New Haven Fire Fighters Prevail

June 29, 2009 – The "New Haven 20" fire fighters who filed suit in federal court against the City of New Haven, Connecticut, after the City threw out the results of promotional exams prevailed over the City today when the United States Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, reversed a lower court’s decision.

In the case, Ricci v. DeStefano, the Supreme Court ruled that the City of New Haven could not throw out the results of a promotional exam simply because it feared the outcome of a test could potentially leave it vulnerable to lawsuits from minority fire fighters who did not qualify for promotion as a result of a test, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The IAFF recognizes that promotional systems are developed locally, where virtually every fire department in the country uses its own, unique system to best fit the needs of that community and its fire department. The IAFF also recognizes the fact that a variety of valid promotional testing processes have been developed that place emphasis on different elements of the testing procedure – including written and oral testing, seniority, table top scenarios, efficiency ratings and job-related skills, to name a few.

“Fire fighting involves life and death situations on a regular basis, so any system that is used to hire or promote must be completely unbiased and ensure that candidates are truly qualified to do the job,” says IAFF General President Harold Schaitberger. “It’s a tough balancing act for jurisdictions in developing their procedures, but they have a responsibility not to fail on either account because lives are at stake.”

In addition, the IAFF supports and advocates for unbiased, job-related, validated hiring and promotional systems for fire fighters on the basis of their skill and ability in the technical and demanding work of fire fighting and emergency response without regard to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or national origin.

In the New Haven case, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the lower courts, saying that the City could not throw out the results of a promotional test based on “fear of litigation alone.” The City believed that applying the test scores would result in a disparate impact on minority test takers who did not qualify for promotion based on the test results.

The Court further said that “absent a strong basis in evidence that the tests were deficient and that discarding the results is necessary to avoid violating the disparate impact provision,” the results could not be thrown out.

The case has been remanded back to federal district court to determine final action consistent with the decision of the Supreme Court.

The IAFF will be preparing a more detailed analysis of the ruling and will post it once it’s completed.