Puerto Rico's Public Service Appeals Commission (CASP)

Thirty days, and the word “jurisdictional” changes everything

If an agency, a municipality or your nominating authority took a decision that affects you and you are going to fight it before the Public Service Appeals Commission (CASP), the clock is **thirty (30) days counted from the date the action or decision is notified to you**. That is Article 13 of Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 2010, the law that created the Commission.

The text does not say plain “thirty days.” It says a **jurisdictional term** of thirty days, and that word is the difference between having a case and not having one. Compare it with the other term in the same Plan: complaints under Article 11 have six months **and the text itself lists exceptions**; that the other party intentionally concealed the facts, that you were legally incapacitated, that you did not know of the facts. Article 13's thirty-day term **comes with none of those written exceptions**.

When it starts running: from when the action is notified to you **by mail, personally, by fax or by email**, or **from when you came to know of the action or decision by other means**. That last phrase matters: finding out some other way also starts the clock.

A concrete example of how it chains with the agency's own deadlines, from Act 8-2017: if your reinstatement request is denied, the nominating authority must tell you the grounds, you have **ten days** to ask the agency to reconsider and, **if the decision is affirmed, thirty days to appeal to the Commission**. The agency's ten days do not replace the Commission's thirty; they run one after the other.

What happens when you file: the Commission, **after investigating and analyzing the appeal**, may dismiss it or order a public hearing, delegating it to an examining officer who will summon the parties and take the relevant evidence. The detail of the adjudicative procedure is set by the Commission through regulation, not by the Plan.

What CASP is and why there is a single forum

The Public Service Appeals Commission is **a quasi-judicial body of the Executive Branch**, specialized in labor-management and merit-principle matters, handling labor cases, human resources administration cases and complaints, both for employees bargaining under Act 45 of 1998 and for those who are not.

It was born of a merger. Reorganization Plan No. 2 of July 26, 2010, created under Act 182-2009, **joined CASARH** (the Human Resources Administration System Appeals Commission, from Act 184-2004) **and CRTSP** (the Public Service Labor Relations Commission, from Act 45-1998) into CASP, and repealed Article 13 of Act 184 and Article 11 of Act 45, which were what sustained them.

The reason is written into the Plan's own public policy statement, and it describes exactly the problem that brings people to a page like this: **“on many occasions citizens do not know which is the appropriate forum to turn to, so they sometimes file in multiple forums or in the wrong forum, causing delay in the correct adjudication of cases.”**

Two currency warnings that save confusion when reading older documents. Act 184-2004, cited throughout the Plan, **was repealed and replaced by Act 8-2017**; the official compilation notes this at every reference. And the Plan itself is alive and amended: the version used here is the **April 16, 2024 revision**, incorporating the amendments of Act 24-2023.

Who can appeal: the Article 12 list

The Commission has **exclusive jurisdiction** over appeals arising from actions or decisions of Individual Administrators **and of municipalities**, in the cases and by the persons Article 12 enumerates. Read it carefully, because the first line excludes a large group and the second includes people who do not even work for the government.

• **An employee of the Human Resources Administration System NOT covered by Act 45-1998** who claims an action or decision affects or violates a right granted by Act 8-2017, by Act 107-2020 (Puerto Rico Municipal Code), by the regulations implementing those laws, or by the Individual Administrators' own regulations.
• **A citizen** who claims an action or decision affects their right **to compete for or enter** the Human Resources Administration System under the merit principle. You need not be an employee: having applied is enough.
• **An irregular employee** who claims the nominating authority has unjustifiably refused to convert them to a regular career employee, under the Irregular Employees Act (Act 110 of 1958; the compilation notes it was repealed and replaced by Act 89-2016, the “Temporary Employment in the Public Service Act”).
• **The Individual Administrator itself**, when it claims an action, omission or decision of the Office runs counter to the general provisions of the human resources statute in areas essential to the merit principle.
• **Teaching and classified personnel of the Department of Education and civilian personnel of the Puerto Rico Police** who are not unionized under Act 45.
• **Voluntary appellate jurisdiction**: non-unionized employees of agencies excluded from the human resources statute and of **public corporations operating as private businesses**, when those entities voluntarily submit to the Commission's process. The procedure and cost for doing so are set by regulation.
• **Any matter arising or originating from human resources administration** not covered in other laws or collective bargaining agreements.

If you are unionized: complaints, not appeals, and six months

An employee covered by Act 45 falls outside Article 12(a), but not outside the Commission. They come in through the other door: the **exclusive primary jurisdiction** of Article 11, which covers three things.

First, **claims arising from employer actions or decisions violating Act 45**. Second, **claims arising from actions or decisions of labor organizations and exclusive representatives violating Act 45**; that is, when the problem is with your own union. And third, **claims against the union or exclusive representative under Act 333 of 2004**, the Bill of Rights of Employees Who Are Members of a Labor Organization.

The term here is different and more generous: **no case may be filed after six (6) months have passed from the facts giving rise to it**. With three written exceptions: that the party you are filing against **intentionally concealed the facts**, that during those six months you were **legally incapacitated** to file, or that you **did not know of the facts** in that period. In those cases the Commission decides whether the delay was reasonable under the general principles of laches.

There is an oddity in the compiled text worth knowing rather than discovering at the filing counter: Article 13, the thirty-day one, opens by saying it governs the procedure “in those cases contemplated under **Article 11** of this Plan” (the complaints one) and does not mention Article 12, the appeals one. That is how the official compilation reads. The practical takeaway: **do not assume you have six months because your case sounds like a complaint**. The short term is the one that can shut you out, and the Commission sets the procedures by regulation.

And if your claim is under a collective bargaining agreement, the path starts before the Commission. The Plan itself defines arbitration as the procedure by which the parties, **after exhausting the remedies provided in the collective agreement**, submit the dispute to an arbitrator **designated by CASP**. First the agreement's process; then the Commission's arbitrator.

What it can award you: reinstatement, back pay and more

This is the part that decides whether the process is worth it. Article 8(i) empowers the Commission to **grant the remedies it deems appropriate and issue the necessary orders**, and expressly includes, among others: **provisional or permanent cease-and-desist orders**; **orders reinstating suspended or removed employees, with or without payment of back pay lost**; and **the award of all fringe benefits** you would have been entitled to during the suspension or removal period.

It is worth knowing what counts as a fringe benefit, because the Plan defines it: any **non-salary** credit, advantage or right that carries a cost for the agency, contributions to health plans, retirement systems and life insurance, **leave, bonuses and reimbursements** of expenses incurred on the job.

In discrimination cases there is more. Article 8(j) empowers the Commission to **award damages and impose administrative fines in every type of discrimination proven** by employees who come before that forum, **without impairing** a public servant's right to go to court for damages when they do not claim them before the Commission.

The Commission also sanctions. It may impose **fines of $500 to $10,000** on anyone who disobeys, evades, obstructs or impedes the execution of its subpoenas or orders, and **$500 to $10,000 per day** on an agency, labor organization or exclusive representative that does so or engages in an unfair labor practice under Act 45, after an administrative hearing. A labor organization violating Section 9.2 of Act 45, or doing so repeatedly, **may be decertified** after a show-cause hearing.

And its orders do not stay on paper: Article 8(o) empowers it to **go to the Court of First Instance to enforce** its final determinations, orders or resolutions, including those imposing fines. In union fine cases, the court must issue, on ex parte petition, an order **freezing the organization's funds** in the amount of the fine, in force until it is paid.

After the decision: reconsideration and judicial review

You lost, or half-won. Article 14 gives you **twenty (20) days from the date the notice of the resolution or order is filed in the record** (partial or final) to file a **motion for reconsideration**.

From there the Commission holds the clock, and the mechanism is worth understanding because your review term depends on it. The Commission **has fifteen (15) days to consider the motion**. If it rejects it outright or fails to act within those fifteen days, **the term to seek review begins to run anew** from notice of the denial or from expiry of the fifteen days. If it does rule, the term runs from the filing in the record of the notice of the resolution definitively deciding the motion.

That resolution must be issued and filed **within ninety (90) days** of the motion. If the Commission grants the motion but fails to act within those ninety days, it **loses jurisdiction** over it and the judicial review term starts from their expiry, unless, for just cause and within those ninety days, it extends the term by no more than **thirty (30) additional days**.

The Commission's decisions **are final unless** the nominating authority, the labor organization, the citizen or the employee seeks **judicial review before the Court of Appeals**. The Plan does not state in that article how many days you have to file that petition; the thirty days appearing in Article 6 are for something else (a removed commissioner) so do not carry them over to your case. **Ask what term applies before it runs out.**

Two more practical points. Filing may cost: Article 15 directs the Commission to set **by regulation** the fees for filing complaints, appeals and other papers, and **authorizes it to waive payment for cause**. And alternative methods (mediation, conciliation and arbitration) conducted at the Commission **are excluded from the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act**; the Commission sets that procedure by its own regulation.

So before filing anything, check the Commission's current regulation and its portal: the Plan sets jurisdiction, terms and remedies, but leaves the mechanics (forms, fees, hearings) to regulation that changes. What does not change, and what you must protect, is the thirty days from notification.