Overlawyered » fire departments

“The Police Have No Obligation To Protect You. Yes, Really.”

Walter Olson — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:15:18 +0000

In cases such as DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989) and Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005), the Supreme Court has declined to put police and other public authorities under any general duty to protect individuals from crime. The decisions have been broadly unpopular, but Mike McDaniel at PJ Media takes the Court’s side on policy grounds: “This [lack of a particularized duty] might seem absolutely outrageous, but it is logical, rational, and unquestionably necessary.”

Tags: Child Protective Services, fire departments, police, Supreme Court

Gotham firefighters and racial hiring

Walter Olson — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 05:14:26 +0000

At City Journal, Heather Mac Donald has an important article on the federal courts’ willingness to second-guess in great detail the hiring practices of the New York City fire department, in search of more hiring of black applicants. It is worth noting that fire departments are pressed to rely (and even perhaps over-rely) on written tests in assessing applicants’ suitability in part because traditional testing of physical skills such as the ability to wield a charged hose, get up a ladder quickly, and carry body-size weights has been extensively and successfully sued against by lawyers representing female applicants.

Tags: disparate impact, fire departments, NYC, racial quotas

October 7 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 05:07:59 +0000

Lawsuit of the Day: Partner Booted From Three Firms Sues ‘Em All! [Legal Blog Watch]
Drawing wrong lessons from the Rutgers suicide [Greenfield and more (proposed "Tyler's Law"), John Schwartz/NYT (quoting Orin Kerr), Volokh and more, Above the Law]
John Sullivan leaving after 15 years at helm of Civil Justice Association of California [L.A. Times]
Maybe consumers don’t feel so victimized by overdraft “protection” after all [Bank Lawyer's Blog]

Yes, it’s another dust-up pitting all sensible Supreme Court commentators against Dahlia Lithwick, if you like that sort of thing [Kerr, Bodie/Prawfs, Ponnuru, Frank; bonus, Richard Epstein on Erwin Chemerinsky and Hans Bader on a prize flight of Lithwick fancy]
Blog post relatively sympathetic to Righthaven copyright trollery draws many responses [Robert Zelnick, Patently-O]
“Should they have let the guy’s house burn down?” [Tyler Cowen; Firey, Cato]
“Drunken man passes out, wins $850K from police” [six years ago on Overlawyered]

Tags: banks, bullying, Dahlia Lithwick, fire departments, online speech, RightHaven, Supreme Court

May 26 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 26 May 2010 11:16:41 +0000

Oh dear: Elena Kagan praised as “my judicial hero” Aharon Barak, ultra-activist Israeli jurist flayed by Posner as lawless [Stuart Taylor, Jr./Newsweek] Kagan and executive power [Root, Reason]
More on efforts to get feds to redesign hot dogs and other choking-risk foods [NYT, earlier]
Amid brouhaha over Rand Paul views, Chicago firefighter-test case provides reminder of how discrimination law actually plays out in courts today [Tabarrok, MargRev]
So please, Ken, tell us what you really think of this Mr. Francis (”Girls Gone Wild”) and his nastygrams [Popehat]
More on SEIU’s tactic of sending mob to banker’s home in suburban Maryland [Volokh and more, earlier]
“Intensive Parenting Enforced: Parents Criminal Liability for Children Skipping School” [Gaia Bernstein, ConcurOp on a California bill]
Julian Ku unimpressed with United Nations officials’ claims that Arizona immigration statute violates international civil rights law [Opinio Juris] Plus, a complaint to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights [Kopel, Volokh] Ilya Shapiro analyzes statute’s constitutionality [Cato]
Bill moving through Congress would force states, localities to accept unionization, arbitration for public safety workforces [Fox, Jottings] And here comes the giant federal bailout of union pension funds [Megan McArdle]

Tags: Arizona, discrimination law, Elena Kagan, fire departments, immigration law, international human rights, Israel, judges, labor unions, nastygrams, testing

September 30 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:51:48 +0000

Trips over firefighter’s bag at rescue scene, now wants cash from city [Salem, Mass., News]
Oh, my: “Bidens owe SimmonsCooper [huge mass tort firm in Madison County, Ill.] $1 million in hedge fund deal” [MC Record, earlier] Update: plenty more in a Wednesday WSJ editorial.
Florida Supreme Court rejects latest attempt by attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley to resist discipline [North Country Gazette]
“Women’s advocacy groups have persuaded Congress to begin intensive Title IX equity reviews of science programs.” Bad news for American academic science [Sommers, AEI/Teachers College Record]
You may have run into everyone’s favorite fashion law blog. But did you know there’s also a furniture law blog? [Womble Carlyle; via Blawg Review #179 at Securing Innovation]
Eavesdrop on jury deliberations, get wind of defense verdict, move quick to settle case? That would be a very naughty thing for a lawyer to do [American Justice Partnership]
Myrhvold the last straw: “Up until now I have been criticized in many corners for taking the side of so-called patent trolls. …No tax policy could ever do as much damage to an economy.” [Gene Quinn, PatentFools.com, also via above]
Okay, towns, build sidewalks or else [four years ago on Overlawyered]

Tags: Biden, fire departments, Joe Biden, Madison County, Montgomery Blair Sibley, patent trolls, technology, Title IX

Bid to stop suicide fails, San Francisco will pay

Walter Olson — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:04:18 +0000

“The family of a 26-year-old man who died two years ago after an off-duty firefighter tried to rescue him from the edge of a roof will receive a financial settlement from The City, after claiming the firefighter was at fault.” Fire Lt. Victor Wyrsch tried to grab the suicidal Nick Torrico from the roof, but Torrico tore himself loose and fell to his death, and now the city’s taxpayers will pay Torrico’s family based on their contention that Wyrsch should have held back. (Beth Winegarner, “San Francisco pays up for failed rescue”, San Francisco Examiner, Aug. 26).

Tags: fire departments, San Francisco, suicide

After Setting Fires, Firefighter Wants Job Back

Daniel Schwartz — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:04:41 +0000

In 1997, Erie, Pa. hired its first female firefighter. Nearly a decade later, she was quietly fired after setting fire to her father’s house as part of a suicide attempt. In fact, the Erie Civil Service Commission wrote at the time that: “Her setting a fire … is the single most significant act a fire fighter may not commit. The act of establishing a fire in a residence is wholly incompatible with the role of the fire fighter, despite the mitigating circumstances of [her] psychological state.” Now, she has brought her appeal public in a filing in local courts earlier this year. (GoErie.com, 3/24)

Tags: fire departments, Pennsylvania, public employment

Connecticut: timed fireman test violated ADA, cont’d

Walter Olson — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:15:50 +0000

Updating our Jan. 18, 2007 post: “Connecticut’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities says that the city of Stamford violated anti-discrimination law because they wouldn’t give extra time on a promotion exam to David Lenotti. Lenotti is a fire lieutenant with attention deficit disorder.” [Excerpting coverage in the Apr. 15 Stamford Advocate*]:

The city defended the denial by claiming a fire captain, the position Lenotti sought, must be able to read and process information quickly at a fire scene. But state officials said the city never proved that was true, never consulted with disability rights experts and does not use a promotional test that actually measures how fast a candidate can read.

(Dave Statter, Apr. 20; Created Things, Apr. 16; decision in PDF format). More: Daniel Schwartz has more analysis (May 3): if you want a fire captain to be able to read quickly at emergency scene, gotta spell that out explicitly in the job description.
*An odd aspect of the Stamford Advocate article, preserved on GoogleCache: it quotes disability consultant Suzanne Kitchen making the very same comment, word for word, that we criticized her for making more than a year ago. Does Ms. Kitchen really repeat herself so precisely?

Tags: Connecticut, disabled rights, fire departments

On gender, L.A. fire department can’t win for losing

Walter Olson — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:14:26 +0000

Like pretty much every big-city fire department, the one in Los Angeles has come under intense legal pressure to hire more female applicants, and in doing so to water down or eliminate whatever former prerequisites for hiring (such as physical tests calling for a show of upper-body strength) show “disparate impact” against women. And having been whipped up one side of the street on those grounds, it now gets whipped down the other side for having apparently responded in the most direct and practical way to the first set of legal pressures:

In the latest bizarre court case involving the Los Angeles Fire Department, a jury has awarded $3.75 million to a male fire captain who said he was retaliated against for not making training exercises easier for women.

Fire Capt. Frank Lima alleged in his lawsuit against the city that he was told by superiors that he shouldn’t hold women to the same standards as men. The reason: The Fire Department was under pressure from City Hall to increase the number of women within its ranks.

Thursday’s judgment in the 2 1/2 -week case in Los Angeles County Superior Court was notable because it involved $2.96 million in noneconomic damages — in other words, money for pain and suffering.

In his lawsuit, Lima alleged that he suffered heart problems and stress after the department tried to punish him and subsequently denied him certain assignments.

(Steve Hymon, “L.A. fire captain awarded $3.75 million”, Los Angeles Times, Jul. 9). For more on the legal pressures on fire departments to relax performance standards that women have trouble meeting, see Jan. 18. For a related set of sued-if-you-do, sued-if-you-don’t dilemmas for fire departments, see Mar. 24, 2005 (reverse discrimination suits by whites after Chicago altered rules to encourage black applicants). Finally, we covered (Dec. 5, 2006 and earlier posts) the saga of the $2.7 million settlement that the LAFD paid to a firefighter subjected to a prank in which he was tricked into eating dog food.

Tags: fire departments, firefighters, Los Angeles, workplace

“Calculating damages: a formula for outrage”

Walter Olson — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 00:04:25 +0000

Latest in the Tennie Pierce (firehouse dog food prank) saga: Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez finds reader sentiment heavily taking the view that the $2.7 million settlement figure is stark raving bonkers (Dec. 3). He speaks with Chief Assistant City Atty. Gary Geuss to get a feel for how the number was arrived at:

“The mediator said Pierce would be a good witness, his wife would be good and his daughter was going to get on the stand and start crying,” says Geuss….

In one case that went to trial two years ago, an L.A. cop got $4.1 million in a racial discrimination and retaliation case despite having made his own disparaging racial remarks.

Juries tend to jump at the chance to stick it to employers, Geuss said. When prospective jurors are asked if any of them have had issues with their bosses, “About 90% of the hands go up.”

Geuss began doing the math….

The L.A. Times’s news side, according to blogger Patterico, has begun belatedly acknowledging some of the flaws in Pierce’s case (Dec. 3; Jim Newton, “Dog food lawsuit a test for L.A. mayor”, Dec. 3). Earlier: Nov. 11, Nov. 22, Nov. 29, Dec. 2.

Tags: fire departments, juries, police, Tennie Pierce, workplace

Overlawyered » fire departments

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