Jan. 21--NEW HAVEN -- The firefighter union has retained the lawyer who successfully sued the city in a landmark legal case to represent it in another lawsuit challenging the same promotional exams that started the seven-year battle.
New Haven Fire Fighters, Local 825, has hired Attorney Karen Torre as counsel in the November lawsuit filed by fire Lt. Gary Tinney against the city of New Haven and the union.
That means Torre, if the case were to go to trial, would sit on the same side of the aisle as the city, which she sued in 2004 after it, the U.S. Supreme Court later concluded, illegally tossed results from two contested promotional exams out of stated concerns that too few blacks would have been promoted.
"It's probably more shocking to the public than to the legal profession," said city Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden. Lawyers are charged with "properly and vigorously" representing their clients, he said.
In this case, that puts Torre and the city on the same side of the legal argument. That wasn't the case in 2004.
Last year, the city settled a multi-million dollar suit with the group of mainly white firefighters who said they were wrongfully denied promotions.
In the end, city employees on both side of the argument need to move forward and work together, Bolden said.
After the 2010 Supreme Court decision, arguing that the question was never fully decided of whether the two tests were fundamentally flawed, Tinney and six other African American firefighters sued the city and the union.
"The union will vigorously -- and I mean vigorously -- defend this action to the end," Torre said Friday.
From her perspective, the city rightfully certified the exam results under order from the high court and she said she understood why it would "be rightfully frustrated" that it was being sued for following that order.
A message left for Tinney's attorney, Akron, Ohio-based attorney Dennis R. Thompson, was not immediately returned.
The union president, Lt. James Kottage, and vice president Lt. Frank Ricci, both were plaintiffs in Ricci vs. DeStefano, the original case that went to the Supreme Court.
The latest lawsuit revisits a central question from 2004 of whether the two exams for fire lieutenant and captain were fair or unintentionally discriminated against minorities.
The lawsuit claims the city, in concert with the fire union, for decades crafted exams that had inherent "adverse impact" against blacks and Hispanics.
The lawsuit names the city and union as defendants. It seeks, among other remedies, retroactive promotions, adjusted seniority and back pay.
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Copyright 2012 - New Haven Register, Conn.
