Opinion ID: 404965
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the court's power to revise the consent decree

Text: 26 We initially determine whether the district court was empowered to modify its prior remedial orders because of the impending layoffs. At the outset we note that defendants settled both the police case, filed originally under sections 1981 and 1983, and the fire case, commenced under these sections as well as Title VII, by entering into remedial consent decrees. They did so only after the liability issues had been extensively litigated, resulting in well-supported determinations at the district and circuit levels (with certiorari having been sought and denied in the fire case), that defendant's certification and recruiting procedures were discriminatory because they had produced an underrepresentation of blacks and hispanics in the police and fire departments, and that these procedures lacked justification in terms of job-relatedness. See Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424, 91 S.Ct. 849, 28 L.Ed.2d 158. 27 The first question is whether Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976), and Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977), bar the relief ordered because intentional discrimination was not proved. We find no bar. It is by no means clear that our decisions in the police and fire cases should have been different had they been decided after Washington v. Davis and Arlington Heights, but in any event the pattern of relief which the present modifications in the decrees seek to preserve was conclusively established prior to those decisions. Neither case stands in the way of the district court's modification of the consent decree. Sarabia v. Toledo Police Patrolman's Ass'n, 601 F.2d 914, 919 (6th Cir. 1979); Bolder v. Penn. State Police, 73 F.R.D. 370, 371-72 (E.D.Pa.1976). 28 We have carefully reviewed the original complaints, the language contained in the decrees, and all district and circuit court opinions in these cases. We can only conclude that the purpose of the decrees and the intervening orders was to eliminate the present and continuing effects of defendants' past discrimination. We reject appellants' contention that the original decrees and subsequent modifications limit relief to correcting features of the certification process found to have violated plaintiffs' constitutional rights as to hiring. These cases encompass the overall issue of shaping ongoing relief so as to eliminate the condition precipitating the original decrees: gross discriminatory underrepresentation of persons in the fire and police departments who are not members of the prevailing white culture. 9 Castro v. Beecher, 459 F.2d 725, 729-31 (1st Cir. 1972); see Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717, 744, 94 S.Ct. 3112, 3126, 41 L.Ed.2d 1069 (1974); Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Bd. of Educ., 402 U.S. 1, 16, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1276, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1971); cf. Evans v. Buchanan, 582 F.2d 750, 768 (3d Cir. 1978) (in banc), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 923, 100 S.Ct. 1862, 64 L.Ed.2d 278, reh'g denied, 447 U.S. 916, 100 S.Ct. 3004, 64 L.Ed.2d 865 (1980). 29 The district court based its authority to reshape the consent decrees on its finding that the dramatic reduction in minority representation in these departments constituted a showing of a grievous wrong evoked by new and unforeseen conditions, citing the Supreme Court in United States v. Swift, 286 U.S. 106, 119, 52 S.Ct. 460, 464, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932). Swift involved an antitrust defendant that sought to avoid its obligations pursuant to a consent decree due to changed market conditions. Perhaps a more apt standard was set out by the Supreme Court in United States v. United Shoe Corp., 391 U.S. 244, 88 S.Ct. 1496, 20 L.Ed.2d 562 (1968), wherein plaintiffs in an antitrust dispute sought revision of their remedy designed to produce workable competition. Id. at 249, 88 S.Ct. at 1499. There, the Court held that modification was appropriate because time and experience had demonstrated that the decree had failed to accomplish its intended result. Id. See also System Federation v. Wright, 364 U.S. 642, 647, 81 S.Ct. 368, 371, 5 L.Ed.2d 349 (1961). In any event there can be no question of the power of a court of equity, upon a sufficient showing, to modify an injunction in adaptation to changed conditions though it was entered by consent. United States v. Swift, 286 U.S. at 114, 52 S.Ct. at 462. Here, there was ample showing that changed circumstances would totally vitiate the intended effect of the original decrees unless the proposed modifications were made. 30 Nor do we think that plaintiffs should be penalized for failing, in negotiating the decrees, to have foreseen the unprecedented change in state and local fiscal policy resulting in the extensive layoff programs. We agree with the district court that, had the parties anticipated any measure such as Proposition 21/2, they would have incorporated some provision addressing its potential impact into the decrees. Failure to take the action here challenged would result in undoing most all that had been accomplished by the original decrees. 31 The Sixth Circuit's treatment of a virtually identical layoff situation in Brown v. Neeb, 644 F.2d 551 (6th Cir. 1981), lends considerable support to our conclusion that modification was within the court's power. In Brown, findings of prior illegal discrimination by the Toledo Fire Department formed the predicate of a consent decree entered into by the city, which set as a goal that the city achieve within 5 years a fire department which reflected the racial composition of the city as a whole. Id. at 555. The Sixth Circuit upheld the district court's authority to order the same type of modification of the original decree as in this case, reasoning that the language in the decree, although silent as to the effect of layoffs, and the circumstances surrounding the entry of the decree, compelled the conclusion that the city agreed that it had a constitutional duty to eliminate discrimination in the hiring of firefighters. Id. at 562-63. The Brown court distinguished its denial of similar relief in Youngblood v. Dalzell, 568 F.2d 506 (6th Cir. 1978), because in Youngblood, unlike Brown, there had been no finding of prior discrimination; the original decree contained language expressly denying that the Cincinnati Fire Department had discriminated in its past hiring practices. Brown v. Neeb, 644 F.2d at 561 & n.18. 32 Here, as in Brown, the defendants entered into consent decrees upon capitulating to judicial findings of past discrimination. Brown v. Neeb, 644 F.2d at 562 & n.20; Boston Chapter, NAACP, Inc. v. Beecher, April 17, 1975 Interim Consent Decree (fire case), App. at 90-91; Castro v. Beecher, 365 F.Supp. at 656. Both decrees contain language that warrants concluding that the certifying and appointing authorities are under an affirmative duty to integrate the police and fire departments until the percentage of blacks and hispanics in both departments approximates that of the general population. 10 In addition, neither decree contains any exculpatory language as in Youngblood. And, as in Brown, if the district court undertook no modification, the layoffs would have eroded significantly, if not completely destroyed, the affirmative action progress made to date. See Brown v. Neeb, 644 F.2d at 560. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the district court had the authority to modify the consent decrees in the light of new and unforeseen conditions. 33 We next address the issues of whether the relief ordered was proper and constitutional. 34