Bolton v. City of Bridgeport, No. 04 0409828 (CT 4/29/2004)
| Decision Date | 29 April 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 04 0409828,04 0409828 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | John Bolton v. City of Bridgeport. |
The plaintiffs are applicants for the entry-level position of firefighter in the city of Bridgeport. The defendants are the city of Bridgeport, its civil service commission (hereafter, "Commission") and its fire department. The plaintiffs completed their applications and, therefore, are eligible for hire as firefighters. Based on their performance on a test prescribed by the city, the plaintiffs have been ranked on a list from which firefighter positions will be filled. The plaintiffs have brought this action for declaratory relief to determine the legality of the current rank order list and for injunctive relief to nullify the list and order a new examination.
On May 31, 2002, the Commission issued a public notice informing interested persons that it would hold "an open competitive examination" for the position of firefighter on September 14, 2002. Under "Subjects of Examination," the notice stated:
Distilled to its essence, the plaintiffs' complaint contains two distinct claims. First, the plaintiffs claim that the open competitive examination for the position of firefighter is illegal, and thus, invalid. The plaintiffs allege that the oral examination violates §211(a) of the City Charter, which provides with respect to such tests that "the identity of any applicant [shall not] be disclosed to the examiner or to the one correcting the applicant's test" because the examiners "clearly and inherently" knew the identity of the candidates they interviewed. Due to the interview nature of the oral examination, the plaintiffs maintain that the "possibility of illegal discrimination is patently obvious in such circumstances" because "factors such as the race, color, gender, national origin and age [of the candidates], among others, are known to the examiner."1
The plaintiffs further allege that the testing process is "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable" because a candidate's rank is based solely on his or her oral examination grade. The plaintiffs state that "patently discriminatory outcomes occurred" as a result of the flawed testing procedure because the person with the highest rank order, Samuel Muhammed, had barely passed the written examination, while two of the plaintiffs, James F. Demarest, Jr. and Zygmunt P. Mysliwiec, both received low rank orders, even though they received two of the highest written test scores. As further support for their assertion, the plaintiffs cite to the fact that some candidates were permitted to take the oral examination before taking the physical agility test contrary to the procedure specified in the public notice, and that two individuals listed on the rank order list either failed the physical agility test, or failed to appear for that test. The plaintiffs also contend that several of them had been notified that they had failed the physical agility test even though they had actually passed.
Second, the plaintiffs claim that the defendants have not fully complied with an information request they made for documents pertaining to the examination in derogation of their rights under the Freedom of Information Act, General Statutes §1-200 et seq.
The matter came before the court on an order to show cause why a preliminary injunction should not issue restraining the Commission from hiring candidates pursuant to the existing rank order list. At the hearing on their request for a preliminary injunction, the plaintiffs focused their argument on the claim that the defendants violated the requirement of §211 of the Charter of the City of Bridgeport, stating in relevant part that "the identity of any applicant [not] be disclosed to the examiner or to the one correcting the applicant's test," by basing the rank order of candidates on the five questions that comprised the oral examination. Furthermore, the plaintiffs contended that the nature, content and scoring of the examination violated the Charter prescribing that "[n]o questions which are misleading or unfair or in the nature of catch questions shall be asked . . ."
On the first day of the hearing on the plaintiffs' request for a preliminary injunction, the defendants moved to dismiss the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction based on the plaintiffs' failure to exhaust the administrative remedies available to them. The defendants maintained that the plaintiffs had failed to first seek redress for their grievances with the Commission as directed by the City Charter. As for the plaintiffs' claim that the defendants violated the Freedom of Information Act, the defendants argue that General Statutes §1-206 directs that such complaints must be presented to the Freedom of Information Commission.
The plaintiffs countered that the charter only provides for appeals to the Commission concerning individual test scores and that "the main point of contention in this case in plaintiffs' contention to [the] legality of the testing practice, as it was administered, not individual scores." (Plaintiffs' Objections and Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Dismiss at 3.) They orally argued that "[b]asically the plaintiffs would like the court to determine whether ranking of candidates based solely on the outcome of an oral examination is prohibited by the language of Section 211 of the City Charter . . . and whether having done so is a violation of the fundamental tenet of civil service law that is generally described as requiring a `proper competitive examination . . .' " The plaintiffs also argued that even if they have failed to exhaust their administrative remedies, the court may still entertain their claims for declaratory and injunctive relief. Finally, the plaintiffs adduced evidence that the named, plaintiff, John Bolton, had appealed to the Commission on the claim that his oral examination had been improperly graded.
The doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies is well established in the jurisprudence of administrative law . . . The doctrine provides that no one is entitled to judicial relief for a supposed or threatened injury until the prescribed administrative remedy has been exhausted . . . Where a statutory requirement of exhaustion is not explicit, courts are guided by [legislative] intent in determining whether application of the doctrine would be consistent with the statutory scheme . . . Consequently, [t]he requirement of exhaustion may arise from explicit statutory language or from an administrative scheme providing for agency relief . . .
If the available administrative procedure . . . provide[s] the plaintiffs with a mechanism for attaining the remedy that they seek . . . they must exhaust that remedy . . . The plaintiff's preference for a particular remedy does not determine the adequacy of that remedy. [A]n administrative remedy, in order to be adequate, need not comport with the [plaintiffs'] opinion of `what a perfect remedy would be.
River Rend Associates, Inc. v. Simsbury Water Pollution Control Authority, 262 Conn. 84, 100-01, 809 A.2d 492 (2002) (citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted).
The doctrine of exhaustion is grounded in a policy of fostering an orderly process of administrative adjudication and judicial review in which a reviewing court will have the benefit of the agency's findings and conclusions . . . The doctrine of exhaustion furthers the salutary goals of relieving the courts of the burden of deciding questions entrusted to an agency . . . in advance of possible judicial review . . . In addition, the administrative agency may be able to resolve the issues, making judicial review unnecessary. As the United States Supreme Court has stated, [a] complaining party may be successful in vindicating his rights in the administrative process. If he is required to pursue his administrative remedies, the courts may never have to intervene.
Fish Unlimited v. Northeast Utilities Service Co., 254 Conn. 1, 12-13, 756 A.2d 262 (2000) (citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted), overruled in part on other grounds, Waterbury v. Washington, 260 Conn. 506, 800 A.2d 1102 (2002), and Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone v. Rocque, 267 Conn. 116, 836 A.2d 414 (2003).
"[T]he exhaustion doctrine implicates subject mater jurisdiction . . ." Id., 12. Fort Trumbull Conservancy, LLC v. Alves, 262 Conn. 480, 485-86, 815 A.2d 1188 (2003) (citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted). "[B]ecause the exhaustion doctrine implicates subject matter jurisdiction, we must decide as a threshold matter whether that doctrine requires dismissal of the plaintiff[s'] claim . . ." Fish Unlimited v. Northeast Utilities Service Co., supra, 254 Conn. 12.
A court lacks jurisdiction over a claim that an oral examination failed to comply with municipal civil service rules specifying examination procedures where those rules provide for an appeal of such claims to local officials. Lopiano v. Stamford, 22 Conn.App. 591, 595-96, 577 A.2d 1135 (1990). In Lopiano, the plaintiff, a police officer, sought promotion to the...
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