White Firefighter Wins Trial On Assignment To Fire Boat

Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009), is a United States labor law case of the United States Supreme Court on unlawful discrimination through disparate impact under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Twenty city firefighters at the New Haven Fire Department,[1] nineteen white and one Hispanic, passed the test for promotion to a management position, yet the city declined to promote them because none of the... New Haven officials invalidated the test results because they feared a lawsuit over the test's disproportionate exclusion of a certain racial group (blacks) from promotion under a disparate impact cause of action.[2][3] The twenty... The Supreme Court held 5–4 that New Haven's decision to ignore the test results violated Title VII because the city did not have a "strong basis in evidence" that it would have subjected itself...

Because the plaintiffs won under their Title VII claim, the Court did not consider the plaintiffs' argument that New Haven violated the constitutional right to equal protection. In late 2003, the New Haven Fire Department had seven openings for captain and eight openings for lieutenant. To fill the open positions, it needed to administer civil service examinations. The examinations consisted of two parts: a written examination and an oral examination. The examinations were governed in part by the City of New Haven's contract with the firefighters' union (which stated that the written exam result counted for 60% of an applicant's score and the oral... The final selection would be governed by a provision in the City Charter referred to as the "Rule of Three", which mandated that a civil service position be filled from among the three individuals...

In order to establish a discrimination claim, an individual must show that he or she belongs to a protected class, and that the employer took an “adverse employment action” against them because of their... In lawsuits alleging retaliation against employees because the employees have participated in a discrimination lawsuit, an […] Kitsap County, Washington and the Kitsap County Deputy Sheriff’s Guild have a history of not negotiating new contracts before an existing contract expires. The parties’ contract in effect between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2005 was not negotiated until August 22, 2005. The 2006-2007 contract was not negotiated until July 24, 2006. During the […]

The Fire Department of the Town of Stoughton, Massachusetts contracted with a laundry service to wash not only various linens and towels used by firefighters, but also firefighters’ uniforms. After receiving a number of complaints from firefighters about the quality of the service, the Town determined that the contractor was not separating uniforms from the […] John Richard is a ten-year veteran of the Lafayette, Louisiana Police Department. Richard was friends with several individuals who became the target of a drug investigation by the Department. Department investigators raided the apartment of one of the suspects, and discovered both marijuana and steroids. During an internal affairs investigation that followed, the Department ordered […]

A clear example of a difference between appealing discipline through a civil service system and appealing discipline through arbitration can be found in a recent case involving Santa Cruz County, California. When discipline is appealed through arbitration, court review is extremely limited, and typically focusing only on whether the arbitrator exceeded his or her jurisdiction […] In one of the most important employment law cases of the decade, the U.S. Supreme Court handed employees a 5-4 victory by recognizing that even good-faith employment decisions can sometimes lead to results that give rise to lawsuits if those results fall more harshly on one class of... But the news is certainly not all bad for employers – the Supreme Court's ruling provides justification for those tough decisions that might otherwise have led to concerns about claims of discrimination, and allows... Ricci v.

DeStefano Promotion Exam Results Skewed Heavily Against Minority ApplicantsIn 2003, a group of 118 New Haven, Connecticut, firefighters took promotion exams seeking to advance to the ranks of Lieutenant and Captain. The exams were administered by the City of New Haven after much effort to ensure that they would measure the applicants' ability to perform the work at issue, and that they would be neutral... Despite the fact that the group of applicants which took the exams was racially diverse (over 1/3 of the applicants were either African American or Hispanic), the results of the exam were anything but... The Civil Service Board held a series of public meetings to determine whether they should certify the exam results and issue the promotions, and listened to opposing testimony about the matter. Several of the white firefighters who passed the test and were therefore in line for the promotions testified about the hardships they endured studying for the exam.

Frank Ricci studied 8 to 13 hours a day to prepare for the exam and incurred over $1,000 in costs, including purchasing study-aid books and paying for someone to read them to tape because... The Board also heard testimony from the company which drafted the exam and other experts who testified that the tests were designed to be racially neutral. From the opposing viewpoint, experts pointed to other jurisdictions which placed different weight on certain parts of their respective exams and thus achieved better racial diversity in promotions. Most importantly, the Board heard testimony from its own attorney, who testified that the City would almost certainly face a "disparate impact" lawsuit from those black and Hispanic firefighters who did not pass the... Such a claim can be brought when, even though an employer does not make a conscious discriminatory decision (for example, "I'm firing you because you are black"), its decisions tend to have a more... Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

Ricci v. DeStefano, case alleging racial discrimination that was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29, 2009. The court’s decision, which agreed that the plaintiffs were unfairly kept from job promotions because of their race, was expected to have widespread ramifications for affirmative action and civil rights law. The case arose after the New Haven, Conn., fire department offered a promotional examination to its firefighters in 2003. Seventy-seven firefighters took the exam, but none of the 19 African Americans among them earned results deemed high enough to warrant a promotion.

Fearing a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, department officials discarded the results and determined that they would not promote anyone based solely on the results of the written test. A racial discrimination lawsuit was then brought against the city of New Haven by firefighters—including 18 whites and one Latino—whose test results would have qualified them for promotion. The man at the centre of the lawsuit was Frank Ricci, a white firefighter who testified that he had studied for several hours a day and had paid a friend to record textbooks onto... New Haven’s mayor, John DeStefano, was named as one of the respondents in the lawsuit. Attorneys for the city of New Haven argued that it was unfair to perceive the department’s action as racial discrimination because they were trying to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act... As the case wound its way to the Supreme Court, many legal observers believed that final adjudication would provide a landmark precedent.

The case received even more attention in May 2009, after Pres. Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by David Souter, who planned to retire from the court as soon as a replacement could be found. Sotomayor as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had in 2008 ruled on the case as a member of a three-judge panel. The ruling by that court caused controversy in some quarters because—in a brief, unsigned opinion—it had sided with the lower court’s ruling against the white firefighters without offering much further comment on the case... The case speaks to a common basis for discrimination claims: when employees perceive that a supervisor or manager favors one protected class over another.

The ruling offers several takeaways for employers. Notably, employers that curb discriminatory comments and behavior, particularly from decision-makers, stand a better chance of defeating discrimination claims. Here, there was no evidence the captain “ever mentioned race or disparaged White people, or had a history of favoritism toward non-Whites,” the 7th Circuit said. Second, courts aren’t likely to interfere with a manager’s day-to-day decisions, such as scheduling or job assignments, so long as the decisions are reasonable and nondiscriminatory. The firefighter argued that using driver rotation systems was “sufficiently idiosyncratic to be ‘fishy’” and suggest race discrimination against the White firefighter. The 7th Circuit disagreed.

Even if driver rotations are unusual, which the city disputed, the firefighter didn’t explain how letting fire captains decide who to distribute driving duties to indicated race discrimination, the court pointed out. In addition, the captain provided a reasonable explanation for his actions. He said that rotating drivers was consistent with his own training, gave him flexibility with scheduling and ensured firefighters learned local geography and obtained driving experience. He wasn’t required to share this reasoning with subordinates, and his decision not to do so didn’t suggest his reasons were false or pretextual, the 7th Circuit said. The retaliation claim failed because there was no evidence tying the firefighter’s discrimination complaint to his suspension several months later, the panel held. He was suspended because an investigator mistakenly determined that he wasn’t certified to drive the truck under a new rule.

But the city quickly removed the suspension after officials realized he’d been grandfathered in under the old rule, the court noted. On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in a 5-4 decision, that the City of New Haven’s action in discarding test results that were used to identify those firefighters best qualified for promotion violated Title VII of the... Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, ruled that the City’s race-based rejection of the test results cannot satisfy the strong-basis-in-evidence standard, which the Court adopted to resolve any conflict between Title VII’s disparate... According to the Court, “[f]ear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions.” Ricci v. DeStefano, No.

07–1428, U.S. Supreme Court (June 29, 2009). In 2003, the City of New Haven administered exams for promotion to lieutenant and captain – as required by the city charter – that were designed by a third-party contractor. Under a union collective bargaining agreement, the written exams made up 60 percent of an applicant’s overall score, while an oral exam would account for 40 percent. With one exception, all employee panels that conducted the oral exams were comprised of one African-American, one Hispanic, and one white employee. After each test, the New Haven Civil Service Board (CSB) certified a ranked list of applicants who passed the test.

The city charter required the “rule of three,” which meant that the person selected for a position must be among the three individuals with the highest scores. For the lieutenant exam, 43 whites, 19 blacks, and 15 Hispanics took the exam. Twenty-five whites, six blacks, and three Hispanics passed the exam. All of the top 10 scorers were white, and there were eight lieutenant vacancies. For the captain exam, 25 whites, eight blacks, and eight Hispanics were tested. Sixteen whites, three blacks, and three Hispanics passed.

There were only seven captain vacancies. The top nine scorers on the captain exam included seven whites and two Hispanics. The Supreme Court has just ruled in favor of white and Hispanic firefighters, who were denied promotions when the City of New Haven threw out the exam they scored highest on, citing the fact... In Ricci v. DeStefano, the Court reversed a decision by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, including Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whom Obama has nominated to the Supreme Court. The appeals court, in an unpublished ruling designed to avoid scrutiny, had held that the City could throw out the test simply because the test excluded more blacks than whites, meaning it gave rise...

The Supreme Court held that this was not reason enough to use race, at least where the test measures useful job skills. “Frank Ricci, a firefighter in New Haven, Conn., worked hard, played by the rules, and earned a promotion to fire lieutenant. But the city denied him the promotion because he is not black. Ricci sued, along with 16 other whites and one Hispanic firefighter. After a 7-6, near-party-line vote by a federal Appeals Court to dismiss the lawsuit,” the Supreme Court decided to review the case. A three-judge panel including Judge Sotomayor had “dismissed” of Ricci’s case in an unpublished ruling, “in a process so peculiar as to fan suspicions that some or all of the judges were embarrassed by...

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