Massachusetts Civil Service Commission Overrules Bypass Of Female Applicant

The Massachusetts Civil Service Commission has granted the appeal of an applicant for the Brockton Fire Department, concluding that the city did not have proper grounds to bypass her last year. Yasmine Estrella was ranked fourth on the Brockton Fire Department’s hiring list established in 2021.

In 2023, when the department sought to hire sixteen new firefighters, Estrella was bypassed. The city’s stated reasons related to missing information on her application and inconsistencies in her residency information.

Commissioner Angela C. McConney found the city’s stated reasons for bypassing Estrella to be inadequate. Quoting from the decision:

• The City has failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that it conducted a fair, impartial and sufficiently thorough review that resulted in valid reasons that bear negatively on the Appellant’s current fitness to perform the duties and responsibilities of a Brockton firefighter.
• First, the City failed to submit into evidence a simple background investigation report outlining the findings of the investigator to support the reasons cited in the bypass letter.
• Second, the City failed to call the background investigator as a witness.
• Third, while the City relied heavily on a conclusion that Ms. Estrella violated the state’s firearms law, they failed to produce sufficient evidence to prove that. The City relied on statements contained within the City-issued bypass letter from a previous hiring cycle, expecting the Commission to accept those assertions as fact with no supporting documentation. Further, it appears that the City did not even ask the Appellant to produce the LTC that she apparently possessed during the appliable residency period.
• The City’s dearth of evidence and lack of thoroughness is particularly troubling given the damning and potentially career-damaging conclusions of the Department, whose make-up is 86% white and 99% male, that a female candidate of color is “untruthful” and “deceptive”. A finding that an applicant for a public safety position has violated the duty of truthfulness requires that any such charges must be carefully scrutinized so that the applicant is not unreasonably disparaged for honest mistakes or good faith mutual misunderstandings.
• Fourth, even if Ms. Estrella, as alleged, failed to timely update her LTC, the City has failed to show that there was some nefarious intent or that the failure to do so makes her unfit to be a Brockton firefighter.
• Fifth, the cursory notes from interview panelists, at least one of whom the Fire Chief struggled to identify because the panelist failed to list his name, were not sufficiently reliable to prove dishonesty on the part of Ms. Estrella. Ironically, the Fire Chief appeared unfazed by the failure of an incumbent member of his command staff to follow instructions and simply list his name on the interview panelist form, a glaring double-standard when compared against the high standard expected of Ms. Estrella regarding the need to provide required information.
• Sixth, a fundamental question related to Ms. Estrella’s residency was whether she resided continuously in Brockton from March 21, 2019 to March 21, 2020. Setting aside the issue of the LTC, for which the City has not provided sufficient evidence to support its conclusions, a large trove of documents supports Ms. Estrella’s assertion that she did indeed meet this requirement, including bank statements, mortgage statements, a homeowner’s insurance policy and RMV records.
• Seventh, I conclude that the City failed to account for numerous positive attributes presented by Ms. Estrella or explain how those attributes outweighed the alleged problems with her application. The City’s review process neglected Ms. Estrella’s rather remarkable success story. She grew up in Brockton, went to live with her grandparents in Brighton where she became president of the national honor society in high school, served our country on active military duty in Kosovo, and then returned to attain a bachelor’s degree and embark on a successful career in property management. While years of Commission and judicial decisions establish that Appointing Authorities have discretion in weighing a candidate’s positives against their negatives, they do not have the discretion to ignore the accomplishments of a candidate and unfairly tarnish that candidate’s reputation without a careful, thoughtful review supported by a preponderance of the evidence.

The Commission ordered Estrella’s name to be placed at the top of the hiring list for future openings with the Brockton Fire Department. The city was also directed to:

• ensure that its interview panel is representative of the community it serves, both in terms of sex and race, and shall develop questions and criteria (beyond poise, appearance, confidence, etc.) that provide a more accurate assessment of a candidate’s ability to perform the essential functions of a firefighter.