Jury Rejects Claims Black Springfield, MA, Firefighters Denied Promotions

SPRINGFIELD — A pair of city firefighters suffered a loss in federal court after a jury rejected claims they had been passed over for promotions because they are Black.

The jury delivered its verdict Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court. This was after plaintiffs, retired District Chief Marc Savage and Lt. Randolph Blake, filed a claim in Hampden Superior Court, alleging racially-charged discrimination and a hostile work environment. The case ended up in federal court.

“You never picked any cotton. Get over it,” read one Facebook post logged by their white colleagues in 2016, according to court records.

After a two-week trial in U.S. District Court, the panel rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that they had been passed over for promotions because of their race.

City Solicitor Stephen J. Buoniconti said the verdict saved taxpayers millions.

“The initial demand by the plaintiffs was $18 million and then it dropped to $10 million,” Buoniconti said during an interview on Wednesday. “There was a lot of financial danger for us. The attorneys’ fees alone would have been a very large number.”

The defendants were the city, prior Fire Commissioner Joseph Conant and current Commissioner B.J. Calvi.

There has not yet been a price tag placed on that figure for attorneys’ fees, but Buoniconti lauded city attorneys Lisa DeSousa and Edward Pikula for trying the case.

Pikula previously said he believes each of the allegations regarding social media posts were investigated, and in cases where the city received timely information to corroborate violation of department rules, resulted “in discipline, up to and including termination.”

Pikula, in response to a request for information from The Republican, did not identify which department employees were disciplined, and the specific penalties.

The federal suit also alleged:

That the city created a hostile work environment that led to a verbal assault and “offensive racial slurs” against Blake by a firefighter in June 2019. The city was previously warned about prior alleged social media harassment and physical threats to Blake and Savage, but the behavior was not addressed, the suit said.
That Savage spoke with Calvi in March 2019 about his concerns that he was being subjected to discrimination and retaliation by a district chief due to active lawsuits against the city. The suit claims that Calvi in response said that if Savage wanted to be promoted to district chief, he needed “to leave the legal issue of residency outside the department.” Savage was promoted to district chief in February 2020.
That in late 2019, the city threatened disciplinary action against Blake after he complained to a Human Resources official about the department’s alleged discriminatory hiring.

Blake remains on the city payroll.

“Savage was promoted again and again,” Buoniconti said.

A call placed to the plaintiffs’ attorney was not returned.

Material from former staff writer Peter Goonan was used for this story.