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

Heading: The May 28, 2008 Opinion

Text: The third opinion was issued in May 2008 after a hearing on the intent of the parties to the 1999 settlement agreement. See NYC Board V, 556 F.Supp.2d 202. The court addressed two issues: first, whether the parties in 1999 intended to categorize Offerees into testing-claim beneficiaries and recruiting-claim beneficiaries; second, who among the testing-claim beneficiaries was an actual victim of testing discrimination. At the hearing, the district court heard the testimony of (1) Norma Cote, who had negotiated the settlement for the City Defendants, and (2) Katherine Baldwin, a Government lawyer who was not directly involved in the settlement negotiations but who reviewed and approved the agreement for DOJ policy compliance. Id. at 205-06. Cote testified that the Government had never separated the claimants into recruiting and testing beneficiaries, nor had it told the City Defendants that the United States[] intended the settlement agreement to provide make-whole relief calibrated to each [O]fferee's individual injury. Id. at 205. Indeed, she testified that she did not recall the Government ever explain[ing] to [her] why they wanted these individuals to get retroactive seniority. Id. at 205-06. Baldwin testified that DOJ's policy was only [to] seek relief for identified victims of discrimination, [m]ake whole relief for identified victims of discrimination. Id. at 206. Baldwin said that she and DOJ would not have approved the agreement if it had violated that policy. Id. Based on this testimony, the district court conclude[d] that had the [City Defendants] and the United States operated under the assumptionnow embodied in the Court's holdingsthat there was a sufficient evidentiary basis only for testing discrimination, blacks and Hispanics who had not taken one of the challenged exams would not have been included in the list of Offerees. Id. at 207. The district court noted that the parties must have been aware in 1999 that (1) some recruiting claimants were being given retroactive seniority, because Asians and non-Hispanic, non-black women received that relief, and (2) some blacks and Hispanics had not taken one of the challenged exams because that factor was relevant in determining whether relief would be based on the median hire date for a challenged exam or provisional hire date. Id. at 206-07. But the district court said that Baldwin's testimony was [m]ost compelling, and that [a]lthough the Court credits Cote's testimony that the policy was not communicated to the Board, ... the United States simply would not have condoned any agreement that went beyond [make-whole] relief [to actual victims]. Id. at 207. The court also suggested that it was relying on the general principle of contract law that `reformation may be available where the parties were under no mistake as to the words of the writing, but they supposed that the legal outcome would be different.' Id. at 207 n. 4 (quoting 27 Williston on Contracts (4th ed.2003) § 70:128). For these reasons, the district court decided not to reconsider its holding that retroactive seniority for male recruiting claimants would not be narrowly tailored for Equal Protection Clause purposes. Id. at 207. The court then made determinations as to who among the 27 testing claimants were actual victims. [28] The court said that, for each of these claimants, the question was whether the retroactive seniority they received approximately corresponds to the seniority they would have received but for the discriminatory exams. Id. at 209. Additionally, the parties to the Agreementi.e., the United States and the Boardbear the burden of proof. Id. The court's determinations were as follows:  SevenLloyd Bailey, Joseph Christie, Belfield Lashley, Gilbert Rivera, Peter Robertin, Felix Torres, and Mayla Zephrini (Citron)were victims of discrimination who received appropriate make-whole relief, because the Brennan Plaintiffs had (supposedly) acknowledged this. [29] Id. at 208 & n. 6.  Tenthe Arroyo Intervenorsdid not require a determination as to actual victim status because they had stipulated to layoff seniority dates. [30] Id. at 208 & n. 7.  Two, Ronald Johnson and Fidel Seara, did not require a determination because the former had retired and the latter had died. Id. at 208.  For the remaining eight, the parties had stipulated to facts but were unable to agree on their legal effect, so the court had to decide whether they were actual victims who had received make-whole relief.  Ricardo Cordero was an actual victim and received appropriate make-whole relief. He had failed Exam 5040, and his retroactive seniority date was appropriately the median hire date for that exam. Id. at 209.  Vernon Marshall was an actual victim, but his retroactive seniority date required adjustment because, for reasons that are not clear, it was over two years earlier than the median date for the exam he failed. Id. at 209-10.  Sean Rivera was not an actual victim. The settlement agreement had given him a retroactive seniority date of November 7, 1995. He scored an 80 on Exam 1074, which had a median hire date of October 27, 1997. This barely-passing score put Rivera close to the bottom of the Eligibility List for the exam, so that he had not been hired at the time of the 1999 settlement agreement and it was unlikely that he ever would be. Against the odds, he was hired from the list after all on February 4, 2000. The district court said that the Government's view that Rivera would have scored higher on a non-discriminatory exam, and would therefore have been hired earlier, was purely speculative. Id. at 210.  The other five testing Offerees Thomas Fields, Carla Lambert, Angel Pagan, Anthony Pantelides, and Luis Torreswere not actual victims either. The Brennan Plaintiffs, relying on a post hoc review of applicant qualifications performed by the City Defendants while they were still litigating against the Government, argued that these five would have failed the experience papers requirement even if they had passed the exams they took. The court said that although, in this post hoc review, unlike the actual hiring process, there was no opportunity for an administrative appeal of an experience papers rejection, the Government had failed, at the summary judgment stage, to meet its burden of providing concrete evidence that the post hoc review was incorrect as to any of the five whose qualifications are challenged. Id. at 210-11.