Quinn v. City of Boston
| Citation | 204 F.Supp.2d 156 |
| Decision Date | 17 May 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. Civ.A.01-CV-10598-RG.,Civ.A.01-CV-10598-RG. |
| Parties | Joseph QUINN, et al. v. CITY OF BOSTON and Boston Chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., Intervenor. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Harold L. Lichten, Pyle, Rome, Litchen & Ehrenberg, P.C., Boston, MA, for Joseph E. Quinn, Sean O'Brien, Joseph Sullivan, plaintiffs.
Susan M. Weise, City of Boston Law Department, Boston, MA, for Thomas Menino, Dennis A. DiMarzio, defendants.
Susan M. Weise, Eve Piemonte Stacey, David J. Breen, Assistant Corporation Counsel, City of Boston Law Department, Boston, MA, for City of Boston, defendant.
Toni G. Wolfman, Foley, Hoag & Eliot, Boston, MA, Nadine Cohen, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, Under Law of the Boston Bar Association, Boston, MA, for NAACP, intervenor-defendant.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON CROSS MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
On April 11, 2001, plaintiffs Joseph Quinn, Sean O'Brien, Robert Dillon, and Joseph Sullivan filed this Complaint against the City of Boston alleging that they had been denied jobs as entry level firefighters in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and the federal and state Civil Rights Acts (Counts I-III).1 Plaintiffs maintain that the City discriminated against them by giving hiring preferences to minority candidates who had lower test scores on the state firefighter's examination. The City, supported by intervenor Boston Chapter, NAACP, argues that its hiring decisions were in conformity with the terms of a consent decree (the Beecher decree),2 entered in Boston Chapter, NAACP, Inc. v. Beecher, 371 F.Supp. 507 (D.Mass.1974), aff'd, 504 F.2d 1017 (1st Cir.1974). Plaintiffs also allege that the City violated G.L. c. 151B, § 4(16), by requiring them to take medical examinations without first extending bona fide conditional job offers (Count V).3
On October 25, 2001, plaintiffs filed a motion seeking summary judgment on all counts of the Complaint, and a preliminary injunction ordering their immediate instatement, or in the alternative, forbidding the City from filling at least five firefighter vacancies until this lawsuit is resolved. On January 11, 2002, the City of Boston and the NAACP filed cross motions for summary judgment.4 On April 12, 2002, the court heard oral argument.
The Beecher decree has a long history. In 1974, Judge Freedman ruled that the Fire Fighter Entrance Examination used by the Massachusetts Division of Civil Service to screen candidate firefighters had historically discriminated against black and hispanic applicants. Judge Freedman ordered that any future examination be validated under EEOC guidelines, and that preferential hiring procedures be introduced to rectify the effects of past discrimination. Boston Chapter, NAACP, Inc. v. Beecher, 371 F.Supp. at 521. The entry of the Beecher decree followed. The decree, which applies statewide to all cities and towns subject to the Civil Service law with a minority population of 1% or more, requires the Director of the Division of Civil Service to compile and certify separate lists of minority and non-minority candidates ranked according to their civil service test scores and any statutory preferences.5 Depending on the city or town, candidate consideration is alternated between the competing lists.6 The Beecher decree prescribes only the order of review. It does not mandate the hiring of any specific number of minorities. If, however, an applicant (minority or non-minority) is passed over, the appointing authority must give a written explanation for its decision to do so.
The decree is to remain in force until the percentage of black and hispanic firefighters in a covered department equals the percentage of blacks and hispanics in the local community. Once a city or town achieves this equivalence, defined as parity, the decree is lifted. Since the decree was imposed, all but twelve of the affected cities and towns have reached parity. The firefighter's exam, however, has never been "validated in accordance with the `Guidelines on Employees Selection Procedures' issued by the [EEOC]," as Judge Freedman and the litigants had contemplated.
In September of 1974, the Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Freedman's decision and upheld the decree. See Boston Chapter, NAACP, Inc. v. Beecher, 504 F.2d 1017, (1st Cir.1974), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 910, 95 S.Ct. 1561, 43 L.Ed.2d 775 (1975). In so ruling, the Court rejected defendants' argument that the decree was constitutionally infirm.
Defendants contend that the color-conscious relief imposed by the district court is unconstitutional. The argument is without merit. The relief goes no further than to eliminate the lingering effects of previous practices that bore more heavily than was warranted on minorities.
The decree [will remain] in force, for each local fire department, until that department attains sufficient minority fire fighters to have a percentage on the force approximately equal to the percentage of minorities in the locality.
In 1991, the decree was again challenged. In Mackin v. City of Boston, 1991 WL 349619 (D.Mass. Jun 21, 1991) (Civil Action No. 89-2025-S), a group of aspiring white firefighters sued the City of Boston, making arguments virtually identical to those made here. Judge Skinner ruled for the City on all of plaintiffs' claims.
In Mackin v. City of Boston, 969 F.2d 1273 (1st Cir.1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1078, 113 S.Ct. 1043, 122 L.Ed.2d 352 (1993), the Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Skinner. The Court held that the decree passed the strict scrutiny test of City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469, 494, 109 S.Ct. 706, 102 L.Ed.2d 854 (1989), because it had been narrowly tailored to its purpose and was self-limiting in duration.
The appellants also hawk the idea that, even if the goals of the Beecher decree have not yet been accomplished, the decree is constitutionally infirm because it sweeps too broadly. This argument is by no means a new one. Over 15 years ago, we found the decree to be narrowly tailored toward the achievement of its legitimate objectives. See Beecher, 504 F.2d at 1027 (). To be sure, in the intervening years the tests for determining whether remedial race-conscious relief is, in fact, narrowly tailored have been refined and clarified. See, e.g., [U.S. v.] Paradise, 480 U.S. [149], 177-79, 107 S.Ct. [1053], 1069-71, (plurality opinion); Stuart, 951 F.2d at 453-55. But, that process of refinement and clarification does nothing to call the adequacy of the instant decree into serious question....
In assessing an overbreadth challenge to an order directing race-conscious relief in the context of public employment, a court should consider, inter alia, the extent to which (i) the beneficiaries of the order are specially advantaged, (ii) the legitimate expectancies of others are frustrated or encumbered, (iii) the order interferes with other valid state or local policies, and (iv) the order contains (or fails to contain) built-in mechanisms which will, if time and events warrant, shrink its scope and limit its duration. The Beecher decree passes this test with flying colors.
In this case, only qualified minority candidates are specially advantaged; no minority candidate is placed on the eligibility list unless he or she has attained a passing score on the entrance examination. This is an important indicium of narrow tailoring. See Stuart, 951 F.2d at 454. Relatedly, the decree does not require that minority aspirants be appointed, nor does it dispense with the statutory preferences mandated by state law. Thus, the decree gives only a limited advantage, not a guarantee of employment, to minority applicants. This, too, is a significant factor. See Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. 616, 638, 107 S.Ct. 1442, 1455, 94 L.Ed.2d 615 (1987) (). As a result of these features, it can appropriately be said that the Beecher decree "is not being used simply to achieve and maintain racial balance, but rather as a benchmark against which the court could gauge ... efforts to remedy past discrimination." Local 28, Sheet Metal Workers' Int'l Ass'n v. EEOC, 478 U.S. 421, 477-78, 106 S.Ct. 3019, 3051, 92 L.Ed.2d 344 (1986) (plurality opinion)....
Finally, the decree's life is limited, remaining in force only until its requirements have been met. See Beecher, 371 F.Supp. at 523 (). Limitations of this sort are crucial factors in deflecting overbreadth challenges. See Stuart, 951 F.2d at 454. Indeed, the proof of the present pudding is that, since 1974, more than fifty percent of the communities originally affected by the decree have already been freed from further oversight.
Mindful of these realities, we conclude that the Beecher decree is tailored with sufficient precision to withstand the appellants' imprecations.
Mackin, 969 F.2d at 1277-278. The Court also rejected plaintiffs' argument that the City had achieved parity and that the decree therefore, even if constitutional, no longer applied. The Court noted that plaintiffs had calculated parity by comparing the percentage of black and hispanic firefighters in the department ranks to the percentage of blacks and hispanics in the Boston population at the time that the Beecher decree was entered. The Court held that the decree required that the comparison be made to the City's current minority population. In so ruling, the Court stated:
First, the relevant...
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Quinn v. City of Boston
...by, the terms of the consent decree. The district court granted summary judgment in the defendants' favor. See Quinn v. City of Boston, 204 F.Supp.2d 156 (D.Mass.2002). The Candidates appeal. For the reasons that follow, we reverse the judgment and remand to the district court for further p......