The court ruled that Fire Fighter Michael Briscoe, an African American, can sue the city of New Haven, Connecticut…after claiming its promotions test for firefighters is biased.
The ruling complicates an issue many legal expert considered resolved by the United States Supreme court. In that case, that started in 2003, white New Haven firefighters, who grossly out performed minorities sued to have their test scores reinstated after the City of New Haven attempted to have them thrown out under pressure from Minority groups.
In 2009, the conservative US Supreme court ruled in favor of the white firefighters. But in Monday’s decision the lower appellant court ruled the city can’t hide behind the Supreme court ruling because Briscoe’s suit was filed separately from the 2003 class action.
“He was very gratified to know he was going to have his day in court" said Briscoe's attorney David Cohen. "The New Haven Fire Department has a long history of struggle with discrimination and efforts overcome discrimination”
The New Haven lawsuit is one of many legal cases across the country in which black fire fighters claim they are aggressively discriminated against either in practice or in policy.
In May the courts ordered the city of Chicago to hire more that 110 African Americans who were passed over for jobs. The city was also ordered to pay tens of millions of dollars in restitution.
The case dates back to 2003, when New Haven sought to discard the results of a firefighter promotion exam where white firefighters significantly outperformed minorities. That act prompted a group of white firefighters and one hispanic firefighter to challenge the decision and sue New Haven.
The Supreme Court took up the case, Ricci v. DeStefano, in 2009. The court sided with the firefighters, ruling that New Haven had not shown sufficent evidence to prove that keeping the test results would have made it subject to disparate-impact liabity. Disparate impact laws were cemented under Title VII of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights law.
Normally, that decision would have ended further litigation. But because Briscoe brought his claim separately, Jacobs ruled he had standing to sue New Haven, in spite of the conflicting Supreme Court decision.
In his opinion on Monday, Jacobs said that New Haven could not use the Supreme Court to shield it from Briscoe's disparate impact claims, and that the high court's opinion did not preclude him from suing.
"I think the opinion is essential to maintaining the vitality of the disparate impact theory of liability under Title VII," Briscoe's attorney, David Rosen, said.
Title VII, Rosen said, protects "against the arbitrary use of selection devices that continue to be barriers to employment for well-qualified workers across America who happen not to be good at the particular pencil and paper, multiple choice-format quiz that some employers still insist on using."
"At the end of the day, the City of New Haven believes that the U.S. Supreme Court held that certification of the promotional exams at issue in the Ricci v. DeStefano case should not result in disparate impact liability by African American firefighters after the fact," said City of New Haven Corporate Counsel Victor Bolden
The 2003 New Haven firefighter test at issue was 60 percent written and 40 percent oral. Briscoe in his lawsuit said that under a 30 percent written, 70 percent oral test he would have been promotable.
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