San Francisco Police Officers' Ass'n v. City and County of San Francisco

• Decision Date: 07 March 1989
• Docket Number: No. 85-2180,85-2180
• Parties: 50 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 160, 49 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 38,878 SAN FRANCISCO POLICE OFFICERS' ASSOCIATION; Lynn Torres; Lillian Chai Mattoch; Henry Kirk, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, a municipal corporation; Civil Service Commission; Louis P. Lee; Rev. Dr. Howard S. Gloyd; Carlota Texidor Del Portillo; Genevieve W. Powell; A. Lee Munson, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 1182

869 F.2d 1182

50 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 160,

49 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 38,878

SAN FRANCISCO POLICE OFFICERS' ASSOCIATION; Lynn Torres;

Lillian Chai Mattoch; Henry Kirk, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, a municipal corporation;

Civil Service Commission; Louis P. Lee; Rev. Dr. Howard S.

Gloyd; Carlota Texidor Del Portillo; Genevieve W. Powell;

A. Lee Munson, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 85-2180.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Sept. 22, 1986.

Decided March 24, 1988.

As Amended March 7, 1989.

Christopher D. Burdick, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Louise Renne, City Atty. by Dan Siegel, Chief of Complex Litigation, San Francisco, Cal., for defendants-appellees.

Robert Links, San Francisco, Cal., for amicus.

James Wheaton, San Francisco, Cal., for intervenor-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Before MERRILL, WIGGINS and NOONAN, Circuit Judges.

NOONAN, Circuit Judge:

This case began in 1973 when Officers for Justice brought suit alleging discrimination based on race and sex in the San Francisco Police Department. The suit was settled with a Consent Decree approved on March 30, 1979. Officers for Justice v. Civil Serv. Comm'n, 473 F.Supp. 801 (N.D.Cal.1979), aff'd, 688 F.2d 615 (9th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1217, 103 S.Ct. 1219, 75 L.Ed.2d 456 (1983). The parties to the decree were the City of San Francisco, the Civil Service Commission, the Officers for Justice, the San Francisco Police Officers' Association, and the United States.

The decree required that the City employ good faith efforts to achieve particular goals for the employment of women and minorities in the police department and prohibited the use of methods of selection that had an adverse impact on women and minorities unless the City proved they were valid under the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, 28 C.F.R. 1607.

The City also promised to:

Refrain from discriminating at any time on the basis of race, sex, or national origin in hiring, promotion, upgrading, training, assignment, or discharge or otherwise discriminating against an individual employee or applicant for employment with respect to compensation, terms and conditions or privileges of employment because of such individual's race, sex, or national origin.

In 1983 the City gave examinations for promotion to Q-35 Assistant Inspector and Q-50 Sergeant. The examinations were in three parts: a multiple choice test measuring technical knowledge and problem solving; a writing skill test; and an oral test measuring ability to communicate, interpersonal qualities, and supervisory abilities. The Civil Service Commission set weights for the examination components as follows:

Q35 Q50

Multiple choice: 45% 41%

Written communications 29% 29%

Oral examination 26% 30%

When the examinations were graded and weighed according to this formula there was a slight adverse impact on women in the Q-35 examination and a substantial adverse impact on minorities in both examinations. The City did not validate the results under the Uniform Guidelines so that under the Consent Decree no promotion could be based on these examinations.

In June 1984, on the recommendation of the City Attorney, the Commission revised the weights it...