Opinion ID: 2470930
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The September 11, 2006 Opinion

Text: In its 2006 opinion, the district court considered first whether the settlement awards violated Title VII, and then whether they violated the Equal Protection Clause. The court concluded:  As to the 28 black or Hispanic Offerees before the district court in 2006 who had taken and failed a challenged exam:  The lawfulness of one Offeree's retroactive seniority could not be determined because there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Exam 8206 had a disparate impact on Hispanics; a hearing was required on that issue.  Seven Offerees were actual victims of discrimination and their entire retroactive seniority was lawful.  There were factual disputes as to whether the remaining twenty Offerees were actual victims of discrimination, but their retroactive seniority for TCAs and transfers was lawful regardless of whether they were actual victims. Their retroactive layoff seniority, however, was lawful only if they were actual victims. [25]  As to the 31 black, Hispanic, Asian, or female Offerees before the district court in 2006 who had not taken a challenged exam and/or were not among the groups on which those exams allegedly had a disparate impact:  One Offeree was really a white male. His retroactive seniority was unlawful.  The retroactive seniority of the other 11 male non-test-taker Offerees was unlawful unless they could show that they were actual victims of discrimination. According to the district court, giving them relief without such a showing would violate the Equal Protection Clause.  The 19 female non-test-taker Offerees could lawfully receive full retroactive seniority for transfer and TCA purposes, but not for layoffs. [26] NYC Board III, 448 F.Supp.2d at 446-47. The court's reasoning was as follows. First, it addressed a preliminary issue: whether the Brennan Plaintiffs were correct in their assertion that five supposedly Hispanic Offerees were not entitled to any relief because they were not in fact Hispanic. Relying on the EEOC's definition of national-origin discrimination in 29 C.F.R. § 1606.1, the district court held that an ancestral place of origin is sufficient to establish membership in a protected class. NYC Board III, 448 F.Supp.2d at 422. Applying that definition, the district court held that one recruiting claimant, Ciro Dellaporte, was not Hispanic. Id. The other fourKevin LaFaye, Steven Lopez, and the brothers Nicholas Pantelides and Anthony Pantelides, were Hispanic because LaFaye's father and the Pantelides' mother were born in Puerto Rico, and Lopez's grandfather was born in Mexico. Id. Next, the district court sought to determine whether the retroactive seniority awards violated the Brennan Plaintiffs' rights under Title VII. The district court relied heavily on the affirmative action framework of Johnson, 480 U.S. 616, 107 S.Ct. 1442, and Weber, 443 U.S. 193, 99 S.Ct. 2721, consistent with which an employer defending an affirmative-action plan against a Title VII reverse-discrimination challenge needs to show only that (1) there is a manifest imbalance in a traditionally segregated job category and (2) the plan does not unnecessarily trammel the interests of adversely affected third parties. NYC Board III, 448 F.Supp.2d at 423-24. The district court rejected the Brennan Plaintiffs' argument that the Weber/Johnson framework did not apply. Id. at 428-31. According to the district court, there is nothing in Title VII that vitiates an affirmative-action plan granting preferential seniority to non-victims of discrimination. Id. at 429. Applying the affirmative action framework, the district court found a manifest imbalance for both non-test-taker and test-failer Offerees. For the Offerees who had failed a test, the district court said that the Government had satisfied the manifest imbalance requirement by showing statistical evidence sufficient to make out a prima facie case of testing discrimination, id. at 425-26, except as to Hispanics who took Exam 8206; as to them a hearing was required, id. at 427. For Offerees who had not taken a test (and who therefore, the court reasoned, could only be victims of recruiting discrimination, if they were victims at all), the district court relied on Dr. Ashenfelter's analysis that found a statistical imbalance between the expected and actual numbers of black, Hispanic, Asian, and female takers of the three challenged exams. Id. at 427-28. Having found manifest imbalances, the district court proceeded to the unnecessary trammeling stage of the inquiry. The district court found that the transfer and TCA effects of the Offerees' retroactive seniority did not unnecessarily trammel the rights of the Brennan Plaintiffs, because race, national origin, or gender would rarely be the deciding factor in whether a Brennan Plaintiff got a transfer, and even when one of these was the deciding factor the Brennan Plaintiff remained eligible for future transfers. Id. at 431. But the district court held that layoff seniority for non-victims of discrimination would unnecessarily trammel the Brennan Plaintiffs' rights. Id. at 431-34. After resolving those Title VII issues, the district court examined the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, since the Brennan Plaintiffs had also attacked the settlement under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. For the minority male Offerees the district court applied strict scrutiny to the settlement grants of retroactive seniority. NYC Board III, 448 F.Supp.2d at 434-35. This meant the City Defendants had to show (1) a compelling interest for adopting the retroactive seniority, and (2) that the retroactive seniority was narrowly tailored to meet that interest. The district court said that, in this particular case, such a showing required the City Defendants to demonstrate a strong basis in evidence that the Board's own tests and/or recruiting practices were discriminatory. The court then held that the required showing was satisfied for Black and Hispanic Offerees who failed a test, because the Board had created the exams and the tests were adequately shown to be discriminatory against those racial groups. It was not, however, satisfied for non-test-taking male Offerees because although there was a significant disparity between the number of white test-takers and the number of black, Hispanic, or Asian test-takers, there was no sufficient evidence that this disparity was caused by the Board's own recruiting practices. Id. at 434-35. The district court rejected the Brennan Plaintiffs' claim that a compelling interest always requires a showing of intentional disparate treatment by the governmental entity asserting the interest, for such a requirement was, in the district court's judgment, inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent and the policy of encouraging settlement of Title VII cases. Id. at 436-38. The court also found that the transfer and TCA seniority remedy for the test-failer Offerees was narrowly tailored under the factors listed in United States v. Paradise, 480 U.S. 149, 171, 107 S.Ct. 1053, 94 L.Ed.2d 203 (1987). Id. at 438-40. Layoff seniority even for these Offerees, however, was not narrowly tailored. Id. at 440-41. For female Offerees, the analysis was different. The district court, applying intermediate scrutiny, did not require any showing of governmental (Board) involvement in the discrimination the Board sought to remedy, so the City Defendants' interest in remedying gender discrimination could survive intermediate scrutiny even where their interest in remedying race discrimination might not survive strict scrutiny. Id. at 441-43. Having found that transfer and TCA seniority met the narrowly tailored standard during its strict scrutiny analysis, the district court easily determined that transfer and TCA seniority were substantially related for intermediate scrutiny purposes as well. [27] Id. at 442-43. The district court concluded its first opinion by addressing two other matters. First, the court refused to enter, as a consent judgment, the parts of the settlement agreement that had survived the Brennan Plaintiffs' Title VII and Equal Protection Clause attacks. Id. at 443-44. Second, the Brennan Plaintiffs had sought class certification with respect to their claims for declaratory and injunctive relief. Even though none of the other parties in either action had submitted responsive papers, the district court approved the class under Fed.R.Civ.P. 23. Id. at 444-46. The certified class consisted of all custodial employees whose layoff-protection rights have been adversely affected by the grant of seniority benefits to beneficiaries who are non-victims of discrimination. Id. at 446. The district court then listed the factual issues that still required a hearing: (a) which, if any, of the beneficiaries, in addition to Lloyd Bailey, Joseph Christie, Belfield Lashley, Gilbert Rivera, Peter Robertin, Felix Torres and Mayra Zephrini (Cintron), are actual victims of discrimination and received the relief to which they were entitled; (b) whether the results of Exam 8206 in respect to Luis Torres satisfy the evidentiary standards for establishing discrimination under Title VII and the Fourteenth Amendment; and (c) whether John Mitchell and Eric Schauer[, the plaintiffs seeking damages in the second consolidated action,] were denied transfers in favor of particular individuals who impermissibly received retroactivity [sic] seniority. Id. at 447-48.