Well, that didn’t take too long.

Just a few months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Ricci v. DeStefano, a black firefighter filed suit yesterday in U.S. District Court alleging that he was unfairly denied promotion to the position of lieutenant because of the city’s scoring of a 2003 promotional exam. 

You can download the complaint here. 

The case (H/T New Haven Independent) "alleges that the city weighs the oral and written components of the exam differently from how other cities do, in a way that has a disparate impact on African-Americans and resulted in Briscoe being denied promotion."

A lawsuit like this was certainly expected at some point or another.  It was just a question of when. The larger question, however, is what will happen next. After all the Supreme Court, in its Ricci decision, suggested a suit like this might occur and offered a possible defense:

Our holding today clarifies how Title VII applies to resolve competing expectations under the disparate-treatment and disparate-impact provisions. If, after it certifies the test results, the City faces a disparate-impact suit, then in light of our holding today it should be clear that the City would avoid disparate-impact liability based on the strong basis in evidence that, had it not certified the results, it would have been subject to disparate-treatment liability.

This language suggests that the City may indeed have a fair strong defense to this lawsuit but still, it will no doubt be litigating it for some time to come.  There will also be issues of statutes of limitations that may also pop up.

Although the spotlight has turned away from the Ricci case after Justice Sotomayor’s confirmation, this new lawsuit (and potentially others coming) signal a continuation of a drama that has yet to have its final act written.

(Further H/T CT News Junkie)