Federal Court Dismisses Woman’s Suit Due to Statute of Limitations

The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of a Puerto Rican woman’s suit for her failure to file suit within one year of the termination of her job.

Maritza Alamo-Hornedo lost her job though an amendment to a law spared her position. Alamo-Hornedo’s union sued in a local court to reinstate her and others’ positions. The court entered judgment in the union’s favor and Alamo-Hornedo regained her position. Despite her reinstatement, Alamo-Hornedo filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Puerto Rico against members of the government body responsible for terminating her job, accusing them of violating her due process rights. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss and the district court granted the motion. On March 17, 2014, the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal.

Alamo-Hornedo worked for the Parole Board of Puerto Rico in 2009. That same year, the Puerto Rico legislature passed a law downsizing government positions. An amendment to the law, however, preserved Alamo-Hornedo’s position. Nevertheless, the Junta de Reestructuracion y Estabilizacion y Fiscal (JREF) – the government body responsible for enforcing the new law – sent Alamo-Hornedo two separate termination letters. The last letter, arriving on February 26, 2010, informed her that her job would be terminated on March 5, 2010.

That summer, Alamo-Hornedo’s union evidently sued JREF in a local court, seeking reinstatement of Alamo-Hornedo’s and other parole board employees’ positions and seeking their back pay. On February 3, 2011, the court entered judgment in the union’s favor. Despite this outcome, Alamo-Hornedo and two others (both of whom were not parties to the eventual appeal) filed suit in the district court on October 20, 2011, against JREF members, alleging due process violations and raising supplemental claims under Puerto Rico law. The suit sought compensatory and punitive damages.

The defendants filed a motion to dismiss due to the suit being time barred. The district court granted the motion, also dismissing the supplemental claims. Alamo-Hornedo subsequently appealed, arguing that the district court had incorrectly calculated the start of her one year time limitation beginning in February 2010 (her final termination letter) instead of in February 2011 (the local court’s holding). She further claimed that the suit in the local court had “tolled the statute of limitations.”

The Court of Appeals disagreed with both assertions. As to the statute of limitations, the Court stated that “Section 1983 claims borrow the forum state’s statute of limitations” and “Puerto Rico is the functional equivalent of a state.” Puerto Rico’s limitation is one year. Federal law, however, dictates when this limitation begins, which according to the court of appeals, begins “when the plaintiff knows, or has reason to know of the injury.” The Court agreed with the district court’s assessment that the injury had occurred in February 2010 and pointed out that the accrual of a claim is not evidenced by “judicial evaluation of an adverse employment decision,” as Alamo-Hornedo reasoned, but rather “when the employee is given notice of the…decision.”

The Court of Appeals then addressed Alamo-Hornedo’s tolling claim, first determining that a state suit does not toll the time limitation for a federal suit. An exception, the court of appeals recognized, is when the federal and state claims “seek the same form of relief,” are “based on the same substantive claims” and are “asserted against the same defendants in the same capacities.” The Court, needing only to examine the first criterion, concluded that Alamo-Hornedo failed to meet this requirement. The state suit sought reinstatement and back pay; in contrast, the federal suit sought damages.  

The Court of Appeals, therefore, held that Alamo-Hornedo’s suit had exceeded the statute of limitations and the dismissal had been proper. See: Alamo-Hornedo v. Puig, 745 F.3d 578 (1st Cir. P.R. 2014).

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