State’s Top Court Refuses To Restore Firefighters’ Award

The state Supreme Court refused Wednesday to reinstate a San Francisco jury’s $3.7 million damage award to 15 firefighters who claimed age discrimination in the city’s scoring of a 2008 exam on promotions to lieutenant. The Superior Court jury agreed with the firefighters in 2013 that the Fire Department’s exam unit had weighed some parts of the test more than others, and ranked the test-takers, in ways that were unrelated to fitness for the promotion, and that had an adverse effect on applicants older than 40.