Court Opinion

ID: 9706836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:52:53.812439+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:25.415284
License: Public Domain

Murphy, J.
(concurring). I concur in the result because of the failure to cite in the successful candidates other than the twenty-two who appeared generally. I do so with great reluctance because I am convinced that the examinations did not conform to the statutory requirements. Were it not for the failure to join the necessary parties, the results should be nullified and new examinations ordered. Had proper procedure been followed and all interested candidates notified, this court would, I am satisfied, declare the 1964 oral examinations invalid.
Following a request from the state police commissioner to establish an employment list for sergeants and an employment list for detectives from which the commissioner could make appointments to those positions, the state personnel department conducted a written examination of the eligible members of the police department who sought to qualify for either one or both employment lists. In response to a request from the personnel department, the heads of the state police departments in six sister states provided the services of three captains and three lieutenants from their departments as qualified examiners to conduct oral examinations for these *81positions. Two of the six had served previously in this state as examiners.
Prior to October 5, 1964, the date the examinations started, the personnel department had provided each of the examiners with an eight-page printed booklet entitled “A Guide for Oral Examiners.” It contained a general discussion of the oral interviewing procedure and of the general criteria to be applied in the oral examinations. On the morning of October 5, the six examiners were briefed by Robert G. Mack, chief of the examination and recruitment division of the personnel department, by Bernard McGrevy, the personnel technician who was to be in charge of the oral examinations, and by Leslie Williams, a major in the state police department and the executive officer of that department. Mack urged the examiners to widen the range of their marks so that there would be some high scores and some low ones so as to eliminate bunching with resultant tie scores. He also urged them to mark as though they were employing the particular candidates for work under them. Major Williams stated that the police department was seeking men who would demonstrate the qualities of leadership, forcefulness, ability to think on their feet, and ability to express themselves, and whose personalities would appear to be pleasing or acceptable to the examiners with their knowledge of what was required in police operations. He spoke to them of the duties to be performed by a sergeant but said very little about the duties of a detective.
McGrevy had also prepared the written examination. He testified that the oral examiners were informed that they would be divided into two panels of three each and would sit simultaneously in adjoining rooms to examine the candidates as they *82appeared one at a time before them. Their attention was directed to the printed guide which had been sent to them, and they were told how the rating sheet was to be used. McG-revy instructed them on the mechanics of the examination and informed them that on the first morning each panel of examiners was to examine the first three candidates in each room before rating any of them, and, after the third man had left the room, the examiners would individually determine the grades to be given to each of the three candidates for each part of the two-part oral examination as it was set out on the rating sheet. They were free to discuss these ratings and to change their own rating if they desired to so do. The technician would then average the individual grades given to obtain the resultant composite score for each of the candidates. Both in the oral instructions to the examiners and in the printed guide, each panel of examiners was directed to use the first three men appearing before each panel as a standard of comparison for the ratings to be given to all of the candidates who were to be tested.
Upon the completion of the instructions, the examiners were divided into two panels, and one of the two examiners who had previously acted as an examiner in Connecticut was assigned to room A and the other to room B. McG-revy acted as technician for the panel in room A, and Victor I. Harris, another personnel technician, was assigned to the panel in room B. The technicians were to introduce the candidates, operate a recording device and mark down on a rating sheet the final score received by each candidate. These were the only formal markings made in the examination rooms which were kept by the personnel department. The scratch sheets which were provided to and were *83used by the examiners in determining the marks each gave were destroyed. The individual blank rating sheets which each examiner had were used for reference and were not marked by the examiners with the grades given by them.
The examinations were scheduled so that no candidate was examined by more than the three examiners in the panel to which he was assigned. The membership of each panel changed each half day with one member of each group switching places. Under this rotation system, no two panels were made up of the same three examiners.
The first candidates examined were those who applied for both the position of sergeant and the position of detective. The examinations for both positions were given simultaneously. Eleven candidates were examined by each panel on Monday morning, October 5. All eleven in room A passed both examinations with each person receiving the same mark for sergeant as he received for detective. Of the eleven in room B, three were successful in both examinations, one passed the sergeant’s examination but failed the one for detective, and one other passed the detective’s examination but failed the one for sergeant. In view of the stress which the plaintiffs have placed on the fact that the panel in room A gave the same passing mark to each candidate for sergeant as it gave him for detective, it is noted that in room B seven of the eleven received similar treatment but only two of these passed. One who qualified for both lists received different grades as did the two who passed but one of the examinations.
After the noon recess on Monday, one examiner from room A exchanged places with one of the examiners in room B. Nine candidates were exam*84ined in each room that afternoon. The nine in room A all passed, while five passed in room B and four failed. The examinations continued on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and on Friday morning with the membership of the panels changing each morning and noon. In all, eighteen different panels were used. The results varied. Prior to Friday, each panel examined the same number of men. On Friday, sixteen were examined in room A but only six in room B. All of the latter passed, whereas in room A only 50 percent were successful. The final tabulation showed that 106 men qualified for the sergeants’ list and fifty-five for the detectives’ list.
The positions of sergeant and detective in the state police department are in the “classified service” of the state and promotions to those positions can be made only according to merit and fitness, to be ascertained by examinations which must be competitive. General Statutes § 5-1. These examinations shall be in such form and of such character and shall relate to such matters as will fairly test and determine the qualifications, fitness and ability of the persons tested to perform the duties of those positions and shall be competitive. General Statutes § 5-26. The use of the word “competitive” in both of these statutes indicates clearly that actual competition between the candidates is the foundation on which the merit system rests and that any examination which is not truly competitve fails to comply with the statutory requirement.
The oral examination was divided into two parts, and it was necessary for each candidate to get a mark of thirty-five in each part in order to attain a passing mark of seventy. The first part embraced the external aspects of personality and was to evaluate the appearance, manner, speech, maturity and *85vitality of the candidate. The second part was to reflect the internal content of the candidate’s mental powers such as judgment and quickness and clearness of comprehension. In evaluating these characteristics of the various candidates, the examiners were directed to use the first three candidates examined in each room on Monday morning as the standard of comparison from which to determine the ratings of those three candidates as well as the others to be examined thereafter. Thus, the panel in room A had one standard to use, while the panel in room B had a different standard. When the makeup of the panels was changed Monday noon, two of the afternoon examiners in room A were using the standard decided upon in that room, while the third panelist was using the room B standard. The reverse of this situation governed the afternoon examination in room B. Owing to the fact that the membership of the panels changed each half day, there were eighteen different panels, no two of which could have been using the same standard. This arrangement creates the illegality in that these examinations were not competitive in the sense in which that term is used in the merit system legislation enacted to provide a civil service system for state employees.
“In a [civil service] competitive examination, the candidates match their qualifications, each against the others, and the final determination is made by rating and comparison.” State ex rel. King v. Emmons, 128 Ohio St. 216, 221, 190 N.E. 468. In a competitive examination under civil service, the candidates are to participate against each other equally before the examiners in answering questions of like character and nature and to have equal opportunity in the oral discussion to compete each against the *86other under like and similar conditions. Civil Service Commission v. Frazzini, 132 Colo. 21, 35, 287 P.2d 433. On the basis of these requirements, the candidates in these examinations were not competing with all of the others who were taking the examinations but only with those in their own particular group who appeared in that half-day session before that particular panel.
The rationale of the cases in other jurisdictions, including those cited above, as well as Matter of Fink v. Finegan, 270 N.Y. 356, 1 N.E.2d 462, Matter of Sloat v. Board of Examiners, 274 N.Y. 367, 9 N.E.2d 12, Matter of Cowen v. Reavy, 283 N.Y. 232, 28 N.E.2d 390, Almassy v. Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission, 34 Cal. 2d 387, 210 P.2d 503, and Stoor v. Seattle, 44 Wash. 2d 405, 267 P.2d 902, has been thoroughly explored. In the Fink ease, which we cited with approval in Howell v. Johnson, 147 Conn. 290, 295, 160 A.2d 486, it was held (p. 361): “A test or examination, to be competitive, must employ an objective standard or measure. . . . [p. 362] A definite standard may be formulated. . . . An [oral] examination cannot be classed as competitive unless it conforms to measures or standards which are sufficiently objective to be capable of being challenged and reviewed, when necessary, by other examiners of equal ability and experience.” In the Sloat case (p. 373), it was held that the test need not be wholly objective, and, to the extent that it is subjective, the result may depend as much on the fitness of the examiners as on the fitness of the candidates. All of these cases have been extensively reviewed in the Almassy case, which holds (p. 398) that, although measurable standards must be established for determining the general proficiency of the candidates for the partic*87nlar position, the fact that some of the standards are subjective rather than objective does not prevent the oral examination from being classified as competitive. Where, as here, however, an objective standard is set up, i.e., the standard resulting from the comparison of the first three candidates examined, the same standard must be used throughout the entire examination in evaluating the merit and fitness of each and every one taking the examination. As already stated, there were eighteen different panels, and, with the changing membership, eighteen different standards resulted so that the essential competitive feature required by the statutes was thereby eliminated.
The plaintiffs also challenge the validity of these examinations on the ground that the personnel department did not have each examiner fill out a rating sheet of the grade he gave to each candidate and then retain the sheets so that they would be available for judicial review if the results were questioned. Although each examiner had blank rating sheets in his possession during the examinations, the examiners had not been requested to fill them out. Each examiner also had scratch pads to jot down his observations and markings, but these were not signed by the examiners and were not retained. The only official record of the mark obtained by each candidate was that made by the technician on a single master copy of the composite grade which he compiled as the average of the three grades stated to him by the examiners and then signed by them. Consequently, the individual ratings by the various examiners were not available for review by other examiners of equal ability and experience as those selected by the personnel department. Matter of Cowen v. Reavy, 283 N.Y. 232, *88237, 28 N.E.2d 390; Matter of Andresen v. Rice, 277 N.Y. 271, 282, 14 N.E.2d 65; Matter of Sloat v. Board of Examiners, 274 N.Y. 367, 374, 9 N.E.2d 12; Matter of Fink v. Finegan, 270 N.Y. 356, 362, 1 N.E.2d 462. To obtain the proper functioning of the merit system, the safeguard of recognized standards shall be provided to ensure the candidates a uniform basis of rating, so far as possible, consistent with the subjects determined as appropriate for examination, and a record must be made showing the basis of the rating. Almassy v. Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission, 34 Cal. 2d 387, 404, 210 P.2d 503. The rights of the plaintiffs to a proper judicial determination of the fairness of the ratings received by them were unduly curtailed by the failure of the personnel department to require each examiner to mark and sign an individual rating sheet for each candidate and to retain the sheets a reasonable length of time to permit examination and review. Had the individual rating sheets of the examiners been available to the plaintiffs, it would not have been necessary for them to rely on the testimony of a professor in educational statistics who was an expert in psychometric analysis and through whom the plaintiffs attempted to get into evidence certain analyses made by him by statistical and computer comparisons of the results reached by some of the panels.
Mechanical recordings of all of the interviews of the candidates were made on a tape recorder or other similar equipment and were marked for identification at the trial. They were excluded as full exhibits. Although a review of these recordings would have imposed an onerous burden on the court, there was, in this case, no other adequate means of reviewing these examinations, and under these cireum*89stances the ruling was erroneous. Kelly v. Civil Service Commission, 37 N.J. 450, 460, 181 A.2d 745; Matter of Acosta v. Lang, 13 N.Y.2d 1079, 1081, 196 N.E.2d 60; Matter of Pearl v. Department of Civil Service, 8 Misc. 2d 712, 713, 169 N.Y.S.2d 847, aff’d, 5 App. Div. 2d 739, 168 N.Y.S.2d 943. The master rating keys containing composite scores of each candidate should also have been admitted in evidence to permit proper review.
As Major Williams, the second-in-command and the executive officer of the state police department, has had extensive experience both within and without Connecticut as an examiner in similar tests, I cannot understand the statement in the defendants’ brief that the major’s experience would “not qualify him as an expert.” I doubt that that opinion is shared by the state police commissioner, one of the defendants and the person who appointed the major to the very important post he holds.
I regret that under the circumstances we have to affirm the judgment below. One set of examiners should have conducted the sergeant’s examination and a second set the detective’s examination. The use of multiple panels of examiners destroyed the competitive feature of these examinations.