Supreme Court to Decide Title VII Statute of Limitations Question
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear a challenge to a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision in a case with similar factual overtones to the Ricci case decided earlier this year. Like Ricci, this case involves a firefighter qualification test that had a disparate impact on black applicants; unlike Ricci, at issue here is the statute of limitations on a Title VII claim.
In this case, Lewis v. City of Chicago, the plaintiffs are a group of approximately 6,000 black firefighter applicants who filed charges of race discrimination with the EEOC more than 300 days after the initial announcement of their test results, but within 300 days of the hiring of the new firefighter class from which they allege they were denied consideration. The trial court held that the hiring of each new firefighter was a new violation of Title VII, so the EEOC charges were timely filed. On appeal, the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the “discrimination was complete when the tests were scored...and the applicants learned the results.” At issue for the Supreme Court is whether the limitations period for a Title VII claim begins to run when an employer announces the results of a test that could violate Title VII’s disparate impact provision, or if the right to sue begins only once the employer has acted on that policy.
At face value, it seems that the trial court probably got this one right and the Supreme Court should reverse the Seventh Circuit. How can an employee know what the actual disparate impact will be until the employer’s hiring decisions are actually made? If, for example, the employer’s business needs ultimately dictate that it need hire nobody, there has been no harm done regardless of the results of the test. An actual harm needs to occur before the right to sue accrues. Notwithstanding that analysis, and given the current makeup of the court, however, it is unclear which way the Court will go on this one. The World of Work will let you know when a decision is reached and how that decision may impact your workplace.
Ricci v. DeStefano -- Supreme Court Holds City Violated Title VII By Rejecting Racially Disparate Test Results
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To end its term, the Supreme Court today issued its long awaited opinion in Ricci v. DeStefano--a case that has received extra media attention because Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel that decided the case below. The conservative justices on the Court reversed the Second Circuit (and by extension, Judge Sotomayor) in a 5-4 decision, ruling that the city of New Haven violated Title VII by discarding the results of a firefighter promotion test where white applicants fared disproportionately better than other applicants. As one might expect, Justice Kennedy provided the swing vote and authored the majority opinion.
New Haven used the test in question to identify firefighters best qualified for promotion. Despite being objectively administered, the test's racially disproportionate results led the city to question whether it should validate the results. The city, of course, found itself in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position: certify the test results, and face Title VII disparate impact litigation from minority applicants; fail to certify them, and face Title VII reverse discrimination litigation from the white officers who passed but were denied a promotion. The city opted for the latter course, and, as expected, the white firefighters filed a reverse discrimination lawsuit. The city prevailed on summary judgment at the district court level, and the Second Circuit affirmed.
The Supreme Court found that discarding the tests violated Title VII , while certifying the test would not have been a violation of law because there was no "strong basis in evidence" for believing that the black firefighters would prevail on a disparate impact claim. The court noted that despite what otherwise would have constituted a "prima facie" showing of disparate impact race discrimination, several defenses were available to the city--namely that the exam at issue was job related, consistent with business necessity, and there existed no equally valid, less discriminatory alternative that suited the city's needs but was not adopted. The four dissenting justices disagreed, arguing that the majority's analysis was flawed because "New Haven had ample cause to believe its selection process was flawed and not justified by business necessity."
Ultimately, the Ricci decision will have little to no impact on most employers, but represents a small victory for employers (despite the positioning here that held against the city/employer). Employers can now take a somewhat more confident stand in backing test results that may demonstrate some disparate impact, so long as the test was objective and no other less discriminatory alternative exists. The Ricci decision may not last for long, however. Political condemnation by Democrats has been swift, with Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) saying that "it is less likely now that employers will conscientiously try to fulfill their obligations under this time-honored civil rights law. This is a cramped decision that threatens to erode these protections and to harm the efforts of state and local governments that want to build the most qualified workforces." Don't be surprised if Congress passes legislation down the road aimed at upending the Ricci decision.
