional claims should not be dismissed for failure
to state a claim. However, after receiving two time extensions,
Appellant's response to the order to show cause did not address the
infirmities of her Title VII or constitutional claims. Instead,
Appellant sought to amend her complaint to cure the legal
-7-
deficiencies of her ADA claim. This blatant disregard for the
district court's order to show cause -- coming after Appellant had
been given ample notice and time to cure her remaining claims --
tips the scales in favor of dismissal of Appellants unsubstantiated
Title VII and the constitutional claims. See HMG Prop. Investors,
Inc. v. Parque Indus. Río Cañas, Inc., 847 F.2d 908, 918 (1st Cir.
1988) ("[T]he law is well established in this circuit that where a
noncompliant litigant has manifested a disregard for orders of the
court and been suitably forewarned of the consequences of continued
intransigence, a trial judge need not first exhaust milder
sanctions before resorting to dismissal.").
C. The Motion to Amend
We review the district court's denial of Appellant's
motion to amend for abuse of discretion. Palmer v. Champion Mtg.,
465 F.3d 24, 30 (1st Cir. 2006). We "will defer to the district
court's hands-on judgment so long as the record evinces an adequate
reason for the denial." Aponte-Torres v. Univ. of P.R., 445 F.3d
50, 58 (1st Cir. 2006).
When, as here, a motion to amend is entered before formal
entry of judgment, the district court should evaluate the motion
under the "liberal standard of Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)." Palmer, 465
F.3d at 30. Under this standard, "[a]mendments may be permitted
pre-judgment, even after a dismissal for failure to state a claim,
-8-
and leave to amend is 'freely given when justice so requires.'"
Id. (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)).
The limited reasons for denying a pre-judgment motion to
amend include "undue delay, bad faith, futility and the absence of
due diligence on the movant's part." Id. We find that Appellant's
motion to amend harbored none of these defects. Appellant's motion
was timely filed only six months after she filed her complaint and
less than two months after Appellee had filed its answer. See id.
(affirming a denial of a motion to amend that was filed over
fifteen months after commencement of the action); see also Aponte-
Torres, 445 F.3d at 58. Although the district court's scheduling
order set January 18, 2006, as the deadline for filing amended
pleadings, that was not a realistic date in as much as the
defendant had not yet filed an answer. In addition, dismissal of
the Title I claim would not necessarily preclude an amendment to
add an entirely different claim, that is a claim under Title V of
the ADA. Accordingly, we reverse the district court's denial of
Appellant's motion to amend, and remand for consideration of the
motion under Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a).
II. Conclusion
For the reasons illustrated above, we affirm the
dismissal of Appellant's claims under Title I of the ADA, Title
VII, and the United States Constitution; reverse the denial of the
-9-
Appellant's motion to amend the complaint; and remand in accordance
with this opinion.
Affirmed in part, Reversed in part, and Remanded. No
costs are awarded.
-10-