Gonzales v. Galvin
| Decision Date | 31 July 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 96-4110,96-4110 |
| Citation | 151 F.3d 526 |
| Parties | 77 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1573, 74 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,678 Louis GONZALES; Rene Rivera; Gilbert Terill, et al., on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Gerald T. GALVIN, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
C. Thomas McCarter, Newcomer, McCarter & Green, Toledo, Ohio, Richard T. Seymour (briefed), Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Washington, DC, Richard Sypher (argued and briefed), Wayne A. Cross, David J. Shapiro (briefed), Lisa M. Porcari, Dewey Ballantine, New York City, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Robert G. Young (argued and briefed), Office of the City of Toledo, Law Department, Toledo, Ohio, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before: SILER, BATCHELDER, and GIBSON, * Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs appeal the district court's June 1996 order terminating a 1974 consent decree entered into by Plaintiffs and Defendants the City of Toledo, Ohio; the Fraternal Order of Police, Toledo Lodge No. 40; the Toledo Police Patrolmen's Association, Inc.; and those individually-named referred to collectively as ("Defendants" or "City"). For the reasons that follow, we VACATE and REMAND this case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
In 1972, Plaintiffs filed a class action suit challenging the employment practices of the Toledo Police Department, claiming these practices violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In 1974, the parties entered into a consent decree, subsequently approved by the district court, that established two goals: (1) ensuring "integration" of the police department's workforce, and (2) ensuring that police candidates are hired based on non-discriminatory selection criteria. To meet the first goal, the City agreed to implement an affirmative action plan to remedy the effects of past discrimination. Both parties now agree that the City has met its affirmative action obligations. The provision of the consent decree at issue here pertains to the second goal and provides:
1. The defendants shall begin immediately the process required to validate all employment examinations for the Toledo Police Department consistent with EEOC guidelines 29 C.F.R. Sec. 1607.1-1607.14.1 The validation procedures shall be of a quality to insure that such examinations used in the police selection process do not discriminate against Blacks, Mexican-Americans, or any other person and that the results obtained will provide a reasonable prediction of job performance.
The consent decree gave Plaintiffs the right to engage an "expert on the construction and administration of tests of relative ability" to assist the City in choosing testing areas and types of questions and in the development of a job-related examination. 2 After administration of the test, Plaintiffs' expert and "an expert mutually agreed upon by defendants' associations" were to be permitted to review the actual test and challenge the job-relatedness of any specific question. Court supervision was to continue "for the entry of such further orders as may be appropriate to effectuate the provisions of this Order, and to monitor the progress of the Defendants in meeting its Affirmative Action obligations and its stated employment goal."
In October 1995, Plaintiffs filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent the City from swearing in a new police class. Plaintiffs argued that the City had used discriminatory selection procedures that resulted in a disproportionately low number of African-Americans applying for entry into the new police class. In November 1995, the district court denied the motion, finding that Plaintiffs had presented no evidence that the lower percentage was due to selection procedures rather than mere chance.
In February 1996, the district court ordered the parties to show cause why the court should not vacate the 1974 consent decree and terminate its jurisdiction. Plaintiffs served a discovery request on Defendants asking for a copy of the 1993 written recruitment examination ("Written Examination") which had been administered to the 1995 police class. 3 Defendants refused to provide the examination. After two unsuccessful telephone conferences brokered by the magistrate judge, Plaintiffs moved to compel production of the 1993 examination, arguing that it was necessary for their expert, Dr. Barrett, to review the examination and determine its "content validity." 4 The magistrate judge denied Plaintiffs' motion to compel, stating that Dr. Ryan, the court-appointed expert, 5 had already reviewed the Written Examination and therefore having Dr. Barrett do the same would be "cumulative and duplicative." Plaintiffs appealed this decision to the district court.
Meanwhile, Defendants filed a response to the show cause order. Defendants included the affidavit of Dr. Ryan, wherein she concluded that the written examination process met the standards set forth in the Uniform Guidelines. Dr. Ryan stated that the "content validity evidence consists of documentation relating test components to job analysis data;" that she had reviewed this evidence; and that she had concluded that it was sufficient to support the job-relatedness of the test components. She also stated that the "criterion-related evidence consists of a series of studies relating test scores to academy performance," and that "[l]ooking across all of the years for which data are available and considering issues of sampling error, the written examination appears to relate to performance in the academy." (emphasis added). She noted that the data suggested stronger relationships in earlier examinations than in later ones, and stated that she had made suggestions to counteract this trend.
Plaintiffs filed a response to the show cause order and moved the court to enforce the consent decree. Plaintiffs requested an evidentiary hearing and submitted an affidavit of their expert, Dr. Barrett, setting forth several alleged deficiencies in the City's processes for criterion-related and content validation. Plaintiffs also submitted a copy of the 1983 criterion-related study, the only other criterion-related study in the record, conducted by then-court-appointed expert Dr. Outtz. In this study, Dr. Outtz had concluded that the City had shown the examination was related to success in the Police Academy, but "additional evidence" was needed to show that "the selection procedure is directly related to job performance or that the selection procedure is valid with regard to training performance, which in turn is directly related to success on the job."
In addition, Plaintiffs submitted a February 1993 letter from Dr. Ryan to the City; the letter stated that the proposed 1993 Written Examination was content valid, but went on to point out several deficiencies in the job analysis used to support her finding of validity. In particular, Dr. Ryan noted that the skills and aptitudes to be measured on the examination were not clearly defined in terms of "observable aspects of work behavior," as required by the Uniform Guidelines. See 29 C.F.R. § 1607.14(C)(2) (1997). Dr. Ryan also pointed to several areas in the proposed 1993 examination where it was not clear that the questions tested job-related skills. In her June 1993 "Final Review of the 1993 Police Officer Examination," however, Dr. Ryan stated that the City had incorporated her suggestions for revisions into the 1993 Written Examination before administering the test. Finally, in her letter Dr. Ryan briefly mentioned the 1983 criterion-related validity study and concluded that it would be insufficient support of the validity of the examination process. In her deposition, Dr. Ryan stated that the City's criterion-related strategy linked performance on the examination with performance in the Police Academy. Contrary to the implication of statements in her letter, Dr. Ryan stated that while there was no further attempt to relate academy performance with job performance, there is "an assumption" that one must perform well at the Academy to perform well on the job. Nevertheless, she also testified that she did not look at any evidence which would test that assumption.
Defendants responded to the court's show cause order by submitting the City's own validation study report detailing the development, finalization, administration, and results of the 1985, 1987, 1990, and 1993 Written Examinations. This report included "Job Analyses" that summarized the "knowledges, skills, abilities, and personality characteristics" ("KSAPs") identified by the City as necessary to perform various duties of the police officer position. Attached to the report was a "criterion-related" validation study conducted to assess the predictive validity of selection systems used from 1983-1990. This study, which was conducted by Michele Grisez under Dr. Ryan's supervision, concluded that there was "some evidence of predictive validity for the selection system, although some inconsistencies in the data exist." The study recommended that the City continue its validation efforts and stated that there was a "relationship (in some cases) between exam scores and training success," but that "[t]he validity of these exams in predicting job success is dependent upon the critical link between training content and job content."
Plaintiffs responded to Defendants' validation evidence, arguing that Defendants' evidence did not satisfy the Uniform Guideline requirements for either content-validity or criterion-related validity and did not insure that the examination results would provide a reasonable prediction of job performance. In particular, Plaintiffs argued that Defendants had not provided any evidence linking performance at the Academy to performance on the job. Further, Plaintiffs asserted that Defendants had not adequately documented...
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