Pugsley v. Police Dep't of Bos.

• Decision Date: 31 July 2015
• Docket Number: SJC–11740.
• Citation: 472 Mass. 367,34 N.E.3d 1235
• Parties: Sean PUGSLEY v. POLICE DEPARTMENT OF BOSTON & others.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

472 Mass. 367

34 N.E.3d 1235

Sean PUGSLEY

v.POLICE DEPARTMENT OF BOSTON & others.¹

SJC–11740.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Submitted Jan. 6, 2015.

Decided July 31, 2015.

Joseph L. Sulman (David Isaac Brody, Boston, with him) for the plaintiff.

Nicole I. Taub for police department of Boston.

Nicholas A. Ogden, Assistant Attorney General (Ronald F. Kehoe, Assistant Attorney General, with him) for Human Resources Division & another.

The following submitted briefs for amici curiae:

Jamie Ann Sabino & Leah Kaine, South Natick, for The Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts.

Ralph C. Martin & Lisa A. Sinclair, Boston, for Northeastern University.

Simone R. Liebman & Constance M. McGrane, Boston, for Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination.

Present: GANTS, C.J., SPINA, CORDY, BOTSFORD, DUFFLY, LENK, & HINES, JJ.

Opinion

CORDY

, J.

The plaintiff, Sean Pugsley, brought a claim of sex discrimination against defendants Boston police department (department) and the Commonwealth's Human Resources Division (division) alleging a violation of G.L. c. 151B and of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, G.L. c. 12, § 11I

. The plaintiff's claim arises from the department's preferential treatment of females in hiring candidates for the December, 2010, police academy class. Summary judgment was entered for the defendants on the discrimination claim, G.L. c. 151B.² For the reasons stated herein, we vacate the judgment of the Superior Court and remand the case for entry of a judgment of dismissal for lack of standing.

1. Background. Under G.L. c. 31 and the division's personnel administration rules (rules), the department appoints entry-level police officers from a “main certification” list generated by the division at the department's request. The division creates this list by ranking candidates on an eligibility list according to their scores on the most recent civil service examination (examination). The eligibility list is then augmented by candidates for “reemployment,”³ and candidates who possess statutory preferences, including veterans' preferences. The candidates for reemployment are required to be placed first on the main certification list, followed by those with statutory preferences,⁴ and finally followed by those remaining with the highest scores on the examination. See G.L. c. 31, §§ 26

, 40. By requesting a “selective certification” of candidates from the division, the department may consider candidates out of their respective order if they possess certain qualifications beyond those generally measured by the examination, such as: gender, language, and emergency medical training.⁵ These candidates are to be selected from the

eligibility list and placed on a “selective certification” list according to their examination scores, and any of the applicable statutory preferences which those candidates may have.

In June, 2008, the plaintiff, a male, scored 103 on the examination in connection with his application for the December, 2010, police academy class. The plaintiff's score placed him at the top of the list of eligible candidates who did not qualify for reemployment or a statutory preference. However, because of those preferences, he was ranked 214 on the eligibility list.

In March, 2010, the department requested a main certification list and three selective certification lists from the division for appointments. The department sought to appoint twenty-four candidates from a main certification list. The main certification list provided to the department by the division included 113 of the top candidates on the eligibility list.⁶ Because the plaintiff was number 214 on the eligibility list, his name was not on the main certification list.

The other three certification requests were “selective,” seeking candidates with special qualifications as permitted by the rules. These selective certifications, which were approved by the division, allowed for the appointment of ten female candidates from a special certification list of 178 female candidates; eight Cape Verdean speakers from a list of forty candidates; and ten Haitian Creole speakers from a list of fifty-five candidates.

Sometime later in the hiring and review process, the department recognized a need to appoint more than the previously approved ten female candidates from the special certification list of 178 candidates. Rather than requesting an additional female selective certification list from the division,⁷ the department hired

a total of twenty-eight of the female candidates from the existing list.⁸ In January, 2011, the department notified the division of these additional hires, which the division approved. Ultimately, eighty-three candidates selected from the four certification lists successfully completed the recruitment process and entered the police academy in December, 2010. The candidates with statutorily preferred status were not exhausted on the main certification list and, as a result, other applicants on the eligibility list, such as the plaintiff, were not considered.

The plaintiff filed suit in Superior Court in June, 2011, challenging the preferential treatment of female candidates because of their gender.⁹ The plaintiff and the department filed cross motions for summary judgment.¹⁰ In September, 2013, a Superior Court judge denied the plaintiff's motion and granted judgment in favor of the department, finding that the preferential treatment of female candidates was justified because gender was a valid bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ)¹¹ and, as a result, the department was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. We granted the plaintiff's application for direct appellate review.

2. Discussion.¹² In reviewing a grant of summary judgment, “we assess the record de novo and take the facts, together with all

reasonable inferences to be drawn from them, in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” See Bulwer v. Mount Auburn Hosp., 86 Mass.App.Ct. 316, 318, 16 N.E.3d 1090 (2014)

, citing Godfrey v. Globe Newspaper Co., 457 Mass. 113, 119, 928 N.E.2d 327 (2010).

a. Standing. In order to have standing in the instant case, the plaintiff must “show that the challenged action has caused [him] injury” and that there was a “breach of duty owed to [him] by the public defendants” (citations omitted). Sullivan v. Chief Justice for Admin. & Mgt. of the Trial Court, 448 Mass. 15, 21, 858 N.E.2d 699 (2006)

. See Yeager v. General Motors Corp., 265 F.3d 389, 395 (6th Cir.2001), cert. denied, 535 U.S. 928, 122 S.Ct. 1299, 152 L.Ed.2d 211 (2002). Simply alleging injury alone is not sufficient and “[i]njuries that are speculative, remote, and indirect” do not confer proper standing. Sullivan, 448 Mass. at 21, 858 N.E.2d 699. See Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 101–102, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983) (“plaintiff must show that he has sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury ... [that is] real and immediate, not conjectural or hypothetical” [quotations and citations omitted] ); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975) (plaintiffs must allege “distinct and palpable injury” to invoke judicial intervention).

Standing can be addressed by an appellate court sua sponte even if not raised properly on appeal. See Sullivan, 448 Mass. at 21, 858 N.E.2d 699

(“[t]he issue of standing is one of subject matter jurisdiction”); Litton Bus. Sys., Inc. v. Commissioner of Revenue, 383 Mass. 619, 622, 420 N.E.2d 339 (1981) (“a jurisdictional issue must be decided, regardless of the point at which it is first raised ... [and] [s]ubject matter jurisdiction cannot be conferred by consent, conduct or waiver” [citation omitted] ). Therefore, it is appropriate for this court to take note of an absence of proper standing “whenever it appears, whether by suggestion of a party or otherwise.” Id.¹³

At oral argument, the plaintiff argued that he has proper standing to bring suit, contending that his name likely would have been considered on the main certification list but for the department's use of the female certification. However, this contention is little more than an allegation that an injury might have occurred if a series of events transpired in a certain way.

The plaintiff's position on the eligibility list—214—is indicative of the unlikelihood that his name would ever have been reached. Indeed, eighty-five other candidates were ahead of him

on the eligibility list when the hiring process was completed. Thus, the department would have had to exhaust all 113 names on the main certification list (which it did not), as well as the remaining eighty-five candidates ranked ahead of the plaintiff on the eligibility list before the plaintiff would be considered for a position.¹⁴ Nothing in the record speaks to the relative likelihood that the candidates ranked ahead of the plaintiff would have been granted conditional offers of employment, whether they would have passed the required fitness and medical review, or even if they would have accepted or rejected said offers. Although it is possible that most of the people ranked ahead of the plaintiff would have either turned down an offer or would have failed the fitness and medical review, such a position is purely speculative based on the record before us.

The plaintiff argued before the motion judge that conditional offers were given to nineteen of the 113 candidates on the main certification list, a ratio of one in six. Using this ratio, the plaintiff contended that, without the female selective list, the department would hypothetically need to consider approximately 180 more candidates from the eligibility list (including him) in order to fill all the available positions. While this certainly might have happened, nothing in the record supports the plaintiff's bare assertion.

Based on the record before us, the plaintiff has failed to articulate an injury that is anything but hypothetical and, therefore, we cannot say that he has standing to bring...