Hundreds of black and Latino job applicants have accused Denver of discriminating against them by giving them an employment test that was not validated and that favored non-minorities.

The city admits that the test discriminated in eight of 21 job classifications, so the federal trial that began Monday mostly revolves around the amount of damages claimed by more than 900 plaintiffs.

Plaintiff attorney Joaquin Padilla argued that total damages, including compensatory damages, amount to more than $18.3 million.

Franklin Nachman, attorney for Denver, said during opening arguments Monday that the total damages are just over $310,000.

The class-action lawsuit is being argued in front of U.S. District Chief Judge Marcia Krieger instead of a jury.

Denver used the AccuPlacer/WritePlacer job application tests between January 2005 and February 2008 to establish the eligibility of applicants.

Padilla argued that a statistically disproportionate number of black and Latino applicants failed the tests that he said had never been validated scientifically.

Only 25 percent of white applicants failed the tests, while around 42 percent of black and Latino people failed the tests, Padilla said.

He said experts will testify that there is an extremely low probability that the failure disparity between races was by chance.

Nachman said the city has acknowledged that the tests unfairly excluded black and Latino job applicants in eight of 21 job categories.

“The city does not take the position that plaintiffs were not impacted,” he said.

Denver is arguing only about the extent of the damages, he said.

He said the plaintiffs are claiming damages for more than 900 people, even though fewer than half of that number were hired for all of the positions filled.

In one instance, the chance of getting hired was one in more than 300, Nachman said.

Also, plaintiffs used the median salary for each position to calculate damages, which is demonstrably higher than the amounts paid to people who were hired, he said.

In addition, some members of the class-action lawsuit, including Marian Kerner, one of two named plaintiffs, retook the test and passed it, Nachman said.

Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, kmitchell@denverpost.com or @kirkmitchell or denverpost.com/coldcases