Vernaliz Perez v. FEMA

• Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
• Decided: April 22, 2026
• Docket: 24-2131
• Status: Published

Opinion

United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit

No. 24-2131

VERNALIZ MEREDITH PEREZ; JUAN FERNANDO CRUZ TOLEDO; YADHIRA APONTE COLON; GABRIELA MARY RIVERA REYES; NORMA ANGELICA MUÑOZ TORRES; BRENDA MILAGROS FELICIANO SOLERO; FRANCISCO JAVIER ALVARADO LAGUNA; MURIEL CONSTANZA CHABERT-LÓPEZ; ÁNGEL MANUEL RIVERA AVILÉS; NADJA MARIE GONZÁLEZ ELIAS; MARÍA MILAGROS GARCÍA SIERRA; GRACIELA PADRO POZZI; LUIS APONTE ORTEGA, FRANCISCO JAVIER CORREA LEBRÓN; MARÍA V. SANTOS GONZÁLEZ; ILIALI RIVERA LUGO; NORMAN JESÚS KRAUS LÓPEZ; CARMEN CRUZ; CARMEN NANETTE BELTRÁN-DONES; VERÓNICA ORTEGA-ALVAREZ; KEILA MONTENEGRO-HUERTAS; LYMARI TORRES VECHINI; NITZA B. PEREZ-ORTIZ; IRVING RODRIGUEZ; HÉCTOR RAFAEL VÁZQUEZ; MYRIAM YADHIRA MOLANO; ALBERTO VIGO; JOSE IGNACIO RODRIGUEZ NIEVES; JOSE J. ROLDAN ZENO; MELANIE VIGNAU; JOSE VILLAFANE-SANTIAGO; MARGARITA PRATTS QUINONES; JENNIFER S. VASANDANI RIVERA; MYRNA FUENTES TIRADO; JAIME PALMER; XAVIER FELICIANO CARRASQUILLO; STEVEN SANTANA RAMÍREZ; ANGELA ALICEA SÁNCHEZ RIVERA; IVETTE MARTINEZ; JORGE ARTAUD; CRISTINA MILÁN CRUZ; YUDERCA PACHECO,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

FRANCHESKA BELLEROSE RODRÍGUEZ; JESSICA MUÑOZ OCASIO; BELKYS RODRÍGUEZ MONTAÑEZ; ASHLEY ORTIZ CHICO; VIVIANA TORRES-VIERA; WILSON SANTANA-SANTIAGO; JOSE ANTONIO VÁZQUEZ; TAMMY HERNÁNDEZ; JOSE JAVIER MARTIR; AYNETTE CARRION PABON; JOHN DOE; JANE DOE,

Plaintiffs,

v.

THE FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY (FEMA); THE FACILITATORS: CAMP IRONHORSE INC.; INSURANCE CARRIER X,

Defendants, Appellees. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

[Hon. Gina R. Méndez-Miró, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Barron, Chief Judge, Breyer,* Associate Justice, and Thompson, Circuit Judge.

Héctor Pérez Rivera, with whom Vicente Santori Margarida was on brief, for appellants.

David O. Martoni-Dale, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, and Juan Carlos Reyes-Ramos, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellees.

April 22, 2026

*Hon. Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the Supreme Court of the United States, sitting by designation. BREYER, Associate Justice. The appellants in this case

worked for a nonprofit organization called "The Facilitators: Iron

Horse, Inc." When Puerto Rico suffered a major hurricane disaster,

that organization (which we shall call "TFCI") received money from

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When that funding

ran out, TFCI asked for more, but FEMA denied its request. The

appellants, who had been working without pay for several weeks,

then sued FEMA in federal district court, seeking wages they

claimed were due to them as FEMA employees under the Fair Labor

Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. The district court entered

summary judgment in favor of FEMA on the ground that the appellants

were not employees of the agency. The appellants now challenge

that determination. In our view, however, the district court's

determination is lawful, and we affirm its judgment.

I.

FEMA is a subagency of the federal Department of Homeland

Security charged with the administration and coordination of the

federal government's response to presidentially declared

disasters. See 42 U.S.C. § 5170. It carries out this

responsibility in part through its Disaster Case Management

Program, an initiative that provides federal funding for nonprofit

organizations that deliver post-disaster services. See 6 U.S.C.

§ 314(a)(8). In 2017, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, and

- 3 - President Trump declared a major disaster. Several months later,

FEMA invited qualified nonprofit entities to apply for Disaster

Case Management funds. It granted some of those funds to TFCI (an

Oklahoma organization), and TFCI hired the appellants as its

employees.

In May 2019, TFCI asked for additional Disaster Case

Management funds from FEMA. FEMA denied the request in July of

that year. As a result, the appellants worked without full pay

from May 2019 until August 2019, when TFCI ultimately terminated

their employment.

The appellants then brought this lawsuit, basically for

backpay, against FEMA and TFCI. FEMA removed the case to federal

court and, once there, the appellants amended their complaint to

clarify that their claims arose under the federal Fair Labor

Standards Act (also known as the "FLSA") and provisions of

Commonwealth law. After FEMA answered, the appellants amended

their complaint for a second time to add eleven additional TFCI

employees as plaintiffs. The appellants and FEMA then went through

discovery, and each side moved for summary judgment. The district

court granted FEMA's summary judgment motion (and entered summary

judgment for TFCI), denied the appellants' summary judgment motion

with respect to their FLSA claims, and declined to exercise

supplemental jurisdiction over the appellants' Commonwealth-law

claims.

- 4 - The appellants now challenge the court's grant of FEMA's

summary judgment motion. Because the appellants have not

meaningfully contested the grant of summary judgment for TFCI, we

do not consider that matter in this appeal. See Brox v. Woods

Hole, Martha's Vineyard & Nantucket S.S. Auth., 83 F.4th 87, 102

(1st Cir. 2023) (concluding that a claim was "waived" on appeal

"for lack of development" where the appellants had failed to

"meaningfully challenge" an aspect of the district court's

ruling).

II.

FLSA liability attaches only to an employer. See

Baystate Alt. Staffing, Inc. v. Herman, 163 F.3d 668, 675 (1st

Cir. 1998). The statute says that an "employer" is "any person

acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in

relation to an employee." 29 U.S.C. § 203(d). And this court has

said that "to determine whether an employment relationship

exists," we must look to "the 'economic reality' of the totality

of the circumstances bearing on whether the putative employee is

economically dependent on the alleged employer." Baystate, 163

F.3d at 675. In doing so, we must consider "whether the alleged

employer (1) had the power to hire and fire the employees;

(2) supervised and controlled employee work schedules or

conditions of employment; (3) determined the rate and method of

- 5 - payment; and (4) maintained employment records." Id. The first

two of these considerations are concerned with "a putative

employer's control over the nature and structure of the working

relationship"; the second two focus on "the economic aspects of

the working relationship." Id. at 675–76.

In granting FEMA's motion for summary judgment on this

issue, the district court found FEMA's statement of the relevant

facts to be uncontroverted and adequately supported by the record.

Because the appellants do not disagree with that finding, we accept

FEMA's uncontroverted statement of facts. See Aguiar-Carrasquillo

v. Agosto-Alicea, 445 F.3d 19, 25 (1st Cir. 2006). Applying this

circuit's law to the uncontroverted facts, we find that the

district court's grant of summary judgment was lawful. See Taite

v. Bridgewater State Univ., 999 F.3d 86, 92–93 (1st Cir. 2021)

(explaining that we review summary judgment orders de novo and

that summary judgment is appropriate where there is "no genuine

dispute as to any material fact" and the moving party is "entitled

to judgment as a matter of law" (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a))).

The uncontroverted facts show that it was TFCI and not

FEMA that possessed the authority to hire and to fire the

appellants. Moreover, it was TFCI and not FEMA that controlled

the appellants' work schedules and conditions of employment. TFCI

did so through the provision of training, work assignments,

identification cards, and computers. Further, it was TFCI and not

- 6 - FEMA that determined how the appellants were paid and that

maintained their records of employment.

Resisting these uncontroverted facts, the appellants

make four arguments against the district court's summary judgment

order. First, they argue that further facts paint a different

picture. They say that FEMA determined the appellants' "training

requirements," "maximum average pay rates," "work schedules," and

"dress attire." But beyond a single email from a FEMA employee

discussing work attire for the Disaster Case Management staff, the

appellants identify no record support for these claims. That

single email does not outweigh the district court's contrary

findings based on FEMA's uncontroverted statement of facts. See

Besosa-Noceda v. Torres, 164 F.4th 19, 25 n.2 (1st Cir. 2026)

(declining to reach an appellant's argument that "the district

court relied on erroneous facts in granting summary judgment" where

the appellant "ha[d] not identified record citations for several

of the claimed discrepancies").

Second, they say we should infer that FEMA had sufficient

control of their employment because they performed their duties in

a FEMA-run facility subject to a cooperation agreement between

FEMA and TFCI. They add that TFCI relied upon federal Disaster

Case Management funds to pay their salaries. These facts, however,

are not sufficient, for they exist within an undisputedly broader

setting in which TFCI (via the Disaster Case Management Program)

- 7 - was simply a FEMA grant recipient, not a joint partner, in the

enterprise that employed the appellants. Based on that

arrangement, FEMA did not exercise the "considerable control over

the nature and structure of the relationship with the temporary

workers" that, elsewhere, has been part-and-parcel of a successful

FLSA claim. Baystate, 163 F.3d at 676 ("It is the totality of the

circumstances, and not any one factor, which determines whether a

worker is the employee of a particular alleged employer.") So, in

this context, the district court properly found that FEMA did not

control the nature and structure of the appellants' work.

Third, the appellants claim that the district court

should have reconsidered its grant of summary judgment in light of

new evidence. That evidence consists of an affidavit from TFCI’s

former finance manager, Ms. Sarah Gordon, who attempted to appear

on behalf of TFCI in the district court on numerous occasions.

But as the district court observed, the appellants have not

explained why the purportedly "new" evidence from Ms. Gordon was

unavailable to them before the district court granted FEMA's

summary judgment motion. And a district court "may conclude in

its discretion that . . . supposedly new evidence could have been

presented prior to summary judgment" and thus reject a motion for

reconsideration on that basis. Biltcliffe v. CitiMortgage, Inc.,

772 F.3d 925, 931 (1st Cir. 2014). As a result, we can find no

abuse of discretion here.

- 8 - Fourth, the appellants mistakenly suggest that the

district court should have entered a certificate of default

(instead of summary judgment) because FEMA did not answer their

second amended complaint. But the entry of default is appropriate

only when a defendant "has failed to plead or otherwise defend"

itself. Fed. R. Civ. P. 55(a). And FEMA was actively defending

itself below, participating in discovery and moving for summary

judgment. The fact that FEMA did not answer the second amended

complaint -- which raised the exact same claims and allegations as

the first amended complaint it had already answered -- is not here

a basis for default.

* * *

For these reasons, we repeat, we find no legal error in

the district court's summary judgment order in favor of FEMA, and

we affirm its decision.

- 9 -