On April 23, 2012, the United States on behalf of black firefighters filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and against the Consolidated City of Jacksonville, FL and the union representing its firefighters. The plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief as well as monetary compensation, alleging that the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department's practice of testing to screen and select candidates for promotion had a disparate impact on black firefighters.

On April 30, 2013, the NAACP and Jacksonville Brotherhood of Firefighters filed a complaint in intervention, echoing the claims and allegations of the United States while adding to the action several named plaintiffs and a class of Black Firefighters who tested for and were denied promotion while the testing practice was in place.

The District Court (Judge Timothy J. Corrigan) denied the plaintiff's motion for preliminary injunction on December 27, 2013. In their motion, the U.S. asked that the Jacksonville Fire Department be required to set aside five slots from the next round of promotions following the November 2013 test for those fire suppression captain candidates allegedly discriminated against on the 2004 and 2008 test administrations. The court denied the motion because the remedy offered did not correlate to the severity of the alleged injury, it would be difficult for the city to administer, and the plaintiffs had not established that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their case.

On June 9, 2015, the court granted partial summary judgment for the plaintiff finding the plaintiff successfully established a prima facie case of disparate impact, which enabled the parties to engage in additional phases of discovery. 2015 WL 3618367. Over the next eighteen months, the parties participated in discovery. The plaintiff amended the complaint three times, the latest of which was filed on November 28, 2016.

On January 13, 2017, the parties notified the court that they had reached a tentative settlement and requested the case be removed from the trial calendar. After months of completing prerequisites for a settlement agreement, a fairness hearing took place on December 19, 2018. Judge Corrigan approved the agreement in a consent decree on February 5, 2019. The settlement included total payments of $4.9M in individual relief to classmembers and creation of new promotion examinations. The agreement also awarded attorneys' fees to counsel for the NAACP in the event it took over monitoring and enforcement of the decree from the U.S. The decree was set to remain in effect for the duration of settlement payments; fulfillment of the defendant's obligation to create the promotion positions; and completion of the second regular test administration of the new promotion procedure. The consent decree included details on this procedure and the promotion positions.

The court held a second fairness hearing in May 23, 2019 and in June the court directed the parties to proceed with administration of individual relief.

The case is ongoing as the consent decree is under enforcement.

Benjamin St. Pierre - 10/15/2014
Cade Boland - 11/11/2017
Maddie McFee - 11/25/2019


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