Source: http://openjurist.org/493/us/165
Timestamp: 2013-05-20 06:51:37
Document Index: 533830067

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 621', '§ 216', '§ 626', '§ 621', '§ 4', '§ 623', '§ 201', '§ 16', '§ 216', '§ 216', '§ 216', '§ 2', '§ 216', '§ 216', '§ 216', '§ 216', '§ 216']

493 US 165 Hoffmann-La Roche Inc v. Sperling | OpenJurist
493 U.S. 165 - Hoffmann-La Roche Inc v. Sperling	Home493 us 165 hoffmann-la roche inc v. sperling
493 US 165 Hoffmann-La Roche Inc v. Sperling 493 U.S. 165
110 S.Ct. 482
107 L.Ed.2d 480
HOFFMANN-LA ROCHE INC., Petitionerv.Richard SPERLING et al.
After petitioner employer ordered a reduction in force and discharged or demoted some 1,200 workers, respondent affected employees filed in the District Court a collective action seeking relief under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. In order to meet the requirement of 29 U.S.C. § 216(b)—a provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) incorporated in the ADEA by 29 U.S.C. § 626(b)—that an individual may become a party plaintiff in a collective action only if he files with the court his "consent in writing," respondents moved for discovery of the names and addresses of similarly situated employees and requested that the court send notice to all potential plaintiffs who had not yet filed consents. The court held that it could facilitate notice of an ADEA suit to absent class members in appropriate cases so long as the court avoided communicating any encouragement to join the suit or any approval of the suit on its merits. Thus it, inter alia, ordered petitioner to comply with the request for the names and addresses of discharged employees and authorized respondents to send to all employees who had not yet joined the suit a court-approved consent document and a notice stating that it had been authorized by the District Court but that the court had taken no position on the merits of the case. The Court of Appeals affirmed, ruling that there was no legal impediment to court-authorized notice in an appropriate case. It declined to review the notice's form and contents, including the District Court's authorization statement.
(b) Once an ADEA suit is filed, a district court has a managerial responsibility to oversee the joinder of additional parties to assure that the task is accomplished in an efficient way and has the discretion to begin its involvement at the point of the initial notice rather than at a later time. Court-authorized notice may counter the potential for misuse of the class device, avoids a multiplicity of duplicative suits, and sets reasonable cutoff dates to expedite the action's disposition. Moreover, by monitoring preparation and distribution of the notice, a court can ensure that the notice is timely, accurate, and informative, and can settle disputes about the notice's content before it is distributed. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 83—which endorses measures to regulate the actions of the parties to a multiparty suit—and 16(b)—which requires the entry of scheduling orders limiting the time for, inter alia, the joinder of additional parties—provide further support for the trial court's authority. Petitioner's contention that court involvement in the notice process would thwart Congress' intention to relieve employers from the burden of multiparty actions, as expressed in the FLSA's 1947 amendments, is rejected, since those amendments merely limited private FLSA plaintiffs to employees who asserted their own rights, thus abolishing the right to sue of representatives with no personal interest in a suit's outcome, and left intact the "similarly situated" language providing for collective actions. Pp. 170-173.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 81 Stat. 602, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. V), provides that an employee may bring an action on behalf of himself and other employees similarly situated. To resolve disagreement among the Courts of Appeals,1 we granted certiorari on the question whether a district court conducting a suit of this type may authorize and facilitate notice of the pending action. 489 U.S. 1077, 109 S.Ct. 1526, 103 L.Ed.2d 832 (1989).
* Age discrimination in employment is forbidden by § 4 of the ADEA. 29 U.S.C. § 623 (1982 ed. and Supp. V). Section 7(b) of the ADEA incorporates enforcement provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), 52 Stat. 1060, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. V), and provides that the ADEA shall be enforced using certain of the powers, remedies, and procedures of the FLSA. This controversy centers around one of the provisions the ADEA incorporates, which states, in pertinent part, that an action
The ADEA, through incorporation of § 16(b), expressly authorizes employees to bring collective age discrimination actions "in behalf of . . . themselves and other employees similarly situated." 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) (1982 ed.). Congress has stated its policy that ADEA plaintiffs should have the opportunity to proceed collectively. A collective action allows age discrimination plaintiffs the advantage of lower individual costs to vindicate rights by the pooling of resources. The judicial system benefits by efficient resolution in one proceeding of common issues of law and fact arising from the same alleged discriminatory activity.
We have recognized that a trial court has a substantial interest in communications that are mailed for single actions involving multiple parties. In Gulf Oil Co. v. Bernard, 452 U.S. 89, 101, 101 S.Ct. 2193, 2200, 68 L.Ed.2d 693 (1981), we held that a District Court erred by entering an order that in effect prohibited communications between the named plaintiffs and others in a Rule 23 class action. Observing that class actions serve important goals but also present opportunities for abuse, we noted that "[b]ecause of the potential for abuse, a district court has both the duty and the broad authority to exercise control over a class action and to enter appropriate orders governing the conduct of counsel and the parties." 452 U.S., at 100, 101 S.Ct., at 2200. The same justifications apply in the context of an ADEA action. Although the collective form of action is designed to serve the important function of preventing age discrimination, the potential for misuse of the class device, as by misleading communications, may be countered by court-authorized notice.2
In the context of the explicit statutory direction of a single ADEA action for multiple ADEA plaintiffs, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide further support for the trial court's authority to facilitate notice. Under the terms of Rule 83, courts, in any case "not provided for by rule," may "regulate their practice in any manner not inconsistent with" federal or local rules. Rule 83 endorses measures to regulate the actions of the parties to a multiparty suit. See Gulf Oil Co., supra, at 99, n. 10, 101 S.Ct., at 2199, n. 10. This authority is well settled, as courts traditionally have exercised considerable authority "to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases." Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U.S. 626, 630-631, 82 S.Ct. 1386, 1389, 8 L.Ed.2d 734 (1962) (court had authority sua sponte to dismiss action for failure to prosecute). The interest of courts in managing collective actions in an orderly fashion is reinforced by Rule 16(b), requiring entry of a scheduling order limiting time for various pretrial steps such as joinder of additional parties. At pretrial conferences, courts are encouraged to address "the need for adopting special procedures for managing potentially difficult or protracted actions that may involve complex issues, [or] multiple parties. . . ." Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 16(c)(10).
To read the Court's opinion, one would think that what is at issue here is nothing but a routine exercise in case management. We are told that the district court has a "managerial responsibility to oversee the joinder of additional parties" in § 216(b) actions, ante, at 171, in order to protect potential plaintiffs and avoid duplicative litigation. We are told that all concerned—plaintiffs, defendants, and the judicial system itself benefit when the district courts abandon their "passiv[e]" stance and instead undertake "early judicial intervention" in the process of identifying people who have a cause of action and securing their consent to join the litigation. Ante, at 171-172. And we are told that by doing good in this fashion the district courts merely avail themselves of their "considerable authority 'to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases.' " Ante, at 172-173 (quoting Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U.S. 626, 630-631, 82 S.Ct. 1386, 1388-1389, 8 L.Ed.2d 734 (1962)).
The difficulty with sweeping these orders under the rug of "case management" is that they were not at all designed to facilitate the adjudication of any claim before the court. The individuals whom the court helped notify were not, at the time of the orders, part of the case. Section 216(b) provides that "[n]o employee shall be a party plaintiff . . . unless he gives his consent in writing to become such a party and such consent is filed in the court in which such action is brought." 29 U.S.C. § 216(b) (1982 ed.). It is true, of course, that the orders can be regarded as managing future cases—assuring, to the extent the plaintiffs are willing, that such cases will not be filed in different courts and at different times. But that does not make this court's handling of the case before it any simpler or more efficient. Surely the judge's authority to "manage" cases has never before been thought to be more expansive than his authority to adjudicate them—i.e., to extend to cases that have not actually been filed in his court.
"This clause [Art. III, § 2, cl. 1] enables the judicial department to receive jurisdiction to the full extent of the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States, when any question respecting them shall assume such a form that the judicial power is capable of acting on it. That power is capable of acting only when the subject is submitted to it by a party who asserts his rights in the form prescribed by law. It then becomes a case. . . ." Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 819, 6 L.Ed. 204 (1824) (emphasis added).
First, nothing in § 216(b) itself confers this power. The portion of the statute dealing with collective employee actions provides that employees may sue in a representative capacity for other similarly situated employees who have consented to the representation. The Court characterizes this as an "affirmative permission" for representative actions, from which it derives a "grant [of] the requisite procedural authority to manage the process of joining multiple parties. . . ." Ante, at 170 (emphasis added). Of course the reality of the matter is that it is not an "affirmative permission" for representative actions at all, but rather a limitation upon the affirmative permission for representative actions that already exists in Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. (That is to say, were it not for this provision of § 216(b) the representative action could be brought even without the prior consent of similarly situated employees.) But accepting the notion that it is an "affirmative permission" for representative actions, I do not see how that converts into an implied authorization for courts to undertake the unheard-of role of midwifing those actions. I have no doubt that courts possess certain powers over the § 216(b) joinder process, most prominently the power to satisfy themselves that the employees who purportedly become parties are in fact similarly situated to the representative, and have in fact given valid consents to the litigation. That is simply part of the courts' ever-present duty to inquire into their jurisdiction over claims brought before them. But to reason from that to the existence of a more general "procedural authority to manage the process of joining multiple parties" seems to me fallacious. Nothing in § 216(b) remotely confers the extraordinary authority for a court either directly or by lending its judicial power to the efforts of a party's counsel—to search out potential claimants, ensure that they are accurately informed of the litigation, and inquire whether they would like to bring their claims before the court.
Nor do I agree with the Court that the Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure themselves provide the authority claimed by the District Court. To begin with, authorization from that source may be expressly foreclosed by Rule 82, which provides that the Rules "shall not be construed to extend or limit the jurisdiction of the United States district courts or the venue of actions therein." Authority for the courts to use their power for a purpose that neither achieves nor assists the resolution of claims before them appears to violate that prohibition—and the urgings of judicial efficiency are no justification for ignoring it. Cf. Finley v. United States, 490 U.S. 545, 553, 109 S.Ct. 2003, 2009, n. 6, 104 L.Ed.2d 593 (1989) (plaintiff in Federal Tort Claims Act action against United States may not, through impleader and joinder provisions of Rules 14 and 20, bring pendent third-party claim over which there is no independent grant of federal jurisdiction); Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U.S. 365, 370, 98 S.Ct. 2396, 2400, 57 L.Ed.2d 274 (1978) (Rule 14's authorization of third-party claims does not affect the statutory requirement of complete diversity among parties in diversity actions). But even if the Federal Rules could expand judicial power in this fashion, nothing in their language suggests that they have done so. The Court relies upon Rule 16, which, in authorizing pretrial conferences to facilitate the disposition of cases, admonishes the court to address "the need for adopting special procedures for managing potentially difficult or protracted actions that may involve complex issues, multiple parties, difficult legal questions, or unusual proof problems." Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 16(c)(10). It would certainly be strange to confer an unusual new power by simply mentioning that power (as one of the subjects that can be considered) in a provision designed to authorize pretrial conferences. But in any case, the authority to "manage actions" cannot reasonably be read to refer to the management of claims and parties not before the court. This is made entirely clear by the Rule's catchall provision, which admonishes the court to address "such other matters as may aid in the disposition of the action." Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 16(c)(11) (emphasis added).
The Court's repeated reliance upon Rule 83 is so strained that it snaps. Rule 83 states: "In all cases not provided for by rule, the district judges . . . may regulate their practice in any manner not inconsistent with these rules or those of the district in which they act." The contention here is that this is not a "regulation of practice" pertinent to resolution of the controversy before the court. To respond to that contention by pointing out that the court has been given authority to "regulate practice" is not to respond at all—unless the Court means that "regulating practice" includes impositions upon the parties and their counsel for any purpose whatever.
In the end, the only serious justification for today's decision is that it makes for more efficient and economical adjudication of cases—not more efficient and economical adjudication of the pending case, but of other cases that might later be filed separately on behalf of plaintiffs who would have been perfectly willing to join the present suit instead. I concede that this justification, at least, is entirely valid. The problem is that it is a justification in policy but not in law.
If the benefits of judicial efficiency and economy constitute sufficient warrant for the District Court's action, then one can imagine numerous areas in which district courts should similarly take on the function of litigation touts—whenever, in fact, they have before them a claim that is similar to claims which other identifiable individuals might possess. The Court's suggestion that ADEA suits are rendered distinctive by § 216(b)'s "explicit statutory direction of a single ADEA action for multiple ADEA plaintiffs," ante, at 172, is entirely unpersuasive. Section 216 no more directs a single action in ADEA litigation than Rule 20 (permissive joinder) directs a single action in all other litigation. Both provisions permit (in the words of Rule 20) that persons may "join in one action as plaintiffs [who] assert [a] right to relief . . . in respect of or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences and if any question of law or fact common to all these persons will arise in the action." Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 20(a).
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