Minneapolis Fire Fighter Earns Day in Court

July 3, 2007 – A member of Minneapolis, MN Local 82 has won the right to have her First Amendment case heard before a jury. That was the ruling of the 8th District Court of Appeals in the case of Kathy Davison v. City of Minneapolis and Fire Chief Rocco Forte.

“We are very pleased with the court’s decision,” says Tom Thornberg, president of Local 82. “The facts in this case are pretty clearly in favor of Davison. While we welcome the opportunity to have the case heard before a jury, I hope the City sees its way to settling this case rather than continuing on in court.”

“The District Court’s ruling has put us one step closer to ending what has been a four-year battle,” says Davison. “I cannot say enough about the IAFF Guardian Policy and my legal counsel from Woodley and McGillivary. Without them, we wouldn’t have come as far as we have come.”

Thornberg appointed Davison, a 16-year veteran fire fighter, chair of the “Save Ladder 7 and 8 Campaign” in 2002 after then-Fire Chief Rocco Forte announced plans to remove the ladder companies in favor of quints.

“We could not support the chief’s plan because we knew that the size of the quints would present a problem maneuvering around the city, possibly delaying response and creating public safety concerns,” says Thornberg.

As part of the campaign, Davison spoke out against the plan to neighborhood groups and distributed flyers. Her efforts to save the ladder companies garnered quite a bit of media attention.

Meanwhile, Davison was pursuing a position as an arson investigator. She applied three times and all three times she was passed over. This was despite the fact that she received the highest examination score at the time of each application.

“It is sad that anyone would get punished for speaking out,” states Davison. “I live in Minneapolis and they were threatening to shut down a ladder truck in my own community. I felt that the public had the right to know what was going to happen to response times.”

The case was taken on as an IAFF Guardian Case, which went to the 8th District Court of Appeals. The court determined that the case was appropriate for a jury trial. It also upheld a lower court ruling which said that claims could only be heard against former Fire Chief Forte and not the City.

Separate from the case, Ladders 2, 7 and 8 were taken out of service in favor of five quints. In addition, 32 fire fighters were laid off. However, the 32 fire fighters have since been rehired and Local 82 is working to reinstate two of the three ladder trucks in 2008.