Alamo-Hornedo v. Puig

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 12-2177
MARITZA ÁLAMO-HORNEDO,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
JUAN CARLOS PUIG and JOSÉ PÉREZ-RIERA, Members,
Junta de Reestructuración y Estabilización Económica y Fiscal,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Gustavo A. Gelpí, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Selya and Lipez,
Circuit Judges.
Dennis B. Parces Enriquez, with whom Luis G. Salas González
was on brief, for appellant.
Rosa Elena Pérez-Agosto, Assistant Solicitor General, with
whom Margarita Mercado-Echegaray, Solicitor General, was on brief,
for appellees.
March 17, 2014
SELYA, Circuit Judge. A leading lexicographer defines a
statute of limitations as "a statute establishing a time limit for
suing in a civil case, based on the date when the claim accrued (as
when the injury occurred or was discovered)." Black's Law
Dictionary 1546 (9th ed. 2009). The main reason for establishing
a limitations period is to ensure the diligent presentation of
known claims by promoting the "elimination of stale claims, and
certainty about a plaintiff's opportunity for recovery and a
defendant's potential liabilities." Rotella v. Wood, 528 U.S. 549,
555 (2000). When — as in the case at hand — a plaintiff dawdles,
bad things often happen. So it is here: because plaintiff-
appellant Maritza Álamo-Hornedo failed to commence her action
within the time prescribed by the applicable statute of
limitations, we affirm the district court's order of dismissal.1
Inasmuch as this appeal follows the grant of a motion to
dismiss, we glean the relevant facts from the complaint. See A.G.
ex rel. Maddox v. Elsevier, Inc., 732 F.3d 77, 79 (1st Cir. 2013);
SEC v. Tambone, 597 F.3d 436, 438 (1st Cir. 2010) (en banc).
In 2009, the plaintiff worked for the Parole Board of
Puerto Rico, but economic forces placed her employment in jeopardy.
That spring, the Puerto Rico legislature enacted a series of
1
Originally, this action was brought by three plaintiffs.
One voluntarily dismissed her claims. Another went to judgment in
the district court, but did not appeal. Consequently, we treat
Álamo-Hornedo as the sole plaintiff and appellant.
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austerity measures, collectively known as "Law 7," designed to
improve the island's dire financial straits. The measures included
a brute-force reduction in the size of the government: Commonwealth
employees with less than 13.5 years of service were to be
terminated.
Despite its harshness, Law 7 had a few oases of job
security. For example, it spared certain public safety sectors
(e.g., police and fire). An amendment to the law created
additional oases. These newly created oases included an exemption
for employees of the Parole Board. See P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 3,
§ 8797(m).
In light of this amendment, the plaintiff believed that
she would be shielded from the adverse effects of Law 7. Her hopes
were dashed when, less than four months later, she received a
letter from the body charged with implementing Law 7 (the Junta de
Reestructuración y Estabilización Económica y Fiscal (JREF))
notifying her that she would be terminated pursuant to that law.
The wheels, once set in motion, continued to turn despite the
plaintiff's protests. The process culminated in a final
termination letter received by the plaintiff on February 26, 2010.
As provided in that letter, her employment was ended on March 5,
2010.
That summer, the union to which the plaintiff belonged
filed suit in the local Court of First Instance. The union's suit
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sought to reinstate the plaintiff and other unionized Parole Board
employees who were similarly situated, and to recover back pay for
them. The union prevailed and a judgment entered in its favor on
February 3, 2011.
Although the plaintiff was reinstated to her position,
the pot continued to boil. Eight months after the Court of First
Instance entered its judgment, the plaintiff repaired to the
federal district court. She invoked federal question jurisdiction,
see 28 U.S.C. § 1331, and alleged that the JREF's members,
including defendants-appellees José Pérez-Riera and Juan Carlos
Puig,2 had deprived her of due process of law in violation of 42
U.S.C. § 1983. She also asserted supplemental claims arising under
Puerto Rico law. All of these claims sought compensatory and
punitive damages.
The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing
that the plaintiff's section 1983 claim was time-barred. The
district court agreed and dismissed the section 1983 claim with
prejudice. At the same time, it declined to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over the plaintiff's remaining claims, dismissing them
without prejudice. See 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). This timely appeal
followed.
2
The remaining members of the JREF, originally named in the
suit, were voluntarily dismissed below and are not parties to this
appeal. The record is tenebrous as to whether this voluntary
dismissal included Puig. Since nothing turns on that datum, we do
not pause to resolve Puig's status.
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The plaintiff assigns error to the district court's
application of the statute of limitations. Section 1983 claims
borrow the forum state's statute of limitations for personal-injury
actions. See City of Rancho Palos Verdes v. Abrams, 544 U.S. 113,
123 n.5 (2005). For this purpose, Puerto Rico is the functional
equivalent of a state. See Santiago v. Puerto Rico, 655 F.3d 61,
69 (1st Cir. 2011).
Although section 1983 borrows its limitations period from
state law, the accrual date for a section 1983 claim is measured by
federal law. See Morán Vega v. Cruz Burgos, 537 F.3d 14, 20 (1st
Cir. 2008). Under federal law, such a cause of action accrues
"when the plaintiff knows, or has reason to know of the injury on
which the action is based." Id. (internal quotation marks
omitted).
In Puerto Rico, the borrowed limitations period is one
year. See Rodriguez Narvaez v. Nazario, 895 F.2d 38, 42 (1st Cir.
1990) (citing P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 5298(2)). The court below
held that the plaintiff's section 1983 claim accrued no later than
February of 2010, when the plaintiff received the final termination
letter. Her federal complaint, which was not filed until October
20, 2011, therefore came too late.
The plaintiff argues that the district court started with
the wrong date. In her view, the section 1983 claim did not accrue
until February of 2011, when the Court of First Instance entered a
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judgment vindicating her position. Without that judgment, she
posits, her injury was too ethereal to be the stuff of a concrete
cause of action and, thus, too ethereal to trigger accrual.
This argument will not wash. By the time that she
received formal notice of her imminent termination (February 26,
2010), the plaintiff knew of her injury and of its cause (the
defendants' actions). No more was exigible.
To be sure, the plaintiff laments that she did not then
have judicial confirmation of the unlawfulness of her firing. But
to our knowledge, no court has ever been so vain as to deem
judicial evaluation of an adverse employment decision the sine qua
non of the accrual of a section 1983 claim based on that decision.
Rather, the case law is consentient that such a claim accrues when
the employee is given notice of the adverse employment decision.
See, e.g., Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U.S. 6, 8 (1981) (per curiam);
López-González v. Municipality of Comerío, 404 F.3d 548, 551 (1st
Cir. 2005); Morris v. Gov't Dev. Bank, 27 F.3d 746, 749 (1st Cir.
1994). This makes perfect sense: in, say, a case in which an
employee's underlying claim is one of wrongful termination of
employment, the injury of which the plaintiff complains is her
ouster, not judicial recognition that her ouster was illegal.
The plaintiff also suggests that her prior suit in the
Court of First Instance somehow tolled the statute of limitations.
This suggestion is fanciful.
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To begin, exhaustion of state remedies is not a condition
precedent to the maintenance of a section 1983 action. See Patsy
v. Bd. of Regents, 457 U.S. 496, 516 (1982); Rogers v. Okin, 738
F.2d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 1984). Thus, the commencement and pendency of
a state proceeding ordinarily does not toll the limitations period
for a parallel action under section 1983. See, e.g., Rodríguez-
García v. Municipality of Caguas, 354 F.3d 91, 93 (1st Cir. 2004);
Ramirez de Arellano v. Alvarez de Choudens, 575 F.2d 315, 319 (1st
Cir. 1978). The plaintiff attempts to parry this thrust by noting
that, under Puerto Rico law, the statute of limitations can be
"interrupted" by, among other things, suing on the relevant claim.
P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, § 5303. Once the court action "comes to a
definite end," the "statute of limitations begins to run anew."
Rodríguez-García, 354 F.3d at 97 (internal quotation marks
omitted).
The plaintiff's reliance on this principle elevates hope
over reason. In order to have the tolling effect desired by the
plaintiff, the complaint in the first action "must assert causes of
action identical to" those asserted in the second action. Id.(internal quotation marks omitted).
This identicality requirement has three facets. The two
actions "must seek the same form of relief"; they "must be based on
the same substantive claims"; and they "must be asserted against
the same defendants in the same capacities." Id. at 98. The
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plaintiff offers no developed argumentation sufficient to show that
she satisfies these conditions.
In all events, it is readily apparent that the plaintiff
has not satisfied the identicality requirement. The first action,
brought in the Court of First Instance, sought the equitable
remedies of reinstatement and back pay; the second action, brought
in the federal district court, sought the legal remedies of
compensatory and punitive damages. Thus, it is nose-on-the-face
plain that the two actions did not seek the "same form of relief."
We hasten to add that this conclusion breaks no new
ground. This court has held, squarely and repeatedly, that under
Puerto Rico law, "seeking only equitable relief does not toll the
statute of limitations where the subsequent complaint . . . seeks
damages." Nieves-Vega v. Ortiz-Quiñones, 443 F.3d 134, 137 (1st
Cir. 2006) (collecting cases).
In view of the plaintiff's failure to satisfy the first
facet of the identicality requirement, we need not inquire into the
other two facets. Puerto Rico law is pellucid that a plaintiff who
seeks to interrupt the running of a statute of limitations on this
basis must satisfy all three facets of the identicality
requirement. See, e.g., Santana-Castro v. Toledo-Dávila, 579 F.3d
109, 116 (1st Cir. 2009); Nieves-Vega, 443 F.3d at 137-38.
That ends this aspect of the matter. When all is said
and done, the plaintiff's decision to sit idly by while the
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proceedings in the Court of First Instance unfolded dooms her tardy
attempt to assert a federal claim. Although waiting for the
Commonwealth court's ruling may have served to strengthen the
plaintiff's belief that her firing was illegal, there is no
requirement that a person who wishes to pursue a section 1983 claim
premised on an allegedly wrongful termination of employment await
an independent finding that her dismissal was unlawful.
Consequently, the plaintiff's election to await a ruling by the
Court of First Instance does not justify her failure to bring her
federal claim within the time allotted by statute.
There is one loose end. The plaintiff ruminates that
because the union's suit resulted in the issuance of an injunction,
the instant action should be deemed timely. It is hard to follow
the logic of these musings, but no useful purpose would be served
by probing the point. It suffices to explain that the plaintiff
advanced this theory for the first time in her reply brief. Black-
letter law holds that, in the absence of exceptional circumstances,
arguments presented for the first time in an appellant's reply
brief are deemed waived. See Sandstrom v. ChemLawn Corp., 904 F.2d
83, 87 (1st Cir. 1990). There are no exceptional circumstances
here.
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We need go no further.3 This case is a shining example
of the oft-stated precept that "[t]he law ministers to the vigilant
not to those who sleep upon perceptible rights." Puleio v. Vose,
830 F.2d 1197, 1203 (1st Cir. 1987). It follows that, for the
reasons elucidated above, the district court did not err in
dismissing the plaintiff's action.
Affirmed.
3
The defendants have offered a salmagundi of other arguments
as alternative grounds for the dismissal of the action. Given our
view of the operation of the statute of limitations, we need not
address any of these arguments.
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