Firefighters v. Boston Chapter, NAACP

Background

A firefighters union, a police association, and civil-rights groups challenged how Boston handled layoffs in 1981. The District Court had ordered the Police and Fire Departments not to lay off officers in a way that would reduce the percentage of minority officers below the level that existed when layoffs began in July 1981. Those orders partly overrode Massachusetts’s usual civil service rule that the last hired are the first fired.

Reasoning

The central question before the Supreme Court was whether changes in state law had made the appeals court’s decision moot (no longer a live dispute). After the First Circuit affirmed the injunctions, Massachusetts passed a law that provided new city revenues, required reinstatement of all police and firefighters laid off during the reductions, protected them from future fiscal layoffs, and required minimum staffing through June 30, 1983. In light of those changed circumstances, the Court vacated the Court of Appeals’ judgment and sent the cases back for lower courts to consider mootness in light of the new statute. The Supreme Court did not decide the underlying merits of the original staffing or discrimination claims.

Real world impact

Practically, the state law restored and protected the jobs of the laid-off Boston police and firefighters and changed how the federal injunctions would operate immediately. Because the Supreme Court vacated the appeals-court judgment and returned the matter for further consideration, the ultimate legal resolution of the original dispute remains open pending lower-court review.