United States First Circuit

In minority police officers' disparate impact race claim under Title VII against a state agency that prepares and administers promotional examinations for local police officers under the state civil service system, their employers, various cities, and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), district court's denial of Eleventh Amendment immunity for the state defendants, the state of Massachusetts and a chief human resources officers of the Human Resources Division (HRD) in his official capacity, is reversed where: 1) the state defendants do not qualify as employers as that term is used in Title VII; 2) HRD cannot be deemed plaintiffs' de facto employer as it exercised no control, direct or indirect, over the factors relevant to the common law agency test; and 3) plaintiffs' alternate theories why HRD should be considered their employer under Title VII are rejected.

Appellate Information

• Decided 12/03/2009
• Published 12/03/2009

Judges

• LYNCH, Chief Judge., Before LYNCH, Chief Judge, TORRUELLA and HOWARD, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States First Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Sookyoung Shin, Assistant Attorney General, and Robert L. Quinan, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, with whom Martha Coakley, Attorney General of Massachusetts, was on brief for appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Harold Lichten, with whom Leah Berrault and Lichten & Liss-Riordan, P.C. were on brief for appellees.