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Kelly v. City of New Haven9/27/2005
been brought against them in their individual capacities, the claims remaining against the city preclude finality in this case.
In their supplemental briefs, the plaintiffs and the defendants both contend that the partial judgment granting equitable relief is appealable because the city's rights are now fixed in relation to the permanent injunction. The plaintiffs cite Glasson v. Portland, 6 Conn. App. 229, 231 n.3, 504 A.2d 550 (1986), for the proposition that an appeal may be heard when an injunction has determined a party's rights, even though a hearing on damages had not yet been held. In that case, however, all issues raised in the complaint had been resolved by the court. Id., 231. Similarly, in other cases in which a party has been permitted to appeal an injunction absent a determination of the damages, all issues alleged in the complaint as to liability had been determined, leaving only the issue of the amount of damages owed. See Walton v. New Hartford, 223 Conn. 155, 162 n.9, 612 A.2d 1153 (1992); Ricci v. Naples, 108 Conn. 19, 22, 142 A. 452 (1928). In contrast, liability is still being contested with respect to a majority of the counts in the revised complaint in the Kelly case. Thus, it cannot be said that finality exists in that case for purposes of subject matter jurisdiction. We, therefore, conclude that our subject matter jurisdiction is limited to the appeal from the partial judgment rendered in the Burns case.
II.
We now turn to the merits of this appeal, namely, whether the methodology employed by the defendants, whereby they applied the rule of three to score groups created by rounding, was permissible under the charter. The defendants challenge the trial court's partial judgment on two separate grounds. First, they contend that, in the absence of a charter provision or rule directing how the city's civil service examinations are to be scored, the trial court improperly determined that rounding scores violates the charter, given the defendants' unrefuted evidence that it is reasonable and customary in employment testing to round off scores to account for the standard error of measurement in a test. Second, the defendants contend that the trial court improperly concluded that the defendants' use of score groups contravenes the charter provision limiting the number of applicants who can be considered for any position to three when the 1993 revision to the charter removed that limitation.
Beckwith, the only plaintiff remaining in the Burns case; see footnote 22 of this opinion; responds in kind to the defendants' two part argument. First, Beckwith contends that rounding or altering competitive scores so as to create unnecessary tie scores and increased discretion for the appointing authority violates the charter because the defendants' practice thwarts the char-ter's purpose of limiting, as far as possible, favoritism and partisanship, and leads to absurd results. Second, Beckwith counters that score grouping violates the clear and unambiguous rule of three language in the charter and civil service rules, which limits the discretion of the promoting authority to choosing from among three applicants. We agree with Beckwith that the trial court properly concluded that the defendants' methodology violates the charter, although we reach that conclusion by different reasoning.
As we begin our analysis, we underscore the lens through which we view the issue before us. The issue is whether the methodology employed by the defendants violates the charter. This methodology, however, consists of two interrelated practices: first, the defendants round examination scores to create broad score groups; then they apply the rule of three to those broad sc
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