Opinion ID: 676060
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the complaints, first trial, and appeal

Text: 7 The first six years of litigation began with a series of lawsuits against the City and Board alleging discriminatory employment practices: 8 On January 4, 1974, the Ensley Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, together with certain named individuals, for themselves and on behalf of others similarly situated, filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, against George Seibels (then Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama), the City of Birmingham, the members of the Personnel Board of Jefferson County, and the Personnel Director of that Board, alleging that the defendants engage in discriminatory hiring practices against blacks in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981, 1983, and 2000e et seq. (Title VII). A suit raising the same constitutional and statutory allegations was filed on January 7, 1974, by John W. Martin and other named plaintiffs [the Martin class] against the City of Birmingham, Jefferson County, and the Personnel Board of Jefferson County. On May 27, 1975, the United States brought suit against the Jefferson County Personnel Board and the municipal and other governmental jurisdictions within Jefferson County alleging a pattern or practice of discriminatory employment practices against blacks and women in violation of Title VII, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 3766(c), the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972, as amended, 31 U.S.C. Sec. 1242, the Fourteenth Amendment and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981. On February 20, 1976, Lucy Walker filed suit challenging the employment practices of the Jefferson County nursing home under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1981. All four cases were consolidated for trial. 9 On December 20-22, 1976, trial was held on the merits of the limited issue of whether the two tests used by the Personnel Board to screen and rank applicants for positions as police officers and firefighters [were] discriminatory and violative of the constitutional or statutory rights of blacks. All other issues under the complaints were reserved until a later date. 10 Ensley Branch, NAACP v. Seibels, 616 F.2d 812, 814-15 (5th Cir.) (footnotes omitted), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1061, 101 S.Ct. 783, 66 L.Ed.2d 603 (1980). 11 The police officer and firefighter tests at issue were written examinations consisting of 120 multiple-choice aptitude and knowledge questions. Ensley Branch, NAACP v. Seibels, 13 Empl.Prac.Dec. (CCH) p 11,504, at 6797 & n. 16, 1977 WL 806 (N.D.Ala.1977), aff'd. in part and rev'd in part, 616 F.2d 812 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1061, 101 S.Ct. 783, 66 L.Ed.2d 603 (1980). The score required to pass each test varied with the number of vacancies and other factors. Ensley Branch, 616 F.2d at 816 n. 10. Under procedures still in place today, the Board ranks passing applicants on an eligibility list according to their score. Id. at 816. For promotional positions, an applicant's score is increased by one point for each year of seniority. See Act of 1945, Sec. 20, 1945 Ala.Acts at 394-95; accord In re Birmingham Reverse Discrimination Employment Litig., 37 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1, 5, 1985 WL 1415 (N.D.Ala.1985). When a vacancy arises, the Board forwards the top three names from the eligibility list to the City for final selection. See Act of 1945, Sec. 18, 1945 Ala. Acts at 392-94, amended, Amendments of 1989, Sec. 1, 1989 Ala. Acts at 967-70; 2 accord 37 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) at 5 & n. 12. As discussed below, the district court in 1981 approved a pair of consent decrees requiring the City and Board to modify their procedures to take into account race and gender as well. 12 Ironically, the firefighter and police officer tests challenged in the original trial were themselves adopted, or at least modified, for the specific purpose of hiring more blacks. As the district court explained: 13 In late 1965, following an independent study as to why no blacks were then employed as police officers in the City of Birmingham, the Personnel Board decided to replace its police and firefighter exams with tests developed by the Public Personnel Association, now known as the International Personnel Management Association. IPMA tests were being widely used in other parts of the country and were considered by the Board as superior to other tests then available. The change was part of a multi-faceted program intended to increase black participation in governmental positions. 14 Ensley Branch, 13 Empl.Prac.Dec. (CCH) p 11,504, at 6795. On the advice of consultants that some test questions were more predictive than others of blacks' future job performance, the Board in 1974 began to use a new scoring key that was designed to increase validity of the [police officer] test for black applicants. 3 Id. The Board also began actively to encourage blacks to apply, to waive examination fees, to experiment with reducing the passing score for the police officer test, and to eliminate priority for applicants residing within the employing agency's jurisdiction. Id. at 6795-96. 15 After assessing these efforts to increase black employment, the district court concluded that the Board's selection, administration and use of the two tests had not been motivated by a design or intent ... to discriminate on the basis of race or color and therefore did not violate the Equal Protection Clause. 4 Id. at 6796. The plaintiffs did not appeal that finding. Ensley Branch, 616 F.2d at 815 n. 5. 16 The district court also found, however, that the police officer and firefighter tests violated Title VII. The court noted that both tests had a significant adverse impact on black applicants, a phenomenon defined as a passing rate less than four-fifths ... of the rate for [whites]. Ensley Branch, 13 Empl.Prac.Dec. (CCH) p 11,504, at 6796-97 (internal quotation marks omitted). The court ruled that the tests could be used only if, despite their adverse impact, they were sufficiently job related to predict effectively test takers' future job performance. Id. at 6796 nn. 10-11, 6806. After reviewing testing data, the court concluded that the tests failed to meet this standard. Id. at 6798-6808. 17 The court found no statistically significant correlation between the applicants' scores on the firefighter test and their later job performance. Although there was a significant positive correlation between test scores and job performance during the first three years of a firefighter's service, the court found a significant negative correlation between test scores and job performance after the first three years. Id. at 6803. To the court, these findings suggest[ed] that over time the lower scoring applicants made the better employees. Id. Thus, one is hard pressed to conclude that the higher scoring [firefighter] applicants are in fact the better persons to hire. Id. 18 The district court analyzed the police officer test somewhat differently. Operating under the assumption that supervisor bias had not influenced black officers' performance ratings, id. at 6802, the district court found a statistically significant correlation between black police officers' test scores and their later job performance, id. at 6803. Nevertheless, the district court concluded that the magnitude of the positive prediction is so low that the test is worthless for all practical purposes. Ensley Branch, 616 F.2d 812, 818 n. 16 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1061, 101 S.Ct. 783, 66 L.Ed.2d 603 (1980). Among its many detailed findings, the district court determined that use of the test predicts [job performance] with a margin of error that is only 2% smaller than it would be without the test. Ensley Branch, 13 Empl.Prac.Dec. (CCH) p 11,504, at 6804. The court also found the test could not predict with a reasonable degree of certainty whether any one applicant would actually perform better than any other. Id. at 6805. The district court therefore concluded that the tests were not sufficiently job-related to satisfy Title VII, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-2(h). Id. at 6806-08; see generally Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 425, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 2375, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975) (Title VII forbids the use of employment tests that are discriminatory in effect unless the employer meets 'the burden of showing that any given requirement [has] ... a manifest relationship to the employment in question.'  (quoting Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 432, 91 S.Ct. 849, 854, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971)). 19 As a remedy for the Board's use of illegal tests, the district court ordered race-conscious relief [p]ending adoption of some selection procedure which either has no adverse effect upon black applicants or is sufficiently job-related. Ensley Branch, 13 Empl.Prac.Dec. (CCH) p 11,504, at 6808. The district court: 20 ordered that blacks be referred for openings on the police and firefighter forces at the rate at which they took the tests when most recently administered. To accomplish this, the Court ordered that the names of a sufficient number of blacks be added to the current police and firefighter eligibility lists [which included passing applicants from the most recent test administration] so that the lists shall be representative of the racial composition of the test-takers [at that most recent test administration], i.e., 28 and 14 percent black for police and firefighter lists, respectively; that, one-third of future certifications, i.e., referrals from the [existing eligibility] lists for actual employment, are to be black until, considering all certifications since the relevant 1975 and 1976 dates [when the Title VII violations began], the numbers of certifications become representative of the racial composition of the test-takers [at the most recent test administration]. Thereafter, blacks are to be certified in accordance with their representation on the lists, i.e., 28 and 14 percent of certifications for policemen and firefighters, respectively, will be black. Similarly, referrals from future [eligibility] lists [created by future test administrations] will be a function of the rate at which blacks take the examinations on which the lists are based, until or unless defendants develop valid tests. 21 Ensley Branch, 616 F.2d at 815 n. 6. 22 An appeal and cross-appeal ensued. The Board appealed the district court's decision that the police and firefighter exams violated Title VII. Id. at 815. In doing so, the Board did not contest the district court's finding that the two tests had an adverse impact, but contended that the tests were in fact job-related. Id. at 816. We upheld the district court's finding that the Board had failed to validate either exam, and affirmed the district court's holding that use of the two exams violated Title VII. Id. at 818, 822. 23 The United States and the Martin class of black plaintiffs jointly cross-appealed the district court's holding that use of the tests did not begin to violate Title VII until the dates on which the negative results of the test validation studies were reported to the Board. Id. at 815, 823. The district court had reasoned that, until the final results were reported, the Board was justified in using the tests in anticipation of favorable results from the validation studies. Id. at 823. On appeal, we inferred that the district court had relied on an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guideline that, in  'very limited circumstances,'  authorized a local government to use tests pending the results of a validation study. Id. (quoting Albemarle Paper Co., 422 U.S. at 436, 95 S.Ct. at 2380). However, because we could not determine from the district court's findings whether the case presented one of those very limited circumstances, we remanded for additional fact finding. Subsequent events obviated the need for those findings, which were therefore never made. 24