Two veteran firefighters are awaiting the outcome of a landmark legal action alleging discrimination on the grounds of disability.

Michael Roberts and Stephen Hayward were forced to retire after years of service due to heart conditions. They say they should have been offered non-operational duties such as fire prevention instead.

They are now suing the Minister of Labour, Home Affairs and Public Safety and the Chief Fire Officer for what legal papers describe as “the loss of dignity that they suffered for being forced to retire from the Bermuda Fire Service as well as damages for the wages that were lost between the time of their forced retirements and their original retirement dates.”

Lawyer Allan Doughty, who represents them along with Delroy Duncan, told this newspaper that the action is a notable one under the Human Rights Act.

“To my knowledge, this is the first disability discrimination case to be brought forward, and definitely the first to be heard in the Supreme Court of Bermuda,” he said.

The Minister and Fire Service contested the action, with their lawyer Gregory Howard denying that the firefighters were treated less favourably that non-disabled members of the service.

If there was less favourable treatment, legal papers say, it was justified on the grounds that operational fitness is a requirement of returning to duties.

“Offering the plaintiffs employment when they were not operationally fit would put the public, fellow firefighters and their own safety at risk,” say the defence papers.

Mr. Roberts and Mr. Hayward originally filed a human rights complaint in October 2000. According to court papers, the Human Rights Commission investigated, but the Minister declined to forward the complaint to a Board of Inquiry in 2000.

They initiated legal proceedings in the Supreme Court in 2003 in a complex case that finally made it to trial last week.

During the trial, Mr. Roberts and Mr. Hayward detailed how they were both diagnosed with heart conditions in 1999. Mr. Roberts, from Warwick, suffered a heart attack while Mr. Hayward, from Smith’s, was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy — a condition that required him to be fitted with a pacemaker.

Both were forced to take sick leave but cleared to return to work on light duties in the spring of 2000.

According to their legal papers, they were told no such duties were available, forcing them to retire on medical grounds.

Mr. Hayward was a Sergeant with 30 years of service behind him at the time, and just 18 months left until he reached the retirement age of 55. Mr. Roberts had 29 years of service and three years left.

They are asking the court to find that their heart conditions classed them as “disabled persons”, and in being retired they were discriminated against under the Human Rights Act, which protects such persons.

The pair claim that while they were disabled to the point where they could not continue their previous duties as fire officers, they could and should have been found alternative work on non-operational duties as they both had experience in fire prevention and administration.

Alternatively, they say, their employers could have looked for alternative opportunities elsewhere in the Civil Service.

Their court papers allege, however, “that they were singled out for dismissal due to the fact that they had personal difficulties with then Chief Fire Officer Reginald Rawlins and current Chief Fire Officer Vincent Hollinsid prior to their respective illnesses”.

The men claim Mr. Hollinsid told them there were no light duties available. However, they say he stated in court papers that unlimited sick leave was available — and should therefore have kept them on sick leave until light duties became available. Their case papers cite examples of other firefighters placed on non-operational duties for years due to medical conditions.

Chief Justice Richard Ground is set to deliver his ruling in a few weeks.