New Haven, CT - The City of New Haven and 20 New Haven firefighters have ended the long-standing litigation over the City’s Civil Service Board not certifying promotional examinations administered in 2003. Over the next two years, the firefighters will receive a combined total of $2 million and 3 years of pension credit. Their attorneys will receive a total of $3 million.
The settlement allows the City to move forward and avoid the cost and uncertainty of further litigation that had been scheduled to commence in Federal District Court later this summer. The obligations will be paid for from the City’s budgeted public liability account funds, already reserved in fund balance for this case and insurance proceeds.
The settlement arose as the result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to overturn a U.S. District Court and Second Circuit Court decision in which it established a new standard for employment law. The City is moving forward in its public safety promotional exam in compliance with the new standard.
In response to the settlement, the Mayor of New Haven, John DeStefano, Jr. said: “In addition to recognizing that this resolution allows the City to move forward, I want to acknowledge the work of the New Haven firefighters who never allowed this debate to affect their performance on the fire grounds, or, with one another. Their service to the people of New Haven and to their units has been and remains, exemplary.”
The lawsuit brought by the 20 firefighters resulted from the City of New Haven’s decision not to certify promotional examinations for the positions of Captain and Lieutenant in early 2004. The test, administered by an outside consultant, produced an outcome wherein only 2 out of 50 minority candidates and none of the African American candidates would have been eligible for promotion, based on vacancies expected at the time. In reviewing the test outcomes, the New Haven Civil Service Board expressed concern over the prospect of litigation by African-American candidates under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Both the U.S. District Court and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the City’s decision, but, in June 2009, a closely divided U.S. Supreme Court decided that the City violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by not certifying the exam.
Shortly after the case was sent back to the U.S. District Court, the City certified the examination results and promoted everyone who would have been promoted if the exams had been certified in 2004, including fourteen of the twenty plaintiffs.
