Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico, Inc. v. Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico, et al.

The Teachers’ Associations were subjected to the unconstitutional displacement and amendment of their retirement laws, in a decision that can only be catalogued as an extension of the morally repugnant Insular Cases. Those laws that established the Teachers’ Retirement System were undone by the Commonwealth’s Plan of Adjustment, under the guise of preemption; a doctrine that establishes a presumption against preemption and, thus, strikes a balance between the supremacy of federal law over state law, which should be uniform in the interest of justice and clarity. The First Circuit’s decision opened by stating that “[t]his case presents several issues of first impression.” App.11. Nonetheless, after making this determination, the First Circuit shied away from the task of addressing those issues of first impression, preferring to defer to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico’s incorrect and convenience-oriented approach to the constitutional doctrine of preemption. The correct application of the doctrine required the analysis of whether preemption can occur when these retirement laws are outside de scope of PROMESA’s supremacy clause and where the Oversight Board lacks the power to affirmatively legislate and amend laws. Thus, the questions presented for review are the following: 1. Whether the preemption doctrine allows for the displacement and amendment of Puerto Rico laws