Trending Topics

Ohio firefighters reach settlement in promotion suit

The settlement, which avoided a third trial, requires the city to pay $1.04 million in back pay and pre-judgment interest to the firefighters

Akron Beacon Journal

AKRON, Ohio — If retired Akron firefighter William Howe had it to do over again, he wouldn’t sue the city for its fire promotions test.

Howe said he lost friends over the case in which he was the lead plaintiff and the suit was among the reasons he retired earlier than he’d planned last year.

“It’s been a long time,” Howe said in an interview Wednesday, just hours after a settlement was announced in the long-pending William Howe v. Akron federal lawsuit. “I would never do this again. I felt really bad. It’s why I left.”

Howe and two of the other plaintiff firefighters were in court Tuesday for a marathon session between their attorneys and the city’s lawyers. The firefighters had long ago been designated to make decisions for the 23 plaintiffs. The firefighters agreed to the terms hashed out Tuesday.

The settlement, which avoided a third trial in the case, requires Akron to pay $1.04 million in back pay and pre-judgment interest to the firefighters.

“This allows them to look in the rear-view mirror and say, ‘God, that decade is over,’?” said Bruce Elfvin, an attorney for the firefighters.

The main issue still remaining is attorney fees, with the two sides scheduled to appear Dec. 8 before the new federal judge assigned to the case. Elfvin estimates that bill at $2.5 million.

Elfvin thinks the removal of U.S. District Court Judge John Adams from the case — an unusual step taken by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in September — helped the two sides finally reach a settlement. The Sixth Circuit removed Adams at the request of the firefighters and the city. U.S. District Court Judge Sara Lioi is now handling the suit.

“I think the parties getting somebody who had a different temperament didn’t hurt,” Elfvin said.

Howe also tipped his hat to Lioi, saying she was stern but personable.

“I really like that judge,” he said.

Law Director Patty Ambrose Rubright praised the judge as well and said the daylong settlement meeting was much different than previous resolution attempts in the case.

“Despite the adverse positions, Judge Lioi did a superb job of bringing the parties together,” Rubright said.

Rubright said the city will have to look at its finances and figure out how to pay for the back pay, interest and attorney fees. She said settlements in civil suits aren’t covered by insurance.

“The budget will determine how the settlement is paid,” she said.

The promotions lawsuit stems from a discrimination challenge by Akron firefighters who took a promotional test in 2004. The slow-moving litigation resulted in a long halt to promotions in the department. Firefighters routinely filled in as officers on a temporary basis when they had less training and earned lower pay than permanently promoted firefighters.

Akron gave its first promotional test in nearly a decade in February and promoted 45 firefighters to lieutenant in July — the most promoted at once to a single rank in the department’s history. Among them were the first female firefighters promoted in the fire department’s history.

After the attorney fees are settled, the other remaining issue in the suit is for the two sides to agree to a new promotional test for captains. That process is in progress and Akron is hoping to give the test by early next year.

Akron also is planning to give a deputy chief test next year, which isn’t subject to the Howe suit. The city currently has one captain and no deputy chiefs who are permanently promoted officers, with firefighters filling in from lower ranks.

With the captain and deputy chief promotions, the fire department’s rank structure will be restored to its previous strength, though the promotions may have a trickle-down impact on lower ranks, requiring more firefighters to be boosted in rank.

City and union leaders hope to reach an agreement in negotiations that will begin soon about a new method for fire promotions, one that is expected to be more fair and to avoid years of litigation.

“If we are able to get an educational promotion process, we will be a more educated department and our officers will be better trained,” said Russ Brode, president of the fire union, which wasn’t involved in the Howe suit.

“This is a very litigious area — not just in Akron but across the country — a very expensive, morale-destroying form of litigation, as we’ve certainly experienced here in the city,” Rubright said.

Howe, 55, who retired last October, said he joined the lawsuit to try to force the city to come up with a promotional process that was fair and equitable. He was among the plaintiff firefighters who Adams ordered Akron to promote in 2011. That’s when Howe finally became a captain, the rank he sought when promotional tests were given in 2004.

Howe said he isn’t sure how much back pay he and the other firefighters will receive, but he doesn’t expect it to be a large amount once it is divided among them. For him and the other plaintiffs, he said the lawsuit was always more about improving the process.

“We were never about the money,” he said. “We wanted to try to make the city be held responsible for their actions on giving that kind of a test.”

Copyright 2015 Akron Beacon Journal
All Rights Reserved

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU