Opinion ID: 618714
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Statistical Evidence and the District Court's Findings

Text: In adjudicating the parties' motions for summary judgment, Judge Debevoise conducted an extremely thorough analysis of the facts and expert reports. Because disparate-impact claims depend heavily on statistical proof of discriminatory effects, we review the experts' findings and the District Court's conclusions at length.
The NAACP Plaintiffs presented the expert report of Dr. Richard Wright to establish their prima facie case of disparate-impact discrimination. In his 2008 report, Wright identified disparities between the percentage of qualified African-Americans in the relevant labor market, which he defined in several alternative ways, and the percentage of African-Americans employed by North Hudson. The District Court first considered Wright's definition of the relevant labor market. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2003 the average daily commute was twenty-four minutes nationally and twenty-nine minutes for North Hudson residents. By performing a geographic information system analysis, Wright concluded that most people living within a ten-mile radius of North Hudson's center would have no more than a twenty-nine-minute commute. Wright also opined that North Hudson could reasonably be expected to draw its employees from across New Jersey because state-regulated workers tend to search for jobs statewide. Wright concluded that the appropriate labor market from which North Hudson may be expected to draw its protective service personnel is either the whole state or the neighboring three-county area. The District Court accepted this definition because it was based in sound reasoning, and because [North Hudson] did not dispute it, present evidence to contradict it, or suggest an alternative definition. North Hudson, 742 F.Supp.2d at 516. The District Court next considered whether Wright's comparisons demonstrated the kind of substantial statistical proof and causal relationship necessary to establish a prima facie disparate-impact claim. To do so, Wright compared the proportion of African-Americans employed by North Hudson with the percentages of African-Americans employed in full time protective service positions in the Tri-County Area and in New Jersey. The parties disputedand continue to disputewhether looking to the ratio of African-Americans in protective service jobs provides an accurate prediction of their expected presence in firefighting jobs. Although Wright parenthetically noted that protective service jobs consist of mainly police officers [and] firefighters, a 2000 list of North Hudson's Protective Service Occupations codes suggests that this category may also include a substantial number of non-analogous positions, including crossing guards, gaming surveillance officers, private detectives and investigators, animal control workers, parking enforcement workers, and fish and game wardens. Other positions with protective service codes, like lifeguards, transit and railroad police, and bailiffs and correctional officers, may involve some skills similar to those required for firefighting, but they unquestionably diverge in other significant ways. The District Court concluded that [t]he qualifications for employment in full time protective service work in the Tri-[C]ounty [A]rea or in New Jersey would be similar to the qualifications to be employed by [North Hudson] and that the protective service comparison more closely track[ed] the requirement of a qualified population. North Hudson, 742 F.Supp.2d at 517. Wright's results in this comparison were compelling. In the Tri-County Area, 37.4% of protective service positions are held by African-Americans. Based on this percentage, one would expect 121 North Hudson firefighters to be African-American. Similarly, 20% of protective service workers statewide are African-American, so, based on that percentage, one would expect North Hudson to employ sixty-five African-American firefighters. The differences of 13 and 8.76 standard deviations in these comparisons leave virtually no probability that the discrepancies are the result of chance. Wright's calculations indicated that African-Americans are significantly under-represented in North Hudson. Given the near impossibility that the disparities are caused merely by chance, Wright concluded: [T]his likely results from discriminatory hiring practices. [5] The District Court agreed and found that [t]he difference between these expected numbers of African Americans 121 or 65and the actual number employed by [North Hudson]2is striking and is sufficiently substantial to raise an inference of causation. [6] North Hudson, 742 F.Supp.2d at 517.
After reviewing Wright's opinion, the District Court examined the report of North Hudson's expert, Dr. Bernard Siskin, to determine whether his findings undermined or contradicted the prima facie statistical evidence presented by Wright. Siskin calculated the expected number of African-Americans in North Hudson using the scores and rankings of actual applicants in the 1999, 2002, and 2006 NJDOP testing cycles. Siskin created new eligibility lists using final test scores and veteran status to rank the candidates as though the candidate pool had included: (1) Hudson County, (2) the Tri-County Area, (3) a five-mile radius, or (4) a ten-mile radius. As the District Court noted, [u]sing the actual DOP test results obviously accounts for the requirement that the population being compared is `qualified.' Id. Although expanding the eligibility list to include Hudson County or a five-mile radius added only one to two African-Americans to the top thirty-five candidates depending on the exam year, when the list was expanded to include the Tri-County Area, which was the relevant labor market according to the District Court, six to twelve African-American applicants placed in the top thirty-five, and six to fifteen placed in the top fifty. Yet, the actual Residents-Only Lists from those years included no African-Americans in that range. Overall gains in the top ninety also were substantial, with expansion to include the Tri-County Area adding eleven to nineteen African-American candidates. Thus, the District Court found that including the Tri-County Area caused a significant number of African Americans [to be] added to the DOP lists. Id. Siskin's report noted that these gains came primarily at the expense of Hispanics, who moved down, often significantly, in the hypothetical expanded-list rankings. Siskin concluded that Caucasians would benefit most from an expansion of North Hudson's hiring area. Siskin acknowledged that his original hypothetical rankings assumed two things: (i) that [non-resident candidates] would necessarily prefer appointment to [North Hudson] compared to any other jurisdiction they sought; and (ii) that they would be as likely to receive an appointment offer from [North Hudson] as from any other jurisdiction. Because Siskin considered these assumptions unrealistic, he next calculated the hypothetical rankings omitting all non-resident candidates who received appointments elsewhere during that hiring cycle, under the premise that they would have accepted those appointments instead of continuing to compete for a job with North Hudson. [7] Removing these otherwise-appointed candidates from the hypothetical expanded eligibility lists had varied effects for the different years studied. For the 1999 hypothetical expanded list, it had no effect at all; the top thirty-five still contained twelve more African-Americans than North Hudson's Residents-Only List. For the 2002 expanded list, there was no change to the top thirty-five (still six more African-Americans than on North Hudson's 2002 Residents-Only List) and a decrease of only two in the top fifty (still six more African-Americans than on North Hudson's 2002 Residents-Only List). As the District Court noted, [t]he only tables that do not predict any added African Americans are Tables 7-2006 and 8-2006. Id. at 518. Those 2006 tables showed the most substantial change, but they also excluded a class of candidates included in the 1999 and 2002 lists. Table 7-2006 contains calculations which exclud[ed] those appointed or having a better rank outside [North Hudson's] local area. This additional exclusion eliminated candidates who ranked substantially better on another municipality's eligibility list. By Siskin's definition, a candidate had a substantially better rank elsewhere if his rank on the North Hudson expanded list was at least twice his best rank on another municipality's list (where lower numbers mean higher rankings on the eligibility lists). That is, a candidate ranked 12th on the expanded [North Hudson] list with a `best' rank order number of six (6) or better on some other list would be excluded from the expanded [North Hudson] list. Likewise, a candidate who ranked third on the North Hudson list but first on another municipality's list would be omitted, even though he had an identical chance of being hired by North Hudson under the Rule of Three. The candidates remaining on the hypothetical expanded lists for 2006 were then re-ranked. The result for the Tri-County expanded list was that no African-Americans were added to any of the ranges measured; all of them had a substantially better rank in another municipality. The District Court doubted the value of the 2006 tables: [W]hen the Court compares the results of Table 8-2006 to Tables 8-1999 and 8-2002,... it appears that the assumption underlying Table 8-2006 may not bear out in reality. Since Tables 8-1999 and 8-2002 are based on the actual number of applicants who were hired by another department, the results in those tables are grounded in actual past events. Id. at 518. Ultimately, the District Court concluded that the assumption in 8-2006 far over-emphasizes the impact of hiring in other jurisdictions on the number of African American applicants who would be highly ranked on the Tri-[C]ounty lists and found that the 2002 and 1999 results were more compelling. [8] Id. at 519. Siskin's overall assessment of the impact on African-Americans was that with the exception of the larger expanded ( i.e., Tri-County) area, there is a trivial increase in African Americans.
In the District Court's view, Wright's statistical evidence sufficed to establish a prima facie case of disparate impact, including both substantial statistical disparities and a causal link to North Hudson's residency requirement. The District Court then searched for contravening evidence from North Hudson's own expert, but Siskin's report revealed that [his] own results predict[ed] that a significant number of qualified African Americans would be eligible and qualified for employment with [North Hudson] if the labor market were expanded to the Tri-[C]ounty [A]rea. Id. Thus, both experts' reports support[ed] a statistical finding of disparate impact, and North Hudson had failed to raise a genuine dispute that the 2006 data predicts that no African Americans would be in the top-ranked candidates on a DOP list. Id. The District Court next considered North Hudson's business-necessity defense and rejected it because living in North Hudson was not a mandatory minimum requirement for familiarity with local geography, swift response times, or a bilingual firefighter force and because less discriminatory alternative means of achieving these goals were apparent. Id. at 522-25. It also found the residency requirement was not compelled by the Rodriguez Settlement. Id. at 523-24. Nor did the residency requirement ensure that North Hudson firefighters would live in the North Hudson municipalities after they were hired. Id. at 523. Finally, the District Court determined that the Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557, 129 S.Ct. 2658, 174 L.Ed.2d 490 (2009), did not afford North Hudson an alternative defense because the expansion of its hiring list, to the detriment of Intervenors, would not be because of race-base[d] statistics alone; ... [but rather] because the residency requirement causes a disparate impact that is not justified by business necessity. North Hudson, 742 F.Supp.2d at 528. North Hudson and Intervenors filed this appeal.