Yesterday, the City of Chicago City Council approved an $11.25 million settlement in a sex discrimination lawsuit brought by 11 brave HSPRD clients against the City of Chicago. The 11 women were represented by HSPRD attorneys Christopher Wilmes and Charlie Wysong, along with co-counsel Marni Willenson of Willenson Law LLC.
The lawsuit alleges that in 2014 and 2015, the City of Chicago terminated the women’s employment as candidate fire paramedics based on physical tests that failed only women and that had no relation to the job. Four of the women were seriously injured on the tests such that they were no longer capable of lifting the weight needed to continue working as ambulance paramedics.
The first physical test required paramedic candidates to hold 25-pound weights in each hand and step up and down from an 18-inch box to the beat of a metronome ticking 112 beats per minute for 2 minutes straight without missing more than a beat. The second test required candidates to carry a stair chair loaded with a 250-pound dummy up and then down 60 steps with a partner. Many Chicago paramedics testified that these two physical tests were not realistic representations of tasks performed on the job. Paramedics do not step up and down from an 18-inch step for two minutes straight, and they do not carry patients up and then immediately down sixty steps. The tests were never professionally validated, and they were used to fire women and only women.
This lawsuit follows in the footsteps of Ernst v. City of Chicago, another HSPRD victory, in which the Seventh Circuit ruled that a pre-hire physical test used by the Chicago Fire Department was discriminatory and illegal.
The $11.25 million settlement represents a critical acknowledgment of the injustices faced by the women in the CFD. We remain hopeful that this settlement will pave the way for lasting changes in the treatment of women in the Chicago Fire Department.
