Opinion ID: 2470930
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Government Changes Its Position; Offeree Interventions Result

Text: On April 8, 2002, the Government filed a memorandum in response to the Brennan Plaintiffs' February 2002 motion for a preliminary injunction. In this memorandum, the Government only partially opposed the motion. The Government opposed a preliminary injunction against the settlement as to Offerees who had taken a challenged exam, but not as to Offerees who had not. Two days later, the Government withdrew its previous counsel and substituted new counsel. Next, the City Defendants moved for approval of the remaining paragraphs of the settlement agreement, and the Government opposed this motion as premature. In July 2002, a recruiting-claim beneficiary, Janet Caldero, learned that the Government was no longer defending the settlement as to Offerees such as she. She and others in her situation, having obtained counsel, moved to intervene in October 2002. The parties agreed to the 22 Caldero Intervenors' intervention in February 2003. Around this time, the Brennan Plaintiffs also invoked their rights as parties to object to the magistrate judge's 28 U.S.C. § 636(c) jurisdiction 2 to render a final decision, and, as a result, the case was returned to Judge Block. Then, in September 2003, the Government changed its position again, triggering yet another intervention. In response to some interrogatories during discovery, the Government provided a chart detailing its current thinking about which Offerees were entitled to retroactive competitive seniority. This chart indicated for the first time that, in addition to the 32 Offerees who had not taken an exam, as to most of whom the Government had already indicated that it would not be defending the settlement, the Government would now also not be defending the settlement as to some (but not all) Offerees who had taken a challenged exam. Although the Government did not say that this latter group of Offerees was not entitled to any retroactive seniority, it did say that, for competitive seniority purposes, these individuals were entitled only to retroactive seniority dates laterusually by about two years than those provided for by the settlement agreement. The chart also denominated the Offerees who had not taken an exam as recruiting claimants, and the others as testing claimants. That is, the Government separated the Offerees into two groups, based on the stage of the hiring process at which they allegedly suffered discrimination. Having learned of this document, some of the affected Offerees (the Arroyo Intervenors) moved to intervene. Their motion was granted in July 2004. [24] See NYC Board III, 448 F.Supp.2d at 417.