Opinion ID: 401038
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Grain Claim

Text: 66 In pressing this claim, plaintiffs sought to represent all blacks who were denied opportunities to work in grain gangs because of defendants' discriminatory practices. This would include all those who actually sought grain work but were refused the opportunity, those who had been deterred from trying to get grain work because of knowledge of the discriminatory policy, and those who would become subject to this practice in the future. Phillips v. Joint Legislative Committee on Performance & Expenditure Review, 637 F.2d 1014, 1022 (5th Cir. 1981). During the relevant time period, there were hundreds of blacks working in the Port of New Orleans any or all of whom might have been affected by the discrimination. 67 In determining whether a proposed class is sufficiently numerous, the court's inquiry must focus upon the practicability of joining all aggrieved parties. Here, an accurate count of all those aggrieved is virtually impossible, much less an identification of the actual persons. In these circumstances, joinder is certainly impossible, id. at 1022; Jack v. American Linen Supply Co., 498 F.2d 122, 124 (5th Cir. 1974), and because of this impossibility, the numerosity requirement is met. 68 The court relied upon Bailey v. Ryan Stevedoring Co., 528 F.2d 551 (5th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1052, 97 S.Ct. 767, 50 L.Ed.2d 769 (1977), in concluding that most of the black longshoremen plaintiffs sought to represent did not want to be included in the class. This case is distinguishable from Bailey, however. There we denied certification because a majority of the members of the proposed class petitioned the court to be excluded from the class. In this case, there was no such action by black longshoremen. The court referred to its awareness of the black Local's resistence to and resentment of the merger of the segregated locals. Whether members of the black Local were in favor of or opposed to union merger is irrelevant because our concern in this appeal is with the issues of discrimination in grain work allocation. Furthermore, the resistence relied upon by the court is a far cry from the unequivocal message contained in the Bailey class members' petition. 69 The court held, in the alternative, that certification was inappropriate because discrimination had not been proved. Because we have found discrimination in the allocation of grain work, this basis for the court's denial of certification is no longer valid. 21