Sotomayor debate isn’t Ricci’s first legal battle

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Frank Ricci’s name is on the lips of almost every senator in the Supreme Court nomination hearings of Sonia Sotomayor. His buddies know the 35-year-old New Haven firefighter by other names.

They call him Cushion because another firefighter landed on him when the two fell more than 10 feet at a Yale University building under construction. They also call him Halligan — for a tool that knocks down doors.

Ricci is the dyslexic, white firefighter who, denied a promotion, filed a reverse discrimination suit that Sotomayor joined in dismissing. He’s never been one to shy away from a legal fight when confronted with obstacles in his career.

Ricci’s toughness will be tested Thursday when he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee about her nomination to join the Supreme Court, which recently overturned that ruling against him.

He sat quietly in the Senate hearing room in Washington on Wednesday, watching the proceedings with about a dozen fellow firefighters.

Republicans have seized on the case and argue that it shows Sotomayor would let her own feelings color her legal decisions. They want Ricci to talk about the promotion exam that New Haven threw out when white firefighters did well on it, but too few minorities qualified for promotion. Sotomayor said she was merely following precedent.

Lead plaintiff in the case, Ricci is no stranger to legal troubles or triumphs.

As a teenager, Ricci became the youngest certified emergency medical technician in Connecticut, according to his brother, Jim, also a Connecticut firefighter.

Ricci filed a federal lawsuit in 1995 alleging he was not selected for the New Haven Fire Department because he had dyslexia, which impairs the ability to read. That lawsuit was settled in 1997, and Ricci joined the department.

Before that, Ricci was fired as a probationary firefighter in Middletown, Conn. He protested that his dismissal was retaliation because he had investigated the department’s response to a fire on behalf of the union. But a state investigation cleared the fire chief of any wrongdoing.

Ricci later challenged the fire chief’s training credentials and championed a state whistleblower law designed to protect employees who speak out.

In 1998, Ricci was a probationary firefighter in New Haven when he was credited with saving a woman’s life in a fire by lifting her out of a third-story window and carrying her down a 30-foot ladder.

These days Ricci drives a fire truck, frequently in the busiest part of New Haven that includes Yale’s Gothic architecture, multifamily houses and downtown, said Lt. Jim Kottage, a fellow plaintiff in the case and union official who works at another New Haven fire station. Ricci’s job is to climb a ladder and attack roofs to let heat and smoke escape to prevent infernos.

“It’s very hard, fast work,” Kottage said. “It’s very physical. It’s very dangerous. He’s very good.” Kottage called Ricci a “very conscientious, ambitious, well rounded firefighter.”

Said Jim Ricci: “The only hobby Frankie has is the fire service. He lives it every day. He breathes it day and night.”

After Ricci suffered a shoulder injury in the fall at Yale, he organized a program that helped injured firefighters recover by coordinating doctors and therapists for exercises that help firefighters pull hoses and lift ladders.

Ricci is bidding to become a lieutenant, which would give him a $6,000-to-$7,000 raise and more training opportunity. When the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned Sotomayor’s panel in a 5-4 decision last month, he stood on the steps of City Hall and declared: “If you work hard, you can succeed in America.”

But it’s not that simple, say Sotomayor’s defenders.

The liberal group People for the American Way said the dyslexic man got his firefighting job in New Haven in the first place by claiming discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“I don’t think Mr. Ricci thought that his being hired was a case of reverse discrimination against those who weren’t disabled,” says Marge Baker, the group’s vice president. “But you can’t have it both ways. These laws can’t be good when you use them to protect yourself and bad when they’re used to protect someone else.”

Sensitivities are so high on both sides of the Sotomayor debate that when some liberal activists drew attention to Ricci’s litigious record, conservatives were quick to call it a smear campaign — “the worst of gutter politics,” in the words of his attorney, Karen Torre.

Sotomayor, asked about him in earlier testimony, said any attempt to smear Ricci would be “reprehensible.”

Even a title for him other than firefighter caused a brouhaha.

The original witness list had him listed as “Director of Fire Services, ConnectiCOSH (Connecticut Council on Occupational Safety and Health).” The group complained, saying Ricci does not hold “any elected or appointed position” with them. He is now listed as just being with the New Haven Fire Department.