United States v. City of Milwaukee

481 F. Supp. 1162, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7988, 22 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 30,696
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedDecember 14, 1979
DocketCiv. A. No. 74-C-480
StatusPublished

This text of 481 F. Supp. 1162 (United States v. City of Milwaukee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. City of Milwaukee, 481 F. Supp. 1162, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7988, 22 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 30,696 (E.D. Wis. 1979).

Opinion

FINDINGS OF FACT, CONCLUSIONS OF LAW, AND ORDER

REYNOLDS, Chief Judge:

On October 17, 1974, this Court entered a consent decree which enjoined the Milwaukee Fire Department from engaging in any employment practice that has the purpose or effect of discriminating on the basis of sex against applicants to or employees of [1163]*1163the Fire Department. The order was modified in October 1976 to provide that 5 per cent of the firefighter appointments would go to females. On June 14, 1979, plaintiff moved the court for supplemental relief pursuant to paragraph 18 of the 1974 consent decree. The motion requested that women be trained as paramedics without first passing the training academy course for firefighters, and that Mary Polasek and Sue Bethke be offered immediate appointments and an opportunity to be trained as paramedics.

A hearing was held by this court on October 26,1979, on the question of whether the Fire Department should be required to train women as paramedics without first requiring them to pass the fire training academy course. The Court has concluded that the Fire Department should be so required, and on the basis of the following discussion and the findings of fact and conclusions of law, the motion for supplemental relief is granted as indicated in the order.

Under Title VII law, the procedure is that the plaintiff must show that discrimination exists. Then the burden shifts to the employer who must show a “business necessity” for the practice in question. If a business necessity is established, the plaintiff can try to show that other selection procedures would serve the employer’s legitimate interests. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 45 L.Ed.2d 245 (1975); Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158 (1971).

The stance of the instant case is such that the hearing centered on the Fire Department’s attempts to show a business necessity for its requirement that all Milwaukee paramedics be qualified firefighters, i. e., that they pass the fire training academy course. Defendants attempted to establish (1) that the paramedics must be able to fight fires should it ever become necessary for them to do so, and (2) that due to the high stress encountered in their jobs, paramedics must be trained firefighters so that they can be returned to firefighter duties after they “burn out” as paramedics.

As the following findings of fact and conclusions of law show, the Court has determined that the defendants did not meet their burden of establishing that paramedics were used in firefighting duties in the regular course of Fire Department operations, nor did defendants convince the Court that the possibility of burnout constitutes a business necessity for requiring paramedics to qualify as firefighters. It is unconvincing to say that a person who burns out as a paramedic should then operate efficiently in another high stress occupation, that of firefighter. If, however, as some of the testimony indicated, the paramedics would be transferred to non-firefighting duties within the Fire Department, then the defendants can establish no business necessity that such paramedics be qualified firefighters.

Additionally, at this time the Court will deny without prejudice those parts of the motion which deal with individual relief for Mary Polasek and Sue Bethke. As the Court indicated at the commencement of the hearing, those issues are not ripe. Under the instant order of the court, the two women, like other women, can apply to become paramedics in the City of Milwaukee.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. This Court entered a consent decree on October 17, 1974, which enjoined the Milwaukee Fire Department from engaging in any employment practice that has the purpose or effect of discriminating on the basis of sex against applicants to or employees of the Fire Department. (Joint pretrial report, ¶ 2, filed September 5, 1979.)

2. The Court entered supplemental orders on October 14,1978, directing that the Fire Department seek to achieve the goal of giving 5 per cent of its firefighter appointments to women. (Joint pretrial report, Is 3 — 4, filed September 5, 1979.)

3. The Milwaukee Fire Department conducts a paramedic program and selects and trains paramedics exclusively from among [1164]*1164firefighters serving in the department. (Joint pretrial report, Is 5-6, filed September 5, 1979.)

4. The full complement of paramedics is forty-eight (48), but there has been a shortage of paramedics for several months. (Deposition of Chief William Stamm, filed August 30,1979.) There are now forty-four (44) paramedics in the Milwaukee Fire Department. (Cross-examination of Chief William Stamm.)

5. In order to become a firefighter, a candidate must pass the Milwaukee Fire Department’s twelve-week training course for firefighters. (Cross-examination of Chief William Stamm and Ernest Johnson.)

6. No woman has ever passed the Milwaukee Fire Department’s training course and become a firefighter. (Cross-examina-. tion of Chief William Stamm.)

7. No woman has ever served as a paramedic in the Milwaukee Fire Department. (Joint pretrial report, ¶8, filed September 5, 1979.)

8. The requirement that a potential paramedic first pass the Fire Department’s training course and become a firefighter has excluded all women from becoming paramedics in the Milwaukee Fire Department.

9. Firefighter paramedics in the Milwaukee Fire Department work full time as paramedics after receiving extensive training in emergency medicine. Paramedic units are assigned to certain fire stations and are dispatched by Fire Department dispatchers. They respond to calls in an ambulancelike vehicle and provide emergency medical services under the supervision of physicians who coordinate all paramedic services for Milwaukee County. Paramedics treat cardiac patients, victims of injuries, and a wide variety of other medical emergencies. (Deposition of John Gutowski, filed August 30, 1979, and cross-examination of Chief William Stamm.)

10. Paramedics seldom, if ever, perform firefighting duties (and are never relied upon to extinguish fires) during their regular work week. Some paramedics volunteer for overtime “special duty” assignments which may involve firefighting duty. (Depositions of Lt. Edward Wergin, Gerald Gifford, and William Wengel, filed August 30, 1979.)

11. Paramedics in the Fire Department perform a job that is different in kind from that of firefighters. Paramedics so seldom assist in fire duties of any kind as to make these occasional activities de minimis. Moreover, there has been no showing that civilian paramedics, including, women, could not assist the firefighters in the ways paramedics now occasionally do without being full-fledged firefighters.

12. Non-firefighters, including women, perform competently as paramedics in many American cities and execute all the tasks performed by firefighter paramedics in Milwaukee. In some cities, such as Chicago, “civilians” (i. e., non-firefighters), including women, are employed as paramedics by the Fire Department; they wear the Fire Department’s paramedic uniform and staff the paramedic units stationed in the firehouses. (Testimony of Dr. Vera Morkovin, Dr. Norman McSwain, and Paramedic Patricia Flood.)

13.

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Related

Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
401 U.S. 424 (Supreme Court, 1971)
City of Richmond v. United States
422 U.S. 358 (Supreme Court, 1975)
Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody
422 U.S. 405 (Supreme Court, 1975)
Dothard v. Rawlinson
433 U.S. 321 (Supreme Court, 1977)

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Bluebook (online)
481 F. Supp. 1162, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7988, 22 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 30,696, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-city-of-milwaukee-wied-1979.