UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

)

VERNON ROSS and DEBRA JOSEY,

on behalf of themselves and all others 

similarly situated,

)

)

)

)

Plaintiffs, )

)

v. ) No. 16-cv-2508 (KBJ)

)

LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP., )

)

Defendant. )

)

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Named Plaintiffs Vernon Ross and Debra Josey (“Plaintiffs”) allege that 

Defendant Lockheed Martin Corporation (“Lockheed”) has “engaged in a pattern or 

practice of employment discrimination” that is “manifest[] in Lockheed Martin’s 

performance appraisal system.” (Compl., ECF No. 1, ¶ 11.) According to Ross and 

Josey, Lockheed’s annual employee performance review process is “flawed in both 

design and implementation” (id.) because “African-American non-represented, salaried 

employees below the level of Vice President have received lower overall ratings on 

their annual performance reviews as compared to similarly situated white employees” 

(id. ¶ 15), and the lower ratings have, in turn, resulted in “lower salaries, raises, [and]

bonuses, [lower] long term incentive awards, fewer promotions, and a lower retention 

rate” for African Americans at Lockheed (id. ¶ 67). Plaintiffs’ three-count complaint 

claims that Lockheed’s performance review process has been systemically injurious in a 

manner that amounts to both intentional race discrimination (see id. ¶¶ 65–68 (Count I))
2

and disparate impact race discrimination (see id. ¶¶ 70–73 (Count II)). Plaintiff Ross 

further contends, solely on his own behalf, that Lockheed retaliated against him “for 

filing a Charge of Discrimination . . . and/or complaining to senior executives at the 

Company of racial discrimination faced by him and other African-American 

employees.” (Id. ¶ 78 (Count III).)

Critically, Ross and Josey seek to prosecute the race discrimination claims on 

behalf of the following class of plaintiffs: 

[all] salaried non-represented African-American employees below 

the level of Vice President who received at least one performance 

evaluation between January 1, 2013 and February 29, 2016, with an 

overall rating below ‘significantly exceeded commitments’ while 

employed at Lockheed Martin. 

(Id. ¶ 1.) The complaint contends that the discrimination claims are susceptible to 

class-action treatment because, under Lockheed’s performance review process, there is 

an “absence of measurable indicators” of achievement, which has allegedly “resulted in 

inadequate safeguards against bias in the assessment of African American employees.” 

(Id. ¶ 18; see also id. ¶ 21 (resting the complaint’s systemic discrimination allegations 

on the fact that “[m]anagers’ comments on employee performance have not consistently 

relied on specific, measurable, time-sensitive measures of employees’ performance” and 

“[a]s a result, similar or even identical performance could garner different ratings under 

different supervisors”).) 

Plaintiffs have filed their putative class action complaint along with a proposed 

Settlement Agreement; therefore, this case has come to this Court fully formed. (See

Compl.; Settlement Agreement, ECF No. 4-1.) One key feature of the resolution that 

Plaintiffs have negotiated with Lockheed (in addition to a $22.8 million settlement fund 
3

and certain changes to Lockheed’s performance appraisal process) is the class members’

agreement to release a broad swath of potential legal claims against the company,

including claims that have nothing whatsoever to do with Lockheed’s performance 

review procedures. (See, e.g., Settlement Agreement at 22 (stating that the class 

members agree to release “any and all racial employment discrimination claims of 

whatever nature, known or unknown,” including but not limited to all “claims of alleged 

racial discrimination in employment or in the provision of employee benefits claims

under Title VII, Section 1981, ERISA[,]” and “any other federal, state, or local” law).) 1

Also noteworthy is what is not featured in the proposed Settlement Agreement:

how much money each class member can expect to receive in exchange for releasing any 

and all race discrimination claims “that were or could have been” asserted against 

Lockheed. (Id.) Plaintiffs’ counsel insists that no class member’s expected recovery 

can be determined, or even estimated, up front; rather, each class member must first 

formally accept the terms of the Settlement Agreement and complete a detailed form 

that discloses—for the first time—the potential race discrimination and/or benefits 

claims that she has already agreed to release. (See Tr. of Oral Arg. at 69.) In 

operation, then, a putative class member must decide whether to opt out of the 

Settlement Agreement before knowing (1) the nature and value of the potential legal 

claims that she might otherwise have brought against Lockheed based on her 

employment history, or (2) the amount that she is likely to receive for participating in 

the settlement and relinquishing all of her (previously undisclosed) claims. 

 1 Page-number citations to documents that the parties have filed refer to the page numbers that the 

Court’s electronic filing system automatically assigns. 
4

Before this Court at present is Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary certification of 

this case as a class action and preliminary approval of the Settlement Agreement. (See 

Pls.’ Mot. for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement Agreement (“Mot.”), 

ECF No. 4.) In the motion, Plaintiffs request that this Court make a preliminary 

determination that the complaint satisfies the requirements of a viable class action 

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, and Plaintiffs also seek preliminary approval 

of the Settlement Agreement so that the class-wide notice and detailed claim forms can 

be distributed. (See generally Mot.; Settlement Agreement.) Plaintiffs have 

consistently maintained that their putative class and proposed settlement satisfy all of 

the necessary criteria for certification and approval under Rule 23 such that this case 

should be permitted to cruise right into the notice and hearing stages of the class-wide 

settlement process. However, for the reasons explained fully below, this Court has 

reluctantly concluded that it has no choice but to pump the brakes. 

In brief, Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that the commonality prerequisite 

for Rule 23 class certification can be adequately established, because they have not 

explained how it is that Lockheed’s performance appraisal process systematically 

discriminates against African-Americans such that it qualifies as either a “general 

policy of discrimination” or a “testing procedure or other companywide evaluation 

method” that gives rise to discrimination claims that are susceptible to common proof. 

See Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 353 (2011). This Court also sees

several fairness-related red flags when it considers the terms of the proposed Settlement 

Agreement, including an egregious imbalance between the particular claims alleged in

the complaint and the scope of the class members’ release; a draconian set of 
5

consequences that results from a putative class member’s mere failure to respond to the 

class-wide notice; and a dearth of crucial information about the potential expected 

recovery in relation to the claims being released, as is required for adequate assessment 

of each putative class member’s individual settlement position. 

Consequently, not only is this Court unable to find that Plaintiffs have defined a 

certifiable class for the purpose of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 23(a) and 23(b), the 

Court must also conclude that the proposed Settlement Agreement cannot be 

preliminarily approved as “fair, reasonable, and adequate” under Rule 23(e)(2). 

Accordingly, the instant motion for preliminary approval of the Settlement Agreement

must be DENIED. A separate order consistent with this memorandum opinion will 

follow.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Dis parate Tre atment And Dis parate Impact Claims Under Title VII

Claims of employment discrimination under Title VII may proceed under both 

“disparate treatment” and “disparate impact” theories. Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 

557, 577 (2009); see also Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 431 (1971). 2 

“Disparate treatment occurs when ‘[t]he employer simply treats some people less 

favorably than others because of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.’” 

Anderson v. Zubieta, 180 F.3d 329, 338 (D.C. Cir. 1999) (alteration in original) 

(quoting Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 335 n.15 (1977)); see 

 2 The Griggs decision recognized that, even though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as originally enacted 

“did not include an express prohibition on policies or practices that produce a disparate impact[,]” 

claims of disparate impact were nevertheless available under that statute. Ricci, 557 U.S. at 577. 

Congress later amended Title VII to codify the holding of Griggs and expressly provide for disparateimpact claims. See id. at 578 (citing Civil Rights Act of 1991, Pub. L. No. 102-166, 105 Stat. 1071

(codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k)(1)(A))). 
6

also 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1) (making it unlawful for an employer “to fail or refuse to 

hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual 

with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, 

because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin”). To make 

out a prima facie case of disparate treatment discrimination, a plaintiff must prove that 

“(i) [he or she] suffered an adverse employment action (ii) because of [his or her] race, 

color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Brady v. Office of Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 

490, 493 (D.C. Cir. 2008); see also id. at 493 & n.1 (citing McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. 

Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973)). “Proof of discriminatory motive is critical for 

[disparate treatment] claims.” Anderson, 180 F.3d at 338 (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted).

By contrast, a disparate impact claim arises when “policies or practices that are 

neutral on their face and in intent . . . nonetheless discriminate in effect against a 

particular group.” Id. at 339 (emphasis added; internal quotation marks and citation 

omitted); see also 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k)(1)(A)(i) (providing that a plaintiff may 

establish a prima facie disparate impact violation by “demonstrat[ing] that a respondent 

uses a particular employment practice that causes a disparate impact on the basis of 

race, color, religion, sex, or national origin”). 3 “When presenting a disparate impact 

claim, a plaintiff must generally ‘demonstrate with statistical evidence that the practice 

or policy has an adverse effect on the protected group.’” Greater New Orleans Fair 

 3 An employer may defend against a disparate impact claim by “demonstrat[ing] that the challenged 

practice is job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity[.]” 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2000e-2(k)(1)(A)(i); see also Ricci, 557 U.S. at 578. “Even if the employer meets that burden, 

however, a plaintiff may still s ucceed by showing that the employer refuses to adopt an available 

alternative employment practice that has less disparate impact and s erves the employer’s legitimate 

needs.” Ricci, 557 U.S. at 578 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k)(1)(A)(ii), (C)).
7

Housing Action Ctr. v. U.S. Dep’t of Housing and Urban Dev., 639 F.3d 1078, 1085–86

(D.C. Cir. 2011) (quoting Garcia v. Johanns, 444 F.3d 625, 633 (D.C. Cir. 2006)).

Furthermore, and notably, a plaintiff must demonstrate that she was personally injured

as a result of an employment policy with a disparate impact in order to be able to

challenge the policy under Title VII. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f) (conferring a cause of 

action under Title VII on a “person claiming to be aggrieved” by an unlawful 

employment practice); see also Melendez v. Ill. Bell Tel. Co., 79 F.3d 661, 668 (7th Cir. 

1996); Young v. Covington & Burling LLP, 736 F. Supp. 2d 151, 158–59 (D.D.C. 2010). 

Both disparate treatment and disparate impact theories are available to an injured

plaintiff who seeks to challenge discrimination that results from an employer’s policy 

of delegating employment decisions to individual supervisors based on subjective or 

discretionary criteria. See Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U.S. 977, 991 

(1988). A plaintiff challenging such a policy under a disparate impact theory is 

relieved from having to prove that discriminatory intent motivated either the policy of 

delegation or the particular adverse employment decision that affected her, see id. at 

986–87; however, crucially, “the plaintiff’s burden in establishing a prima facie case 

goes beyond the need to show that there are statistical disparities in the employer’s 

work force.” Id. at 994 (plurality opinion). 4 This is because “[i]t is completely 

unrealistic to assume that [employers’] unlawful discrimination is the sole cause of 

. . . statistical imbalances in the composition of their work forces.” Id. at 992 (plurality 

opinion). Rather, to support a claim for disparate impact, “the plaintiff must offer 

 4 A majority of the Supreme Court expressly adopted the reasoning of Justice O’Connor’s plurality 

opinion in Watson during the following Term. See Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642, 

656–58 (1989), superseded by statute on other grounds, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k). 
8

statistical evidence of a kind and degree sufficient to show that the practice in question 

has caused the exclusion of applicants for jobs or promotions because of their 

membership in a protected group.” Id. at 994 (plurality opinion). Put another way, 

“[a]s a general matter, a plaintiff must demonstrate that it is the application of a 

specific or particular employment practice that has created the disparate impact under 

attack.” Wards Cove Packing Co., 490 U.S. at 657; see also 42 U.S.C. § 2000e2(k)(1)(B)(i) (providing that, unless a disparate-impact plaintiff can establish that 

making such a showing is impossible, she must “demonstrate that each particular 

challenged employment practice causes a disparate impact”). 

B. Plaintiffs ’ Alle gations In This Case

On December 23, 2016, Plaintiffs filed the complaint in the instant case, which

alleges that Lockheed, “one of the largest aerospace, defense, and technology 

companies in the world” (Compl. ¶ 8), engaged in race discrimination against its 

African-American employees through the operation of the performance appraisal system 

that the company uses to evaluate all of its employees (see id. ¶ 11). According to the 

complaint, over the course of a three-year period between January of 2013 and February

of 2016 (see id. ¶ 1), Lockheed’s performance appraisal system “produced a disparate 

impact in performance ratings, and consequently in the promotions, compensation, and 

retention of salaried African-American employees below the level of Vice President” 

(id. ¶ 11). The two named plaintiffs, Vernon Ross and Debra Josey, allege that they 

were injured by the performance appraisal system and seek to certify a class of nearly 

all current and former African-American Lockheed employees below the rank of Vice 
9

President who were evaluated pursuant to the performance appraisal system during the 

relevant three-year period. (See id. ¶¶ 11, 57.) 

1. The Performance Appraisal System

According to the complaint, between 2013 and 2016, Lockheed “evaluated all 

non-represented [i.e., non-union], salaried employees under essentially the same 

performance appraisal system, although with some changes over time.” (Id. ¶ 12.) 

Lockheed used this performance appraisal system “in all of its business areas—

Aeronautics, Rotary and Missions Systems, Missiles and Fire Control, Space Systems, 

and Enterprise Operations” (id. ¶ 13)—and the system consisted of the following basic 

components. First of all, every year (at the beginning of the performance appraisal 

cycle) each salaried employee was required to identify “commitments” that reflected the 

employee’s individual goals for her work at Lockheed during the upcoming year, with 

manager approval. (See id. ¶¶ 17–18.) Then, at the end of the calendar year, the 

employee would receive a performance review in which a manager evaluated that

employee’s work, using both written comments and numerical ratings. (See id. ¶ 20.) 

The written comments addressed the degree to which the employee had lived up to each 

commitment, and the numerical ratings reflected the employee’s performance (on a 5.0

scale) with respect to meeting both her individual commitments and a series of desired 

“behaviors” that Lockheed had prescribed across the entire company. (Id. ¶¶ 17, 20, 

36.) An employee’s performance review also aggregated each of these numerical 

rankings to calculate a single “composite score.” (Id. ¶ 20.) 

Once all managers completed their performance reviews of the individual 

employees in their purview, groups of managers then gathered for “calibration” sessions
10

that were held in order to determine an “ultimate tier placement” for the employees 

under their supervision. (Id. ¶¶ 22–23.) A tier placement reflected an overall 

assessment of an employee’s performance vis-à-vis the identified commitments; for 

example, the highest tier was called “significantly exceeds commitments[.]” (Id. ¶ 57.) 

Notably, these calibration sessions operated on a curve: there were four possible tiers 

(see id. ¶ 35), and the manager groups placed “predetermined percentages of [the] 

employees” that were under consideration in a given session into each of the four tiers 

(id. ¶ 22). In doing so, the managers purportedly took account of each employee’s 

performance review as well as commentary from other participants in the calibration 

session, including participants who had not reviewed that employee’s individual 

performance appraisal results. (See id. ¶ 23.) Ultimately, an employee had the 

opportunity to appeal her performance review and overall tier placement under the 

appraisal system, but “[v]ery few appeals [were] brought or [were] successful in 

altering overall ratings.” (Id. ¶ 24.) 

According to the complaint, the overall tier placement that an employee received

after her individual performance review and the group calibration session played a 

prominent role in Lockheed’s subsequent decisions regarding base compensation, bonus 

payments, and promotions. (See id. ¶¶ 27–32.) Specifically, Plaintiffs maintain that the 

“standard percentage increase in salary” that Lockheed awards to employees each year 

was “based on their tier and their place in the salary range for their position.” (Id.

¶ 28.) Lockheed also “bestow[ed] discretionary merit increases” in compensation, as 

well as “a variety of monetary awards and bonus programs[,]” based in part on an 

employee’s overall tier placement. (Id. ¶¶ 29–30.) Finally, “[f]or certain positions at 
11

Lockheed Martin, employees may advance through what are called growth 

promotions[,]” which “represent movement to a higher level within the employees’ 

existing positions” and which were “based in part on employees’ . . . performance 

evaluations.” (Id. ¶ 31.)

Plaintiffs’ complaint alleges that, due to flaws in the design and implementation

of the performance evaluation system, Lockheed’s performance review process “has 

produced a disparate impact based on race in evaluation ratings and, consequently, in 

the compensation, promotion, and retention of African-American employees.” (Id.

¶ 14.) For example, with respect to the individual employee performance reviews, the 

complaint asserts that Lockheed failed to prescribe “measurable indicators” for 

managers to use when deciding how to rate an employee for a particular objective or 

behavior, and therefore Lockheed “ha[s] not provided adequate safeguards against bias 

in the assessment of African American employees.” (Id. ¶ 19; see also id. ¶ 18.) In 

addition, according to the complaint, managers’ written comments “have not 

consistently relied on specific, measurable, time-sensitive measures of employees’ 

performance[,]” which means that “similar or even identical performance could garner 

different ratings under different supervisors.” (Id. ¶ 21.) 

The complaint also identifies flaws with respect to the group calibration 

sessions. Plaintiffs allege that the “discussion of any one employee was cursory at 

best”; that “employees holding different positions but at the same level were compared 

against one another”; that “at times, employees were represented by managers who 

knew little about their performance if the employees’ manager was unavailable to attend

a given meeting”; and that, “[a]s a result, employees may have been assigned to the 
12

forced distribution tiers by persons with little if any direct knowledge of employees’ 

performance[.]” (Id. ¶ 23.) Furthermore, with respect to the appeals process, the 

complaint alleges that the right to appeal “does not rectify the biased assessments 

resulting from the Company’s performance appraisal system” because employees do not 

have “an adequate right to appeal to a manager who was not involved in preparing the 

review from which [the employee is] appealing.” (Id. ¶ 24.) 

The complaint maintains that, as a consequence of these alleged flaws in the 

performance appraisal process, Lockheed’s evaluation system “allow[s] for racially 

biased assessments of employees.” (Id. ¶ 12.) The result, Plaintiffs contend, is that 

“African-American non-represented, salaried employees below the level of Vice 

President have received lower overall ratings on their annual performance reviews as 

compared to similarly situated white employees[,]” and Plaintiffs also allege, “[u]pon 

information and belief,” that this disparity “is statistically significant.” (Id. ¶ 15.) In 

addition, Plaintiffs assert that the disparity in overall performance ratings has had 

corresponding effects “in the compensation, promotion, and retention of AfricanAmerican employees.” (Id. ¶ 14; see also id. ¶ 28 (stating that, “[u]pon information and 

belief,” “discrimination in the performance appraisal process” caused disparities in 

merit salary increases); id. ¶ 32 (performance appraisal system led to disparities in 

growth promotions); id. ¶¶ 33–34 (performance appraisal system led to disparities in 

retention rates).) Thus, Plaintiffs attribute the alleged disparities in compensation, 

promotion, and retention to “flaws in the design and implementation of the Lockheed 
13

Martin performance appraisal system, including the nature of the calibration and 

validation process.” (Id. ¶ 16.) 5 

2. Allegations Regarding The Named Plaintiffs

Plaintiffs Debra Josey and Vernon Ross allege that they have been personally 

injured as a result of Lockheed’s performance appraisal system. (See id. ¶¶ 35–56.) 

Plaintiff Josey is a current Lockheed employee and has worked at the company and its 

predecessors since 1983. (See id. ¶ 7.) She is currently a Software Engineer Manager 

in Lockheed’s Rotary and Mission Systems division in Florida, and she previously 

worked as an Engineering Leadership Development Program Manager in Lockheed’s 

Information Systems and Solutions division in Maryland. (See id.) Josey alleges that 

she “received lower ratings than similarly situated white employees during her 

employment at Lockheed Martin despite her stellar performance throughout the [2013–

2016] period.” (Id. ¶ 35.) Josey contends that the effects of the performance appraisal 

system on her are manifest when one compares the relatively low overall tier 

placements she received during the relevant period—second tier (out of four) for her 

work in 2012, third tier for 2013, and third tier for 2014—with the high numerical 

ratings and positive written comments that she received in her individual performance 

reviews during that same timeframe. (See id. ¶¶ 35–37.) Josey alleges that the thirdtier ratings she received for 2013 and 2014 “put her below average[,]” notwithstanding 

 5 The complaint also asserts that, “[i]n addition to the flaws in the performance appraisal system, 

[certain] changes implemented by former Senior Vice President of Human Resources John Lucas 

increased the discrimination against African American employees” and “diminished Lockheed Martin’s 

efforts to encourage racial diversity at the Company.” (Compl. ¶¶ 25–26.) These Lucas-related 

allegations appear in two stray paragraphs that stand alone in the complaint (see id.), and John Lucas is 

not mentioned further. No specifics are provided regarding his conduct, the “changes” that were made 

under his supervision, or the alleged “discrimination” that African-American employees suffered due to 

his actions. 
14

the fact she received composite numerical ratings of 4.1 and 3.9 (out of 5.0) on her 

individual performance reviews in those two years—ratings that, she alleges, “show that 

she substantially exceeded Lockheed Martin’s expectations.” (Id. ¶ 36.) Moreover, in 

contrast to the third-tier rating that she received in 2014, Josey’s performance review

for that same year “did not have any negative comments concerning her commitments 

or her behavioral objectives.” (Id. ¶ 37.) Josey maintains that the divergence between 

her individual performance review and her overall tier rating is attributable to the fact 

that, during group “calibration sessions[,]” she was compared to employees with 

“markedly different roles” from hers. (Id. ¶ 38.) Josey appealed her tier placement for 

2013, but her appeal was unsuccessful. (See id. at 39.) 

In the complaint, Josey alleges that, “[a]s a result of her lower-tier performance 

ratings, [she] has been paid less than her white counterparts with the same or less 

experience” (id. ¶ 40); that she did not receive any bonuses or awards in 2013 or 2014 

(see id. ¶ 41); and that her performance review ratings have “negatively impacted her 

ability to be promoted within the company” (id. ¶ 42). With respect to promotions, 

Josey alleges that she unsuccessfully applied for 55 positions between 2012 and 2015, 

of which at least 37 would have constituted promotions, and that in the four cases in 

which she knows the identity of the candidate who was selected for the position, three 

of the successful candidates were white employees who Josey believes were less 

qualified than she. (See id. ¶ 43.) In 2015, Josey was notified of her impending layoff 

as part of a reduction in force (a development that she believes would not have taken 

place “if she had received higher ratings”); however, she avoided being laid off by 
15

accepting a different position at the same level that required her to relocate from 

Maryland to Florida. (Id. ¶ 44.) 

Plaintiff Vernon Ross is a former Lockheed employee who worked for the 

company from 1991 to 2015, most recently as the Director of STEM, Generations, and 

Higher Education in Human Resources in Lockheed’s Enterprise Operations division. 

(See id. ¶ 6.) Like Josey, Ross alleges that he “received ratings lower than those of 

similarly situated white employees during his time at Lockheed Martin despite 

commendable work performance.” (Id. ¶ 46.) Ross also contends that “[t]he contrast 

between [his] written reviews and his [tier ratings] shows that ratings have a weak 

relationship to performance.” (Id. ¶ 48.) Ross was placed in the second tier out of four 

for 2012, the third tier for 2013, and the third tier for 2014 (see id. ¶ 47), and alleges 

that these tier placements stand in contrast with the uniformly positive written 

comments that he received on his performance review for 2014 (see id. ¶ 48). Ross

“does not know against whom he was compared at calibration sessions,” but “his direct 

manager told him that he was calibrated with all Human Resources Directors, regardless 

of the wide variation in duties.” (Id. ¶ 50.) Ross alleges that because of his “unique 

positions at Lockheed Martin throughout the period from 2011 through 2015 posing 

unusual challenges[,]” there were “no proper comparators for his position.” (Id.) Ross 

appealed the results of his 2013 performance appraisal, and although Lockheed changed 

two of the individual numerical ratings on his performance reviews during the appeals 

process, Ross’s overall tier placement remained unchanged. (See id. ¶ 53.) 

The complaint alleges that Ross’s relatively low tier ratings “prevented him from 

advancing within the Company[,]” and that “he was repeatedly bypassed in promotions 
16

to a Vice President position in favor of white employees who often had lesser 

credentials than him.” (Id. ¶ 52.) Ross adds that he “received only one long term 

incentive award” during his 24 years as a Lockheed Martin employee. (Id. ¶ 51.) In 

2015, Lockheed notified Ross that it planned to terminate his position as part of a 

reduction in force (see id. ¶¶ 55–56), and Ross then “applied to over 40 jobs within 

Lockheed Martin,” some at his then-current level and some at lower levels, but he did 

not receive any offers (id. ¶ 56). Ross alleges that he “was unable to find a new job due 

in significant part to the discriminatorily low appraisal ratings he had received.” (Id.) 

Ross’s employment was terminated at the end of 2015 (see id.), and according to the 

complaint, he received the initial notice of termination “[s]hortly after” he filed a 

charge of discrimination with the EEOC against Lockheed (id. ¶ 55). Ross also alleges 

that the EEOC charge was not his first formal complaint: in July of 2014, he allegedly

“complained internally of the discrimination that he and other African American 

employees faced at Lockheed Martin.” (Id. ¶ 54.) 

3. The Class Definition, Allegations, And Claims

As mentioned above, Josey and Ross seek to bring this lawsuit as a class action 

on behalf of a class that the complaint defines as follows:

[A]ll African-American salaried employees below the level of Vice 

President employed by Defendant in the United States for at least one 

day between January 1, 2013 and February 29, 2016, and who received 

at least one performance evaluation during that period with an overall 

rating below “significantly exceeds commitments[.]”

(Id. ¶ 57.) Several groups of African-American employees who might otherwise be 

included within this definition are expressly excluded from the putative class:

(1) employees who signed release agreements, (2) union-represented 

employees, (3) individuals who have asserted claims of race 

discrimination against Lockheed Martin, which remain pending before 
17

any local, state or federal agency or in any state or federal court as of 

the date of preliminary approval, (4) individuals employed by Sandia 

Corporation, and (5) individuals who became (or become) employees of 

Lockheed Martin or one of its subsidiaries as a consequence of stock or 

asset acquisitions consummated on or after January 1, 2012 including, 

but not limited to, the following transactions: Industrial Defender, 

Materion Assets, Deposition Sciences, Astrotech AssetsZeta Associates, 

Sun Catalytix, Systems Made Simple, and Sikorsky.

(Id.) Moreover, and notably, as it relates to the allegedly discriminatory performance 

review process, the proposed class definition does not contain any objective criteria that 

permit identification of the particular African-American employees who allegedly 

suffered concrete injury as a result of Lockheed Martin’s performance appraisal 

system—i.e., those African-American employees who demonstrably should have

received either higher numerical rankings or a higher tier rating than Lockheed assigned 

to them during the relevant period. (See id.) 

The complaint alleges that, as defined, the putative class contains “over 5,500 

members who worked in over 40 states across the United States” (id. ¶ 59), and that 

Ross and Josey “are members of the Class they seek to represent” (id. ¶ 58). The 

complaint also contains several allegations regarding the putative class that expressly 

aim to demonstrate that the prerequisites to class certification set forth in Federal Rule 

of Civil Procedure 23 are satisfied, and that are discussed at greater length below. (See 

id. ¶¶ 59–64; see also infra Part III.A.)

With respect to the legal claims that Plaintiffs seek to maintain on behalf of the 

class, the complaint alleges, in two separate counts, that Lockheed’s performance 

appraisal system subjected members of the proposed class to intentional and disparate 

impact race discrimination, and a third count alleges that Plaintiff Ross was retaliated 

against as a result of his discrimination complaints. (See Compl. ¶¶ 65–79.) To be 
18

specific, as mentioned above, Count I of the complaint alleges that “Lockheed Martin 

intentionally discriminated against Plaintiffs Ross and Josey and members of the 

proposed Class on the basis of their race by assigning African-American employees 

lower ratings than other employees in the performance appraisal system,” in violation 

of 42 U.S.C. § 1981. (Id. ¶ 67.) In Count II, the complaint alleges that “Lockheed 

Martin has maintained a pattern or practice of employment discrimination against 

African-American employees in performance appraisal ratings” (id. ¶ 72), and that 

Lockheed Martin’s policies and practices “have had a disparate impact against AfricanAmerican employees in performance appraisal ratings” (id. ¶ 73), both in violation of 

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Finally, Count III of the complaint alleges 

that Ross “has suffered [an] adverse employment action because Defendant retaliated 

against him for filing a Charge of Discrimination with the EEOC and/or complaining to 

senior executives at the Company of racial discrimination faced by him and other 

African-American employees.” (Id. ¶ 78.) Plaintiffs’ complaint seeks declaratory, 

monetary, and injunctive relief. (See id., Prayer for Relief, ¶¶ a–d.) 

C. The Proposed Se ttlement Agreement

On December 23, 2016, Plaintiffs filed the putative class action complaint along 

with a proposed Settlement Agreement, and asked this Court for both preliminary 

certification of the proposed class for settlement purposes under Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 23(a) and (b), and preliminary approval of the Settlement Agreement under 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(e). (See Pls.’ Mot. for Prelim. Approval of Class 

Action Settlement Agreement (“Mot.”), ECF No. 4; see also Settlement Agreement, Ex. 
19

A to Mot., ECF No. 4-1.) 6 The proposed Settlement Agreement provides programmatic 

and monetary relief to members of the class. The programmatic relief primarily 

consists of the establishment of a “council” that will recommend that certain changes be 

made to Lockheed’s performance evaluation process (including ending the calibration 

session procedure), ensure that diverse slates of candidates are considered for open 

positions, and review salaries to ensure equity. (See Settlement Agreement at 28–33.) 

Lockheed also agrees to implement inclusion training, to improve its collection of data 

regarding performance evaluations and employee advancement, and to fulfill certain 

obligations to report this data to its board of directors and to Class Counsel. (See id. at 

34–40.) 

As for monetary relief, according to the Settlement Agreement, Lockheed has 

agreed to pay $22.8 million into a fund that is to be distributed among the members of 

the class who affirmatively opt to participate in the settlement based on criteria that a 

Claims Administrator will determine after gathering information from the class 

members, as described below. (See id. at 41–47.) Regardless, Plaintiffs’ counsel will 

be paid 28% of this settlement fund as attorneys’ fees, plus $225,000 per year for four 

years as compensation for their role in supervising the Settlement Agreement’s 

programmatic relief. (See id. at 53.) Counsel would also be reimbursed for their 

litigation expenses to date, which are approximately $125,000. (See id.; Mot. at 39.)

 6 After the Court’s motion hearing, Plaintiffs also filed a supplemental memorandum in support of their 

approval motion (see Pls.’ Suppl. Mem. in Supp. of Pls.’ Mot. for Prelim. Approval (“Suppl. Mem.”), 

ECF No. 13), as well as a Notice of Supplemental Authority alerting the Court to a recent D.C. Circuit 

decision affirming a class certification order (see Pls.’ Notice of Suppl. Authority, ECF No. 14 

(dis cussing DL v. District of Columbia, 860 F.3d 713 (D.C. Cir. 2017))). 
20

For the class members’ part, the Settlement Agreement contains a broad release 

of legal claims that extends well beyond any claims that arise from the allegedly 

discriminatory operation of Lockheed’s performance appraisal system, and also requires 

that class members act affirmatively to obtain any monetary benefit in exchange for

releasing their claims. That is, per the agreement, all class members who do not 

affirmatively opt out will automatically release “any and all racial employment 

discrimination claims of whatever nature, known or unknown,” including “any and all 

claims of racial discrimination in employment or in the provision of employee benefits” 

that have arisen in the context of their employment relationship with Lockheed at any 

time up until the moment the class member signs his or her claim form. (Settlement 

Agreement at 22; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. at 27 (counsel for Plaintiffs acknowledging 

that the release effectively includes “[a]ny and all race discrimination claims[,]” 

including a claim that “has nothing to do with the evaluations that [an employee] 

receive[s] from [her] employer”); Suppl. Mem. at 12 (stating that “[u]nder the terms of 

the settlement” in this case, class members “will release Lockheed Martin from all

types of racial discrimination claims” (emphasis added)).) 7 Yet, a class member who 

wishes to receive any portion of the settlement fund as compensation for this broad 

release of claims must go further, by undertaking to complete an extensive claim form 

and timely submit it to the designated Claims Administrator. (See Settlement 

Agreement at 44; see also Claim Form, Ex. 2 to Settlement Agreement, ECF No. 4-1.)

Thus, class members who do not respond to the notice of settlement in any fashion not 

 7 The named Plaintiffs also s pecifically agree to release all claims they may have against Lockheed 

Martin, whether or not related to race discrimination. (See Settlement Agreement at 24.)
21

only have all of their discrimination and benefits claims extinguished, they also forfeit 

entirely any opportunity to receive any monetary compensation for those extinguished 

claims. 8

To facilitate award determinations, the claim form that class members are asked 

to complete asks a wide-ranging series of questions that seek information not only 

about the class members’ experiences in regard to Lockheed’s performance review 

system (i.e., the subject matter of the complaint), but also about any instance of racebased discrimination that class members believe they may have suffered during their 

employment at Lockheed. (See, e.g., Claim Form at 84 (asking about any form of race 

discrimination); id. at 86 (asking about discriminatory non-promotions); id. at 87 

(asking about discriminatory terminations).) The Settlement Agreement then leaves it 

to the Claims Administrator to evaluate a class member’s individual legal claims and to 

allocate the settlement fund accordingly. (See Settlement Agreement at 45–47; Kovach 

Decl. ¶¶ 11–23; see also Kovach Decl. ¶ 15 (explaining that the Claims Administrator 

“will also assign points based off of Claim Form responses”).) 

 8 Under the proposed Settlement Agreement, even those class members who do complete the claim form 

and submit it to the Claims Administrator apparently are not automatically entitled to receive any 

compensation in exchange for releasing their claims. During the hearing that this Court held on April 

24, 2017, Plaintiffs’ counsel orally represented that “everyone will get at least s omething[,]” but 

counsel based that representation on the fact that one of the factors that the Claims Administrator will 

purportedly consider in deciding how much a particular class member will receive is “the number of 

weeks worked for Lockheed Martin during the class period[,]” and “there won’t be anybody in the class 

who hasn’t worked there at least for some period.” (Tr. of Oral Arg. at 74 (discussing Settlement 

Agreement at 45); see also Decl. of Loree Kovach (“Kovach Decl.”), Ex. 7 to Suppl. Mem., ECF No. 

13–7, ¶ 11 (explaining that the length-of-employment factor “will likely result in each Claimant 

receiving at least some award”).) However, the Settlement Agreement itself does not s pecify a 

minimum amount of compensation for each class member, and it neither instructs the Claims 

Administrator regarding how to weigh each of the s ix lis ted factors nor notifies class members of how 

the Claims Administrator will go about doing so. (See Settlement Agreement at 45.) 
22

Significantly, the Settlement Agreement provides no guidance regarding how the 

Claims Administrator will distribute the settlement fund, what the minimum recovery 

amount will be for any class member who submits a claim form, or what the average 

recovery will be (either for class members in general or for class members who indicate 

on their claim form that they have experienced other types of discrimination). Nor does 

the class notice provide any such information to the class members. (See generally 

Notice of Class Action (“Class Notice”), Ex. 4 to Settlement Agreement, ECF No. 4-1.) 

And because each person who is awarded money from the settlement fund “will be 

required to keep the amount of their award confidential” (Settlement Agreement at 47), 

it also appears that class members will never be able to discern this information. At the 

motion hearing, Plaintiffs’ counsel made clear that only after all class members have 

decided whether or not to opt out and have returned their detailed claim forms will 

Plaintiffs’ counsel—with aid from the Claims Administrator—submit a final allocation 

of the settlement fund to the Court for approval, and as a practical matter, this final 

accounting might not take place until after the Court holds its final approval hearing. 

(See Tr. of Oral Arg. at 86 (stating that “[t]he actual allocation I believe will still be in 

process at th[e] time [of the final approval hearing]”).) 

In anticipation of the process described above, the Settlement Agreement 

contemplates that the Claims Administrator will send written notice of this lawsuit and 

of the proposed settlement to all class members shortly after the Court issues a 

preliminary approval order. (See Settlement Agreement at 43–44; see also Class 

Notice.) The proposed notice offers each class member four options: (1) fill out and 

return the attached claim form and participate in the settlement; (2) opt out of the 
23

settlement; (3) submit an objection to the Court regarding the fairness of the settlement; 

or (4) do nothing. (See Class Notice at 102.) Any opt-out request must include certain 

identifying information, as well as a verbatim copy of the specific opt-out language that 

appears in the class notice. (See id. at 110–11.) 9 Individuals who do nothing—that is, 

who neither follow the opt-out procedure nor submit a claim form—both forfeit any and 

all race discrimination claims they may have against Lockheed and also lose the 

opportunity to recover a portion of the settlement fund. (See Settlement Agreement at 

24.) During the motion hearing, Plaintiffs’ counsel estimated based on his experience

that approximately 30–50% of class members will not respond to the notice in any 

fashion. (See Tr. of Oral Arg. at 33–34). 

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

The district court’s role in reviewing a proposed settlement agreement in a classaction lawsuit follows a “three-stage process, involving two separate hearings[.]” 4

William B. Rubenstein, Newberg on Class Actions § 13:10 (5th ed. 2014); see also Fed. 

Judicial Ctr., Manual for Complex Litigation § 21.632 (4th ed. 2004). “First, the parties 

present a proposed settlement agreement to the court for so-called ‘preliminary 

approval.’” 4 Newberg on Class Actions § 13:10 (emphasis omitted). “If the case is 

presented for both class certification and settlement approval, the certification hearing 

and preliminary fairness evaluation can usually be combined.” Manual for Complex 

Litigation § 21.632. “Second, if the court does preliminarily approve the settlement 

 9 If a certain number of class members opt out of the Settlement Agreement, Lockheed Martin will have 

the option to either void the agreement or retrieve from the settlement fund $4,000 per class member 

who opts out. (See Settlement Agreement at 19.) The Court granted the parties’ joint motion for leave 

to file the requisite number of opt-outs that trigger this provision under seal. (See Sealed Mot., ECF 

No. 5; Min. Order of Apr. 25, 2017.)
24

(and conditionally certify the class), notice is sent to the class describing the terms of 

the proposed settlement” and explaining class members’ options with respect to the 

settlement agreement, including the right to object to the proposed settlement. 4 

Newberg on Class Actions § 13:10 (emphasis omitted); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 

23(e)(1), (e)(5). Finally, the court holds a hearing after which “the court decides 

whether or not to give ‘final approval’ to the settlement[,]” which “can also encompass 

a decision certifying the class” if the court has not made that decision already. 4 

Newberg on Class Actions § 13:10. 

The instant lawsuit is presently at the preliminary approval stage, and Plaintiffs 

seek an order that both preliminarily certifies the class and preliminarily approves the 

Settlement Agreement. (See generally Mot.) 

A. Clas s Certification

Parties frequently seek to certify a class for settlement purposes, sometimes (as 

in this case) because they have “settle[d] before . . . even a class action complaint has 

been filed.” Manual for Complex Litigation § 21.132; see also Amchem Prods., Inc. v. 

Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 618 (1997) (noting that “the ‘settlement only’ class has become 

a stock device”). “When presented with a settlement-only class, a court must determine 

whether the proposed class satisfies the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

23, with one exception: the court does not need to consider whether ‘the case, if tried, 

would present intractable management problems[.]’” Alvarez v. Keystone Plus Constr. 

Corp., 303 F.R.D. 152, 159 (D.D.C. 2014) (quoting Amchem, 521 U.S. at 620). That 

lone exception aside, the remaining class-certification requirements “demand undiluted, 

even heightened, attention in the settlement context.” Amchem, 521 U.S. at 620. 
25

A court may certify a class under Rule 23 only if it satisfies all of the 

prerequisites set forth in Rule 23(a) and at least one of the three requirements of Rule 

23(b). See Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 133 S. Ct. 1426, 1432 (2013). Under Rule 23(a), 

the party seeking class certification must demonstrate that: “(1) the class is so numerous 

that joinder of all members is impracticable; (2) there are questions of law or fact 

common to the class; (3) the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical

of the claims or defenses of the class; and (4) the representative parties will fairly and 

adequately protect the interests of the class.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a). Courts generally 

refer to these prerequisites as “numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy of 

representation[.]” Amgen v. Conn. Retirement Plans & Trust Funds, 568 U.S. 455, 460

(2013). As relevant here, in order to satisfy the commonality requirement, “[class 

members’] claims must depend upon a common contention[,]” and “[t]hat common 

contention . . . must be of such a nature that it is capable of classwide resolution—

which means that determination of its truth or falsity will resolve an issue that is central 

to the validity of each one of the claims in one stroke.” Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 350. 

Rule 23(b) lays out different requirements for three different “types of class 

actions.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b). Plaintiffs here seek certification under Rules 23(b)(2) 

and 23(b)(3), relying on Rule 23(b)(2) for purposes of their requested injunctive relief 

and Rule 23(b)(3) for purposes of their requested monetary relief. (See Mot. at 27–30.) 

See also Eubanks v. Billington, 110 F.3d 87, 96 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (explaining that a 

court “may adopt a ‘hybrid’ approach” under Rule 23(b), “certifying a (b)(2) class as to 

the claims for declaratory or injunctive relief, and a (b)(3) class as to the claims for 

monetary relief”); accord 2 Newberg on Class Actions § 4:1. Under Rule 23(b)(2), a 
26

class action may be maintained if “the party opposing the class has acted or refused to 

act on grounds that apply generally to the class, so that final injunctive relief or 

corresponding declaratory relief is appropriate respecting the class as a whole[.]” Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2). Under Rule 23(b)(3), a class action may be maintained if “the court 

finds that the questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any 

questions affecting only individual members, and that a class action is superior to other 

available methods for fairly and efficiently adjudicating the controversy.” Fed. R. Civ. 

P. 23(b)(3). 

When certifying a class, the court “must define the class and the class claims, 

issues, or defenses[.]” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(c)(1)(B). “Defining the class is of critical 

importance” because, among other things, “it identifies the persons . . . entitled to relief 

[and] bound by a final judgment,” and as a result, “[t]he definition must be precise, 

objective, and presently ascertainable.” Manual for Complex Litigation § 21.222. “The 

class definition should describe the operative claims, issues, or defenses, such as injury 

resulting from securities fraud or denial of employment on account of race.” Id.; see 

also Kohen v. Pac. Inv. Mgmt. Co. LLC, 571 F.3d 672, 677 (7th Cir. 2009) (“[I]f the 

definition is so broad that it sweeps within it persons who could not have been injured 

by the defendant’s conduct, it is too broad.”); Thorpe v. District of Columbia, 303 

F.R.D. 120, 141–42 (D.D.C. 2014) (assessing whether class definition was “fatally 

overbroad” by virtue of including individuals who had not plausibly suffered an injury). 

Notably, courts have taken divergent approaches to applying Rule 23 when a 

party moves for a “preliminary” or “conditional” certification order and requests

preliminary approval of a class settlement agreement as a prelude to distributing notice 
27

to the class. See 4 Newberg on Class Actions § 13:18 (describing the split in authority). 

“Most courts” have held that “a less stringent standard applies at the preliminary 

approval phase with regard to the requirements for class certification.” Id. (citing, e.g.,

Schoenbaum v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., No. 4:05CV01108, 2009 WL 4782082, 

at *5 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 8, 2009)). Under this approach, at the preliminary approval stage, 

the court “make[s] a preliminary determination that the proposed class satisfies the 

criteria set out in Rule 23(a) and at least one of the subsections of Rule 23(b).” Manual 

for Complex Litigation § 21.632. This approach “contemplates that formal class 

certification will be combined with the [final] fairness hearing,” and thus, at the 

preliminary approval stage, the judge merely scans for “obvious impediments to class 

certification” so as to save the plaintiff the trouble of noticing the hearing on final 

settlement approval in cases where the court foresees that the formal certification 

motion will be a non-starter. Schoenbaum, 2009 WL 4782082, at *5.

Other courts, however, “undertake a full certification analysis under Rule 23(a) 

and (b) before addressing whether a proposed settlement should be preliminarily 

approved.” 4 Newberg on Class Actions § 13:18 (emphasis in original) (citing, e.g., 

Ephedra Prods. Liab. Litig., 231 F.R.D. 167, 170 (S.D.N.Y. 2005)). In explaining this 

approach, the court in Ephedra Products observed that the 2003 amendments to Rule 23 

deleted preexisting language that had provided for “conditional” class certification, and 

the Ephedra Products court inferred from that change that “Rule 23 must be rigorously 

applied even at th[e] ‘preliminary’ stage.” 231 F.R.D. at 170. In addition, it appears

that the more rigorous approach finds support in the text and structure of Rule 23’s 

provisions, because the settlement rule (Rule 23(e)) specifically confers upon “class 
28

members” the right to receive notice and object to the settlement proposal—objections 

that the court will consider at the final hearing, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e)(1), (e)(5)—and 

thus strongly suggests that the class must be formed and the class members identified 

prior to the court’s issuance of the notice and convening of the settlement hearing. 

In any event, at the very least, district courts appear to have discretion under the 

Federal Rules to decide whether to subject a putative class to the full force of Rule 23 

at the preliminary approval stage or merely screen for obvious impediments to class 

certification and leave the formal certification decision for the final approval hearing. 

Cf. Larionoff v. United States, 533 F.2d 1167, 1183 (D.C. Cir. 1976) (holding that 

district courts have discretion regarding the timing of the certification decision); Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 23(c)(1)(A) (providing that courts should decide whether or not to certify a 

class “[a]t an early practicable time”); id. 2003 advisory committee note (enumerating 

various “considerations [that] may affect the timing of the certification decision”); 

LCvR 23.1(b) (providing that, “in the exercise of its discretion[,]” a court may extend 

the deadline for a certification motion prescribed by the Local Rules). 10 In this Court’s 

 10 Various contextual factors might influence a court’s choice between these two different approaches in 

a particular case. See 7AA Charles Alan Wright, et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 1785.3 (3d 

ed. 2005) (“The time at which the court finds it appropriate to make its class-action determination may 

vary with the circumstances of the particular case.”). In some cases, for example, a court might choose 

to delay the certification decision because it is likely that information pertinent to Rule 23(a)’s 

requirements will come to light during the notice and objection processes that take place after the 

preliminary approval stage. In other cases, judicial economy might be best served by deciding the 

certification issue early (i.e., at the preliminary approval stage), so that the notices required by Rules 

23(c)(2) (regarding certification) and 23(e)(1) (regarding s ettlement) can be combined. See Manual for 

Complex Litigation § 21.633. In yet other cases, concerns with the class definition might lead a court 

to resolve the certification issue, and thereby “define the class and the class claims, issues or defenses,” 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(c)(1)(B), before the notice is issued and the putative class members are forced to 

choose how to respond. See 7A Federal Practice and Procedure § 1760 (noting that “hav[ing] the class 

des cribed in some detail . . . may prove essential in actions under Rule 23(b)(3) in order to give class 

members the notice required by Rule 23(c)(2), thereby enabling them to decide whether to opt out of 

the action[,]” and early certification “is of considerable value . . . in connection with the notice and 

review of a dismissal or compromise of the action under Rule 23(e)”). 
29

view, the expansive class definition proposed in Plaintiff’s complaint warrants squarely 

addressing class certification at the present juncture. 

B. Court Approval Of Clas s Settlement Agreements

Once the court has certified a class—whether in the context of adversarial 

litigation or for settlement purposes—the court must play an active role in any 

agreement among the present parties that settles the case. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e) 

(“The claims, issues, or defenses of a certified class may be settled, voluntarily 

dismissed, or compromised only with the court’s approval.”); see also Manual for 

Complex Litigation § 21.61 (explaining that court approval under Rule 23(e) is required

regardless of “[w]hether a class action is certified for settlement or certified for trial 

and later settled”). In this supervisory role, the court must scrutinize any proposed 

settlement agreement so as to “protect[] unnamed class members ‘from unjust or unfair 

settlements affecting their rights[.]’” Amchem, 521 U.S. at 623 (quoting 7B Federal 

Practice and Procedure § 1797). With this concern in mind, the court’s review of a 

proposed settlement agreement “must be exacting and thorough[,]” Manual for Complex 

Litigation § 21.61; indeed, some courts “have gone so far as to characterize the court’s 

role as akin to the high duty of care that the law requires of fiduciaries.” Wong v. 

Accretive Health, Inc., 773 F.3d 859, 862 (7th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted); see also 4 Newberg on Class Actions § 13:40 (“[T]he court is said to 

have a ‘fiduciary duty’ toward absent class members during the settlement of a class 

suit.”). And the legal standard set forth in Rule 23(e) itself dictates that, if a proposed 

settlement “would bind class members, the court may approve it only after a hearing 

and on finding that it is fair, reasonable, and adequate.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e)(2).
30

The text of Rule 23(e) does not expound upon what constitutes a “fair, 

reasonable, and adequate” settlement agreement, but an advisory committee note to the 

2003 amendments to that rule provides that “[f]urther guidance can be found in the 

Manual for Complex Litigation.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e) 2003 advisory committee’s note. 

That resource provides as follows:

Fairness calls for a comparative analysis of the treatment of class 

members vis-à-vis each other and vis-à-vis similar individuals with 

similar claims who are not in the class. Reasonableness depends on an 

analysis of the class allegations and claims and the responsiveness of 

the settlement to those claims. Adequacy of the settlement involves a 

comparison of the relief granted relative to what class members might 

have obtained without using the class action process.

Manual for Complex Litigation § 21.62. The Manual goes on to provide a long and 

non-exhaustive list of factors that courts may consider in the context of the Rule 23(e) 

inquiry, including “the advantages of the proposed settlement versus the probable 

outcome of a trial on the merits of liability and damages”; “the fairness and 

reasonableness of the procedure for processing individual claims under the settlement”;

and “the apparent intrinsic fairness of the settlement terms.” Id. The D.C. Circuit has 

not announced any particular set of factors that guide the Rule 23(e) fairness inquiry, 

but 

courts in this circuit generally consider five factors: (1) whether the 

settlement is the result of arm’s-length negotiations; (2) the terms of the 

settlement in relation to the strength of plaintiffs’ case; (3) the status of 

the litigation proceedings at the time of settlement; (4) the reaction of 

the class; and (5) the opinion of experienced counsel. 

Alvarez, 303 F.R.D. at 163. The context of each particular case determines “which 

factors apply and what weight to give them.” Manual for Complex Litigation § 21.62.
31

In the context of a motion for preliminary approval of a proposed settlement 

agreement, a court “must make a preliminary determination on the fairness, 

reasonableness, and adequacy of the settlement terms[.]” Id. § 21.632. “Rule 23 itself 

does not outline” the preliminary settlement approval process, “nor, therefore, does it 

provide district courts a standard by which to adjudicate the motion for preliminary 

approval.” 4 Newberg on Class Actions § 13:10. In this district, judges presented with 

motions for preliminary approval of a class settlement agreement typically “consider 

(1) whether the proposed settlement appears to be the product of serious, informed, 

non-collusive negotiations, (2) whether it falls within the range of possible judicial 

approval, and (3) whether it has any obvious deficiencies, such as granting unduly 

preferential treatment.” Richardson v. L’Oreal USA, Inc., 951 F. Supp. 2d 104, 106–07 

(D.D.C. 2013) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see also 4 Newberg on 

Class Actions § 13:10 (reporting that “courts in most circuits use some variation” of 

this test). Although “the standard that governs the preliminary approval inquiry is less 

demanding than the standard that applies at the final approval phase[,]” a court must 

“not simply rubber-stamp a motion for preliminary approval [of a class settlement 

agreement], and review is more than perfunctory.” 4 Newberg on Class Actions § 13:13 

(internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Ultimately, “[p]reliminary approval of 

a proposed settlement to a class action lies within the sound discretion of the court.” 

Richardson, 951 F. Supp. 2d at 106 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 

III. ANALYSIS

Plaintiffs have asked this Court to certify preliminarily that their discrimination

lawsuit against Lockheed Martin can proceed as a class action, and they also request 
32

that this Court provide preliminary approval of the parties’ proposed Settlement 

Agreement. As explained fully below, the Court is not persuaded that Rule 23(a)(2)’s 

commonality requirement is satisfied, nor is it convinced that the significant fairness 

issues that are apparent with respect to the terms of the Settlement Agreement can be 

overcome. Therefore, this Court cannot assent to either of Plaintiffs’ requests. 

A. Plaintiffs Have Failed To Demonstrate That The Proposed Class 

Action Satis fies The Commonality Prerequisite For Ce rtification 

Unde r Rule 23 

Plaintiffs propose to represent a class of individuals that encompasses all current 

and former African-American employees at Lockheed (subject to limited exclusions not 

relevant here) who received a less-than-perfect performance evaluation on at least one 

occasion during a three-year period. (See Compl. ¶ 57.) Plaintiffs maintain that there 

are more than 5,500 such individuals (see id. ¶ 59), and they argue that their proposed 

class satisfies the commonality requirement set forth in Rule 23(a)(2) “because . . . each 

member of the Class was subject to the same performance evaluation system at 

Lockheed Martin.” (Mot. at 23; see also id. (“The discrimination in pay, promotions, 

and retention experienced by each member of the proposed Class is bound together by 

the common, unifying system that produced the unlawful disparities complained of.”).) 

Unfortunately for Plaintiffs, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Wal-Mart 

Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338 (2011), spoke directly to what is required in order to 

satisfy the commonality criterion in the context of an employment discrimination class 

action, and its reasoning makes abundantly clear that the commonality criterion is not 

satisfied under the circumstances presented in this case. 
33

1. The Supreme Court Has Held That, To Maintain An Employment 

Discrimination Case As A Class Action, Rule 23(a) Commonality 

Requires That The Employer Have Discriminated Against All Class 

Members In The Same Way

The Supreme Court’s Wal-Mart decision “changed the landscape” that a district 

court must navigate when considering whether a putative class action satisfies Rule 

23(a)’s commonality requirement. DL v. District of Columbia, 713 F.3d 120, 126 (D.C. 

Cir. 2013). In Wal-Mart, three current and former female employees sued Wal-Mart

Stores, Inc.— “the Nation’s largest private employer[,]” 546 U.S. at 342—and alleged

that the company’s pay and promotion practices violated Title VII’s prohibition on sex 

discrimination under both disparate-treatment and disparate-impact theories. See id. at 

343–45. Notably, “[p]ay and promotion decisions at Wal-Mart [were] generally 

committed to local managers’ broad discretion, which [was] exercised ‘in a largely 

subjective manner.’” Id. at 343 (quoting Duk es v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 222 F.R.D. 

137, 145 (N.D. Cal. 2004)). Certain promotions were available only to employees who 

had “above-average performance rating[s]” and satisfied other objective criteria, but

even for those decisions, senior managers had discretion to choose among all employees 

who satisfied those criteria. Id. The plaintiffs’ theory of the case was that “a strong 

and uniform ‘corporate culture’ permit[ted] bias against women to infect, perhaps 

subconsciously, the discretionary decisionmaking of each one of Wal-Mart’s thousands 

of managers—thereby making every woman at the company the victim of one common 

discriminatory practice.” Id. at 345. Accordingly, the three named plaintiffs sought to 

litigate their case as a class action on behalf of all current and former female Wal-Mart 

employees, a group that was approximately 1.5 million strong. See id. at 342. 
34

When it analyzed whether the case could be certified as a class action under Rule 

23, the Supreme Court first observed that “[t]he class action is an exception to the usual 

rule that litigation is conducted by and on behalf of the individual named parties 

only[,]” id. at 348 (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), 

and that Rule 23 only permits class-action treatment where the class claims are “fairly 

encompassed by the named plaintiff’s claims[,]” id. at 348–49 (internal quotation marks 

and citations omitted). With respect to Rule 23’s commonality requirement—which the 

Justices called “[t]he crux of th[e] case”—the Supreme Court cautioned that the Rule’s 

“language is easy to misread” because, at first blush, virtually every class complaint 

raises “questions of law or fact common to the class.” Id. at 349; see also id. at 349–50

(explaining that overarching questions such as “Do our managers have discretion over 

pay?” and “Is that an unlawful employment practice?” are certainly common to all class 

members, but are insufficient to establish commonality because they “give[] no cause to 

believe that all [class members’] claims can productively be litigated at once”). Beyond

the mere identification of basic facts or general principles that are common to the 

members of the class, the Court explained, the commonality requirement demands that 

all class members’ claims “must depend on a common contention . . . [that] is capable 

of classwide resolution[,]” such that “determination of [that contention’s] truth or 

falsity will resolve an issue that is central to the validity of each one of the claims in 

one stroke.” Id. at 350 (emphasis added). Thus, “for example, the assertion of 

discriminatory bias on the part of the same supervisor” might satisfy the commonality 

requirement because, under that circumstance, a common contention that is capable of 
35

common proof—i.e., that supervisor exercised discretion in a discriminatory fashion—

would lie at the center of each class member’s claim. Id. (emphasis added).

The Court also expounded on the commonality requirement as it applies in the 

specific context of Title VII employment-discrimination class actions, explaining that

because the core of any individual plaintiff’s Title VII claim is “the reason for a 

particular employment decision,” litigating many such claims (arising out of many 

different employment decisions) at once is only productive if “some glue hold[s] the 

alleged reasons for all those decisions together,” id. at 352 (emphasis in original) 

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 11 Put another way, the commonality 

requirement is met in an employment discrimination case only where the plaintiff 

demonstrates “that examination of all the class members’ claims for relief will produce 

a common answer to the crucial question why was I disfavored.” Id. (emphasis in 

original). 

In other words, the “common contention” or “glue” that binds an employment 

discrimination class together must bridge a “conceptual gap” between “an individual’s 

claim that he has been denied a promotion [or higher pay] on discriminatory grounds, 

and . . . the existence of a class of persons who have suffered the same injury as that 

individual[.]” Id. at 352–53 (quoting Gen. Tel. Co. of the Sw. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 

157–58 (1982)). And, notably, the Wal-Mart decision recognized two possible methods 

by which a plaintiff might establish the requisite common contention: a plaintiff must 

either (1) identify a “testing procedure or other companywide evaluation method that 

 11 In the instant case, the Plaintiffs have pled one of their two class claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 

rather than Title VII, but the s tandards articulated in Wal-Mart are “equally apposite to claims under 

th[at] statute[.]” Burton v. District of Columbia, 277 F.R.D. 224, 229 n.6 (D.D.C. 2011). 
36

can be charged with bias[,]” or (2) provide “[s]ignificant proof that an employer 

operated under a general policy of discrimination[.]” Id. at 353 (quoting Falcon, 457 

U.S. at 159 n.15). Requiring that one of these avenues be pursued ensures that, when 

evaluating the certification motion, the court does not lose sight of the need to 

“‘identify[] the specific employment practice that is challenged’” as producing a 

racially disparate outcome, id.at 357 (quoting Wards Cove Packing Co., 490 U.S. at 

656), which is a key task that even individual plaintiffs must accomplish in a Title VII 

case. Cf. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 159 n.15 (“[I]t is noteworthy that Title VII prohibits 

discriminatory practices, not an abstract policy of discrimination.” (emphasis in 

original)). (See also Part I.A, supra.)

Turning to the particular claims at issue in Wal-Mart, the Supreme Court 

observed that the named plaintiffs had not sought to identify a biased companywide 

evaluation method, and had also failed in their attempt to provide “significant proof that 

Wal-Mart operated under a general policy of discrimination.” Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 

353 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court noted that the only policy the 

plaintiffs had identified was the “‘policy’ of allowing discretion by local supervisors 

over employment matters[,]” id. at 355 (emphasis in original), and it explained that,

because the simple fact of delegating decisions “should itself raise no inference of 

discriminatory conduct,” id. (quoting Watson, 487 U.S. at 990), to establish sufficient 

commonality, the plaintiffs needed to “identif[y] a common mode of exercising 

discretion that pervades the entire company[,]” id. at 356. The plaintiffs failed to do so, 

the Court held, because they had produced only regional and national disparity data 

rather than the sort of granular, store-by-store data that could demonstrate truly 
37

pervasive discrimination. See id. at 356–57. And the Court made clear that even more 

granular disparity data would not necessarily have cured the commonality defect, 

because such data alone could not establish the necessary “specific employment 

practice” (i.e., a “common mode of exercising discretion”) that produced a disparate 

impact in a manner that was common to the class. Id. at 356–57. 

In the end, after analyzing facts and claims that are strikingly similar to those 

that are presented in the instant case, the Supreme Court offered a summation for its 

discussion of commonality in a Title VII employment class action that echoes 

resoundingly in the case before this Court: “Merely showing that [an employer]’s policy 

of discretion has produced an overall sex-based disparity does not suffice.” Id. at 357. 

2. Plaintiffs Have Not Established That Lockheed’s Performance Review 

System Causes Racially Disparate Outcomes In A Manner That Can Be 

Established Through Common Proof

As explained, the plaintiffs in Wal-Mart sought to litigate employment 

discrimination claims on behalf of all female current and former Wal-Mart employees. 

If Wal-Mart teaches anything, it is that plaintiffs can maintain such an employment 

discrimination lawsuit as a class action only if they can identify a company-wide 

“common contention” regarding the reasons that each member of the class has suffered 

an injury. See 564 U.S. at 350. As discussed above, Wal-Mart recognized two methods 

by which a plaintiff can thread together many individuals’ employment discrimination 

claims so as to demonstrate that they can productively be litigated at once: by pointing 

to a “testing procedure or other companywide evaluation method that can be charged 

with bias[,]” or by providing “[s]ignificant proof that an employer operated under a 

general policy of discrimination[.]” Id. at 353 (quoting Falcon, 457 U.S. at 159 n.15). 
38

In this Court’s view, Plaintiffs in the instant case have done neither, and thus have 

fallen far short of establishing a commonality of issues as Rule 23(a)(2) requires. 

First of all, try as they might, Plaintiffs have failed to identify a “testing 

procedure or other companywide evaluation procedure that can be charged with bias.” 

Id. (emphasis added). This is so notwithstanding Plaintiffs’ vigorous efforts to

characterize Lockheed’s performance appraisal system as a “companywide evaluation 

method” (Suppl. Mem. at 2 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)), and to 

assert that several common elements of that system are “flawed” (Compl. ¶ 11). 

Plaintiffs allege, for example, that the group “calibration sessions” at which multiple 

managers were required to discuss many employees and assign them into one of four 

performance “tiers” suffered from inadequate information about each employee under 

consideration and often required apples-to-oranges comparisons between employees 

with different positions. (See Compl. ¶ 23.) But the contention that the companywide 

evaluation procedures often resulted in ratings that were poorly correlated with job 

performance (see id. ¶¶ 17–24), however plausible, does not supply an account of how 

those procedures themselves resulted in the racially disparate outcomes that Plaintiffs 

have observed in Lockheed’s overall workforce. That is, in order make a plausible 

“charge[]” that a companywide evaluation method is infected “with bias[,]” Wal-Mart, 

564 U.S. at 353, it is clear that a plaintiff must provide some “detail about how th[at] 

examination[] operated in a biased way.” Burton, 277 F.R.D. at 229 (emphasis in 

original); see also Wards Cove, 490 U.S. at 657 (explaining that in a disparate impact 

case, “a plaintiff must demonstrate that it is the application of a specific or particular 
39

employment practice that has created the disparate impact under attack”). Plaintiffs 

here have taken no steps whatsoever toward accomplishing this critical goal.

Nor have Plaintiffs provided “significant proof” that Lockheed “operated under a 

general policy of discrimination.” Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 353. As was the case in WalMart, Plaintiffs have not identified any affirmative policy that had a demonstrably 

discriminatory intent or effect on African-American Lockheed employees; instead, the 

only connection that Plaintiffs have mustered between Lockheed’s policies and the 

allegedly racially disparate performance-review outcomes is the allegation that “[t]he 

absence of measurable indicators” in Lockheed’s individual performance reviews 

“resulted in inadequate safeguards against bias in the assessment of African American 

employees.” (Compl. ¶ 18; see also id. ¶ 19.) But just as in Wal-Mart, that allegation 

attributes racially disparate outcomes to the “policy” of committing unrestrained 

discretion to individual supervisors, see 564 U.S. at 355, and such a discretionary 

system can only amount to a policy of discrimination that is susceptible to common 

proof if Plaintiffs “identif[y] a common mode of exercising discretion that pervades the 

entire company[,]” id. at 356. The mere fact that all of Lockheed’s supervisors used the 

same allegedly ill-defined numerical rubric to grade employee performance (see Compl. 

¶¶ 17–21)—an aspect of the system that constrained supervisor discretion, even if 

inadequately—says nothing about how individual supervisors exercised what discretion 

was left to them, and after Wal-Mart, it is clear beyond cavil that such silence isn’t 

enough. 

To state the point succinctly: in order to establish the requisite commonality with 

respect to a discrimination challenge to an employee-review system that permits various 
40

managers to exercise discretion, Plaintiffs needed to demonstrate “that all managers

would exercise their discretion in a common way[,]” Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 356, and 

they have not done so. Other than pleading, “upon information and belief,” that “the 

racial disparity in ratings [under Lockheed’s performance evaluation system] is 

statistically significant” (Compl. ¶ 15), Plaintiffs have pointed to no evidence of biased 

decision making of any kind, and certainly not statistical evidence of the type that 

demonstrates that the discretionary ratings decisions led to racially disparate outcomes 

in a common way. See Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 357; see also Watson, 487 U.S. at 994 

(plurality opinion) (noting that in a disparate impact case, “the plaintiff must offer 

statistical evidence of a kind and degree sufficient to show that the practice in question 

has caused the exclusion of applicants for jobs or promotions because of their 

membership in a protected group”). 

Notably, even the anecdotal allegations of the two named plaintiffs fall short of 

giving rise to any belief that a common mode of discretionary decision making resulted 

in consistent race discrimination against the entire class. First of all, two anecdotes in a 

class of over 5,500 almost certainly do not constitute “substantial proof” that any 

commonalities between them are pervasive throughout the class. See Wal-Mart, 564 

U.S. at 358 (explaining that “roughly one account for every eight members of the class” 

might substantiate an inference that discrimination was pervasive, but “about 1 for 

every 12,500 class members” would not). Second, if anything, the allegations of the 

two named plaintiffs are more notable for their differences than for their similarities. 

Plaintiff Josey points to a disparity between her high individualized numerical ratings 

and her below-average tier rating as evidence of discrimination (see Compl. ¶ 36), 
41

whereas Plaintiff Ross alleges no such disparity (see id. ¶¶ 45–56). Plaintiff Ross 

intimates that he was discriminated against by virtue of being lumped in with other 

employees during calibration sessions even though “there are no proper comparators for 

his position” (id. ¶ 50), whereas Plaintiff Josey alleges that her calibration sessions 

were suspect because she was compared against both managers and non-managers (see 

id. ¶ 38). All in all, then, it is clear to this Court that Plaintiffs have failed to 

demonstrate that the challenged performance evaluation system resulted in race 

discrimination against all class members through a mechanism that could be established 

through common proof. 

The cases that Plaintiffs highlight in which courts have certified employmentdiscrimination classes on the basis of companywide discretionary evaluation systems all 

involved some thread that tied the many discretionary decisions together—the very 

thing that is absent here. For example, Plaintiffs rely on McReynolds v. Merrill Lynch, 

Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., a Seventh Circuit decision affirming certification of a 

class of African-American financial advisors that sued their employer for racially 

discriminatory compensation practices. See 672 F.3d 482, 483 (7th Cir. 2012),

abrogated on other grounds as recognized by Phillips v. Sheriff of Cook Cty., 828 F.3d 

541, 559 (7th Cir. 2016). (See Suppl. Mem. at 5–6.) In that case, the defendant 

“delegate[d] discretion over decisions that influence the compensation” of individual 

employees to many different supervisors, but the plaintiffs pointed to a companywide 

policy that plausibly infected those decisions with discrimination in a common manner. 

Id. at 488. Specifically, the plaintiffs identified a “teaming policy” that enabled brokers 

who were members of teams to increase their compensation, see id., and they alleged 
42

that, because individual brokers were allowed to pick their own team members pursuant 

to that policy, the teams became “little fraternities” in which “brokers choose as team 

members people who are like themselves” along racial lines, id. at 489. Thus, the

companywide “teaming” policy explained the common and allegedly discriminatory 

manner in which the brokers were exercising their discretion in a way that was central 

to the plaintiffs’ disparate impact claims, and as a result, the court found that the 

policy’s legality was susceptible to common proof. See id.

Plaintiffs also highlight Moore v. Napolitano, a decision from this District in 

which current and former employees of the United States Secret Service sought 

certification for a putative class action alleging discrimination in the Secret Service’s

promotion practices. See 926 F. Supp. 2d 8, 11–12 (D.D.C. 2013), pet. for permission 

to appeal denied sub nom. In re Johnson, 760 F.3d 66 (D.C. Cir. 2014). (See Mot. at 

29.) “[D]ifferent decision makers no doubt injected some subjectivity into the 

evaluations of different class members” in that case; however, crucially, “every 

promotion decision was ultimately made by the Director of the Secret Service.” In re 

Johnson, 760 F.3d at 73; see also Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 350 (hypothesizing that “the 

assertion of discriminatory bias on the part of the same supervisor” could satisfy the 

commonality requirement). Plaintiffs have not alleged any similarly centralized 

performance evaluation process here.

Consequently, unlike in the cases Plaintiffs cite, Plaintiffs have not identified a

“common contention” that “is central to the validity of each one of the [class members’] 

claims” and that “is capable of classwide resolution[.]” Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 350. It 

cannot be overstated that Plaintiffs’ mere reliance on an alleged racial disparity in 
43

overall employment outcomes (see Compl. ¶ 15) does not establish commonality, 

because “merely proving that [a] discretionary system has produced a racial or sexual 

disparity is not enough[,]” Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 357 (emphasis in original). And it is 

similarly insufficient to point to the performance appraisal system as a whole and 

contend, as Plaintiffs do, that it acted as “an identical or similar headwind against all 

class members.” (Suppl. Mem. at 4.) Rather, in any disparate impact case, “a plaintiff 

must demonstrate that it is the application of a specific or particular employment 

practice that has created the disparate impact under attack.” Wards Cove, 490 U.S. at 

657 (emphasis added). This important work is required in all disparate impact cases, 

but it “is all the more necessary when a class of plaintiffs is sought to be certified” 

because the court must satisfy itself that the class members’ claims are susceptible to 

common proof. Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 357. 

With neither an account of how the common features of the performance 

appraisal system led to racially disparate outcomes (other than by enabling 

discretionary decisions by individual supervisors), nor “statistical evidence of a kind 

and degree sufficient to show that the practice in question has caused” race 

discrimination, see Watson, 487 U.S. at 994 (plurality opinion), Plaintiffs cannot assure 

this Court that class members will actually share “a common answer to the crucial 

question why was I disfavored.” Wal-Mart, 564 U.S. at 352 (emphasis in original). 

Indeed, common answers are especially elusive under the circumstances presented here, 

as Plaintiffs apparently anticipated, given the broad class definition (which contains no 

limitation that ensures all class members have suffered the same adverse action or have 

otherwise been personally affected by Lockheed Martin’s performance appraisal 
44

system), and the expansive series of probing questions on the proposed claim form.

Plaintiffs’ expected class clearly encompasses individuals with widely varying 

experiences of discrimination. (See Compl. ¶ 57 (proposing a class definition that lacks 

any injury criteria and thus includes a broad and diverse swath of employees); see also

Suppl. Decl. of Cyrus Mehri, ECF No. 13-6, ¶ 4 (admitting that “[t]he Claim Form . . . 

does not limit the compensation, promotion, and termination claims for which 

Claimants will be compensated to those for which they could establish a link between 

their performance appraisal ratings and the allegedly discriminatory actions”).)12 Such 

potential breadth of experiences and claims among the putative class members is not the 

mark of a class that meets the commonality requirement of Rule 23(a).

B. Plaintiffs Have Failed To Make A Pre liminary Showing That The

Te rms Of The Proposed Settlement Agreement Are “Fair, Reasonable, 

And Ade quate”

Even if this lawsuit could be certified as a class action consistent with Rule 23, 

its settlement could not be approved at this juncture without “a preliminary 

determination on the fairness, reasonableness, and adequacy of the settlement terms[.]” 

Manual for Complex Litigation § 21.632; see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e)(2) (“If [a 

proposed settlement] would bind class members, the court may approve it only after a 

 12 The absence of any injury-focused limitation in Plaintiffs’ class definition is telling, and it stands in 

s tark contrast with class definitions in similar cases in which classes have been certified. See, e.g., 

Moore, 926 F. Supp. 2d at 16 (certifying class of “[a]ll current and former African-American Special 

Agents who bid for promotion to a GS-14 position from 1995–2004 and were not promoted to GS-14 on 

the first bid list on which they bid” (emphasis added)); McReynolds v. Sodexho Marriott Servs., Inc., 

208 F.R.D. 428 (D.D.C. 2002) (certifying class of “all African-Americans who are or were s alaried 

employees of Sodexho . . . who have held or sought to obtain [management positions], and who have 

been, continue to be, or may in the future be adversely impacted by Sodexho’s racially discriminatory 

policies and practices affecting promotions or advancement” (emphasis added)). 
45

hearing and on finding that it is fair, reasonable, and adequate.”). As explained above, 

in this district, courts presented with motions for preliminary approval of class 

settlement agreements consider such fairness-related factors as “(1) whether the 

proposed settlement appears to be the product of serious, informed, non-collusive 

negotiations, (2) whether it falls within the range of possible judicial approval, and 

(3) whether it has any obvious deficiencies, such as granting unduly preferential 

treatment.” Richardson, 951 F. Supp. 2d at 106–07 (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted). These and other related considerations, which are discussed below, 

compel this Court to conclude that the terms of Plaintiffs’ proposed Settlement 

Agreement are sufficiently problematic that the agreement cannot be approved, even 

preliminarily. 

To be sure, and to the parties’ credit, this Agreement “appears to be the product 

of serious, informed, non-collusive negotiations.” Id. Plaintiffs report that the parties

engaged in “eleven days of in-person and numerous telephonic mediation sessions[,]”

during which they discussed “statistical analyses, company policies and practices, and 

anecdotal evidence in this case.” (Mot. at 12.) Lockheed apparently “produced 

electronic human resource data[,]” and Plaintiffs’ counsel “retained a labor economics 

expert . . . to conduct statistical analyses of [that] data.” (Id.) These facts satisfy the 

Court that the parties’ negotiations were vigorous and well-informed. See Richardson, 

951 F. Supp. 2d at 106–07. But that alone is not enough to establish that the resulting 

agreement is fair to the absentee class members. And the terms of the Settlement 

Agreement that bear on the other fairness considerations mentioned above plainly 
46

indicate that the negotiating parties have given the absentee class members’ interests 

short shrift in several respects. 

First, and most notably, there is a gross imbalance between the claims that are 

actually at issue in this case and the claims that the class members who participate in 

the settlement would be required to release. See Manual for Complex Litigation § 21.62 

(explaining that the “[r]easonableness [of a settlement agreement] depends on an

analysis of the class allegations and claims and the responsiveness of the settlement to 

those claims”). Plaintiffs have consistently and unabashedly maintained that “the 

primary focus of the Complaint is on flaws in the performance appraisal system” 

(Suppl. Mem. at 13); yet, they also candidly acknowledge that, somehow, class

members are required to “release Lockheed Martin from all types of racial 

discrimination claims” under the terms of the Settlement Agreement (id. at 12 

(emphasis added) (citing Settlement Agreement at 22–23)). Plaintiffs have provided no 

reasonable explanation for the Settlement Agreement’s mandate that a class member 

relinquish her right to bring race discrimination claims that have nothing to do with the 

performance review system in order to settle a case about allegedly discriminatory 

performance reviews—and this Court sees none. And even more puzzlingly, the 

Agreement’s proposed broad release of claims sweeps even further: although the class 

period ended in 2016, class members agree release all race discrimination claims that 

arise at any time up until the Court finally approves the Settlement Agreement (see 

Settlement Agreement at 22), and not only do class members agree to release all race 

discrimination claims regarding the terms and conditions of their employment, they also 
47

assent to give up “claims of alleged racial discrimination . . . in the provision of 

employee benefits” as well (id. (emphasis added)).

It is perhaps not surprising that Lockheed would assent to such an agreement—in 

one fell swoop, this proposed settlement forecloses any and all potential race 

discrimination claims that thousands of African-American employees might otherwise 

have brought against the company. But it is shocking to this Court that counsel for the 

putative class members would contend that a release this broad and consequential is a 

“fair” bargain as it relates to the absent individuals whose potential legal claims are 

effectively extinguished by it. The sheer breadth of the released claims alone, when 

compared to the scope of the claims in the complaint, is enough to cause this Court to 

have serious doubts about whether the proposed Settlement Agreement comes anywhere 

close to “fall[ing] within the range of possible judicial approval[.]” Richardson, 951 F. 

Supp. 2d at 107.

The opt-out procedure laid out in the Settlement Agreement provides another 

source of serious concern. Under the Agreement, class members who do not respond to 

the class notice in any manner—that is, who neither complete and submit the extensive 

claim form nor comply with the prescribed opt-out procedures—will not only release all 

of their race discrimination claims against Lockheed Martin but will also become 

ineligible to recover any compensation from the settlement fund. (See Settlement 

Agreement at 24.) That is exactly the sort of circumstance that raises legitimate 

questions about the fairness of a settlement agreement. See 4 Newberg on Class Actions

§ 13:60 (noting that “[c]ompromising claims without compensation” is a “red flag in 

proposed settlements”). Additionally, if Plaintiffs’ counsel is correct that it is likely 
48

that thousands of class members will not even respond to the class notice, much less 

affirmatively opt out (see Tr. of Oral Arg. at 33–34 (counsel’s assertion, based on past 

experience, that the response rate is likely to be 30–50%), then this Settlement 

Agreement effectively allows Lockheed to inoculate itself against any and all race 

discrimination and race-related benefits claims by a huge swath of its African-American 

employees for a price that hardly seems “adequate.” 

This Court is also quite concerned about the miniscule amount of information 

that an absent class member will have about (1) the legal claims that are implicated in 

the settlement process, and (2) his or her anticipated recovery, at the time the opt-out

decision is made. See Manual for Complex Litigation § 21 (listing “the fairness and 

reasonableness of the procedure for processing individual claims under the settlement” 

as a relevant factor under Rule 23(e)). That is, for all its detail, the class notice 

provides no sense of what the minimum recovery is likely to be; no sense of what the 

average recovery is likely to be; and no sense of how giving particular answers on the 

claim form will likely influence the amount of a class member’s recovery. Plaintiffs’ 

counsel explains that none of this information is discernable until the Claims 

Administrator reviews all of the claim forms and develops information regarding the 

number and type of race discrimination claims that may exist throughout the class. (See 

Tr. of Oral Arg. at 69.) But that is exactly the defect that makes this settlement so 

potentially damaging to the absent class members—if they had been participants in this 

litigation from the start, Plaintiffs’ counsel would have already investigated their 

discrimination allegations and would be in a position to provide them with critical 

information about the estimated value of the claims that the Settlement Agreement 
49

releases. As things currently stand, this Court has no idea how Plaintiffs’ counsel could 

possibly have determined that the amount that Lockheed is offering to settle this case is 

sufficient to redress the legal claims of the class members without having already 

gathered information regarding the universe of claims at issue. And of course, if 

Plaintiffs’ counsel does have some knowledge of, and projections about, the scope of 

the absentee class members’ discrimination claims, then the value of those claims can 

be estimated, at least in general terms, and this recovery-related information should be 

provided to the class as part of the notice. 13 What is more, it is clear to this Court that

no reasonable counsel advising an individual absent class member would encourage his 

client to agree ex ante to release legal claims that the lawyer has not yet evaluated in 

exchange for nothing other than the vague hope that a claims official might 

subsequently do the work of assessing the strength of his client’s case and paying a 

worthy settlement amount. And yet, that appears to be precisely what Plaintiffs’

counsel proposes for the absent class members in the context of the settlement at issue 

in this case.

The bottom line is this: a putative class member needs to be able to make an 

informed determination regarding whether or not to opt out of a class settlement, and 

this is especially so when the proposed agreement requires him or her to give up 

potentially viable legal claims in exchange for the promise of a monetary recovery. 

 13 This is to say, Plaintiffs’ counsel cannot have it both ways. Either (1) he has no clue about what the 

class members will report on the claim form regarding their experiences with race discrimination, in 

which case no individual recovery estimates can be provided, but he also cannot possibly have made a 

rational determination that the $22.8 s ettlement fund is adequate to cover all of the class members’ 

claims, or (2) he is sufficiently aware of the scope and nature of the class members’ potential claims 

that he can assert with confidence that the settlement fund amount is adequate, but if this is so, then he 

s hould be able to provide the class members with information about the anticipated recovery if they 

decide to participate in the settlement. 
50

Ordinarily, and ideally, when faced with such a choice, the class member would want to 

know how much the claims he is releasing are likely to be worth, so that this figure can 

be compared to the amount being offered in settlement of those claims. In the typical

case involving a settlement class, this math is easily done, because the claims in the 

complaint are all that is at issue, and class counsel presents a settlement agreement with 

a negotiated amount that relates in some discernable way to the legal claims that will be 

released. See, e.g., In re APA Assessment Fee Litig., 311 F.R.D. 8, 13, 19 (D.D.C. 

2015) (approving settlement agreement that “represent[ed] close[] to 13% of plaintiffs’ 

best possible recovery” and under which “Claimants w[ould] receive a pro rata share of 

the fund based on the amount of . . . fees they paid during the class period”); Alvarez, 

303 F.R.D. at 157 (approving settlement agreement that “provide[d] for a monetary 

payment to each of the[] class members consisting of 1.37 times the amount owed for 

overtime during the relevant period”). But even if the overall value of the released 

claims is uncertain, at a minimum, any informed opt-out determination requires 

information regarding the estimated amount that a class member would be expected to 

receive if she participates, and it is no answer to say, as Plaintiffs do here, that ‘an 

estimate is not possible because we do not yet know the scope of the claims being 

released.’ (See, e.g., Tr. of Oral Arg. at 69.) Far from curing the problem, the fact that 

Plaintiffs themselves purport to have not yet fully evaluated the claims that class 

members are relinquishing in this action underscores the fundamental fairness issues

described above, and suggests that, rather than doing what is necessary to ensure that 

all class members’ rights are protected and advanced, Plaintiffs have opted to bind their 
51

fellow class members indiscriminately and rely on a claims administrator to do the 

heavy lifting of sorting it all out on the back end. 

In light of all of these deficiencies, which this Court has considered individually 

and in the aggregate, the Court is compelled to conclude that Plaintiffs have failed to 

demonstrate that the proposed Settlement Agreement is sufficiently “fair, reasonable, 

and adequate” to satisfy the standard for preliminary approval.

IV. CONCLUSION 

In this lawsuit, Plaintiffs seek to certify a class for settlement purposes that, in 

effect, is comprised of virtually every salaried African-American employee of Lockheed

Martin. Plaintiffs say that the 5,500-plus members of their proposed class have 

suffered race discrimination as a result of Lockheed’s performance review process, and 

have been victimized in a manner that is susceptible to common proof, but Plaintiffs do 

not present any theory of how the performance appraisal system resulted in racially 

disparate outcomes, much less evidence that the challenged system discriminates 

against all class members in the same way, as the commonality element of Federal Rule 

of Civil Procedure 23(a) requires. Moreover, the broad release of legal claims in the 

proposed Settlement Agreement strongly suggests that the parties have endeavored to 

use this case to resolve the entire universe of race discrimination claims that these class 

members might have against Lockheed, via a lawsuit that is purportedly much more 

limited in scope. This imbalance creates serious fairness concerns with the breadth of 

the release, the adequacy of the settlement fund, the prescribed opt-out procedures, and 

the overall claims administration process. All this leads this Court to the firm but 

reluctant conclusion that this case cannot be preliminarily certified as a class action
52

under Rule 23, and that the parties’ proposed Settlement Agreement is so potentially 

unfair that it cannot be preliminarily approved. Accordingly, as set forth in the 

accompanying Order, Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary certification and approval will 

be DENIED. 

DATE: July 28, 2017 Ketanji Brown Jackson

KETANJI BROWN JACKSON

United States District Judge