Opinion ID: 685134
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: did the district court abuse its discretion in denying

Text: 47 CLASS CERTIFICATION? 48 Appellants contend that the district court abused its discretion when it denied certification. We agree. In our view, the district court applied an overly restrictive legal standard in evaluating the requirements of Rule 23 and in denying class certification. Although the court took cognizance of cases holding that common questions need only exist--not predominate--for (b)(2) actions, it nevertheless proceeded to demand higher demonstrations of commonality and typicality than the rule requires. It is axiomatic that errant conclusions of law constitute an abuse of discretion. See International Union, United Auto, etc. v. Mack Trucks, Inc., 820 F.2d 91, 95 (3d Cir.1987), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 921, 111 S.Ct. 1313, 113 L.Ed.2d 246 (1991).
49 As to commonality, the district court concluded that: Not one of the common legal issues asserted by plaintiffs applies to every member of the proposed class.... The children's claims are based upon different legal theories depending on the individual circumstances of that child.... The services required to meet the needs of one child are vastly different from that of another child. Mem.Op. at 7. 17 These statements are at odds with the applicable standard. Plaintiffs are challenging common conditions and practices under a unitary regime. All the children in the class are subject to the risk that they will suffer from the same deprivations resulting from the DHS's alleged violations. Because the nature of foster placement is transitory and thus inherently variable, it is unreasonable to require that all plaintiffs suffer from the same injury simultaneously. 50 Defendants maintain that [p]roving systemwide failure does not establish that the law has been violated as to any child. Br. of Appellees at 16. However, the commonality standard requires only that a putative class share either the injury or the immediate threat of being subject to the injury. See supra at 57. Here, systemwide deficiencies either violate class members' rights currently or subject them to the risk of such a violation. 51 Furthermore, all of the plaintiffs seek to force the DHS to comply with its statutory mandates, and all of their injuries alleged here would be cured if DHS remedied the systemic deficiencies. Insofar as the children challenge the scheme for the provision of child welfare services, their claims share a common legal basis. Class certification for a similar attack on New York's child welfare system was upheld in Wilder v. Bernstein, 499 F.Supp. 980, 994 (S.D.N.Y.1980) ([In alleging that defendants] created an overall child-care system which discriminates on the basis of race and religion, plaintiffs have stated a claim against the entire system and each of its components.). Thus, we find the plaintiffs' attack on the DHS's systemic deficiencies in providing legally mandated child care services to be a sufficiently common legal basis to support class certification here. 52 The differing degree and nature of the plaintiffs' injuries also do not preclude a finding of commonality. Just as in Yamasaki, 442 U.S. at 682, 99 S.Ct. at 2545, where the amounts of each class member's claim differed but where the class members nonetheless shared a common statutory claim, the putative class members in this case share the common legal claim that DHS's systemic deficiencies result in widespread violations of their statutory and constitutional rights, irrespective of their varying individual needs and complaints. As in Yamasaki, where the plaintiffs challenged the conduct of the defendant towards the class, the children here challenge DHS's conduct, which is generally applicable to them. Also, as in Yamasaki, where it did not matter that the amounts of the individuals' claims differed, it does not matter here that the children suffer in varying ways from the DHS's violation of its statutory mandates. 53 When it concluded that not one factual issue pertains to the entire proposed class, the district court committed the error of overly fragmenting the plaintiffs' claims. A similar approach taken in another case, Ward v. Luttrell, 292 F.Supp. 165 (E.D.La.1968) (denying certification to a claim by female workers challenging state labor laws that denied overtime pay), has been characterized as contrary to the clear language of the rule and irreconcilable with the majority of decisions on the common question issue. See 1 NEWBERG & CONTE Sec. 3.11, at 3-59. It is true that each plaintiff here has his or her own circumstances, but every plaintiff shares the essential circumstance of being in the custody or the care of DHS. Individual factual differences do not affect the central allegation that the DHS violates various statutory and constitutional rights in its provision of child care services to the class. 54 Because of the district court's capacity to bifurcate (or trifurcate) the proceedings, the individual circumstances of the children, even if they affect the issues presented by this case, would not preclude certification. And in this suit for declaratory relief, the court can substantially avoid examining those individualized circumstances, for the relief requested by the plaintiffs focuses entirely on the effort to reform defendants' conduct so that it complies with the various legal provisions raised here. Thus, while the children will undoubtedly be affected by the district court's rulings, the court need not consider the individual children's peculiar circumstances in fashioning its order. 55 The court's heavy emphasis on the factual differences of the 6,000 children also suggests that it did not take sufficient cognizance of the nature of the relief sought. Because the complaint does not seek damages, the factual differences are largely irrelevant. The complaint prays for declaratory and injunctive relief. Factual differences among the situations of the plaintiffs will thus not preclude the district court from determining whether the class claims are meritorious, or from ordering the appropriate relief in the event that they are. 56 The district court's rendering of the commonality requirement also goes astray in its analysis of Hassine v. Jeffes, 846 F.2d 169 (3d Cir.1988). Notwithstanding the clear language of that decision, the district court here seems to have relied on Hassine to suggest that all of the named plaintiffs must suffer from the same harm. Mem.Op. at 7. The plaintiffs in Hassine, however, complained of over-crowding, though they were not actually double bunked, and of deficient medical and mental health services, though they did not at that time require either of those services. It was enough for the Hassine court that some plaintiffs might at some point require a variety of those services and thus be subjected to the risk of deprivation by the pervasively deficient system. 846 F.2d at 178 n. 5. Obviously, not all of the Hassine class members would need medical services, or the same medical services. By the reasoning of Hassine, then, the fact that some of the plaintiffs here do not need some of the services that are allegedly deficient does not, contrary to the district court's conclusion, preclude them from attacking a system that fails to provide those services. 57 The cases cited by defendants, where certification was denied on commonality grounds, are also easily distinguished. In Stott v. Haworth, 916 F.2d 134 (4th Cir.1990), the court denied certification of a class of government employees who had suffered adverse employment consequences allegedly resulting from improper partisan concerns. In that case, unlike this one, whether or not the asserted violations existed depended on individual determinations of the nature of the position of each plaintiff. Here, the violations exist independently of individual children's circumstances; it is established by reference to the objective statutory and constitutional criteria. 18 58 In Stewart v. Winter, 669 F.2d 328 (5th Cir.1982), prisoners challenging the conditions of prisons throughout the state of Mississippi were denied certification on commonality grounds. The Stewart court was daunted by the prospect of 82 separate hearings to evaluate under the appropriate totality-of-the circumstances test whether each of the counties' jails violated the plaintiffs' Eighth Amendment rights. The situation here is quite different. The plaintiffs challenge unitary systems and a much more localized service, i.e., the provision of child welfare services in Philadelphia. Furthermore, the question of liability in this case can be evaluated relative to the applicable (and generalized) statutory standards, unlike in Stewart where the Eighth Amendment claims would necessitate individualized hearings. At all events, we are dubious as to the correctness of Stewart, and note that in Pennsylvania a similar statewide class action has been certified and is ongoing (at the trial stage). See Austin v. Pennsylvania Dep't of Corrections, No. 90 Civ. 7497 (E.D.Pa. certified March 5, 1992). 59 In contrast to the cases we have distinguished, this case clearly presents common legal issues under the applicable standard. The children challenge DHS's pattern of conduct, which is subjecting them all to violations of their statutory and constitutional rights. Because of the dearth of trained caseworkers, for example, DHS (allegedly) fails to investigate reports of abuse and neglect promptly or adequately and fails to reliably provide the children in its care with written case plans, with appropriate placements, with proper care while in custody, and with periodical dispositional hearings. Similar violations of the rights of children in custody to be free from harm can (allegedly) be traced to the scarcity of properly trained foster parents or to DHS's lack of an adequate information system. 60 Moreover, trial will not require an individualized inquiry into a vast network of institutions. It is only the Philadelphia DHS's provision of the mandated services that is at issue, and the nature of the violations can be verified by reference to the applicable statutes; it is not necessary to examine each plaintiff's circumstances to evaluate the claims. The fact that all plaintiffs are subject to the risk of deprivation of services to which they are currently entitled (or which they may at some point in the future require) suffices to support their common claim against DHS.
61 The district court also misconstrued the relevant standard of typicality. As with its analysis of the commonality issue, the court appeared to rely on the proposition that the plaintiffs were not challenging precisely the same conditions and practices because the services required by law differ depending on a child's individual situation. However, General Tel. Co. of the Southwest v. Falcon, supra, assures that a claim framed as a violative practice can support a class action embracing a variety of injuries so long as those injuries can all be linked to the practice. Plaintiffs in this case attack a systemic failure by DHS to provide a broad range of legally mandated services. At any one time, the plaintiffs do not suffer from precisely the same deficiency, but they are all alleged victims of the systemic failures. Moreover, they each potentially face all of the system's deficiencies. A child not currently needing psychological services may well require such services sometime while in DHS custody. A child lucky enough to be receiving permanency planning, for example, faces the immediate threat of losing that service in a system characterized by the widespread absence of such services. Because being subject to the risk of an injury suffices under Hassine for both the commonality and the typicality inquiries, plaintiffs can allege these harms. 62 Furthermore, the fact that the common theme of attacking DHS's systemwide failure to comply with its legal mandates is equally central to the claims of the named plaintiffs as it is to the claims of the absentees reinforces the characterization of the plaintiffs' claims as typical. Indeed, this theme is central to each plaintiff. It bears remembering that the plaintiffs here seek only injunctive and declaratory relief; there are no other claims that could compromise the named plaintiffs' pursuit of the class claims. 63 Because there are no individual claims as such, the differences among the plaintiffs do not affect the central claim that DHS violates a variety of the childrens' (putative class members') constitutional and statutory rights by failing to provide mandated welfare services. We emphasize that the individual differences in the childrens' circumstances might indeed militate against certification if the action sought certification under 23(b)(3) because a court would need to evaluate those differences in the event that the plaintiffs prevailed and were entitled to monetary damages. In fashioning injunctive relief, however, a court would focus on the defendants rather than on the plaintiffs. Whether there are fifty or 6,000 plaintiffs, as in this case, the court's task is essentially the same. The court would not need to assure that every child received an appropriate case plan, for instance. Instead, the court would assure that the DHS had an adequate mechanism for generating and monitoring appropriate case plans. To the extent that some of the claims raised by the plaintiffs truly do require the court to engage in individualized determinations, the court retains the discretion to decertify or modify the class so that the class action encompasses only the issues that are truly common to the class. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(c)(4). 64 Moreover, the prospect of class certification in this case does not present the sorts of dangers that the typicality requirement was intended to avoid. There is no danger here that the named plaintiffs have unique interests that might motivate them to litigate against or settle with the defendants in a way that prejudices the absentees. Many courts have noted that the individual interest in pursuing litigation where the relief sought is primarily injunctive will be minimal. Weiss, 745 F.2d at 808 (citing 7 CHARLES WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE & PROCEDURE Sec. 1771 (1972)). Indeed, because this suit seeks only declaratory and injunctive relief, the named plaintiffs are simply not asserting any claims that are not also applicable to the absentees. The common claims here are the only claims and must perforce occupy the same position of centrality for all class members. The putative class clearly satisfies the typicality requirement of Rule 23(a)(3); the district court abused its discretion in ruling that it did not.
65 The district court also found that the plaintiffs failed to make the requisite showing under Rule 23(b)(2), concluding that the claims for relief were not generally applicable to the class. Mem.Op. at 21. In so holding, the court failed to give effect to the proper role of (b)(2) class actions in remedying systemic violations of basic rights of large and often amorphous classes. While it is true that not all of the orders issued will immediately benefit every plaintiff, every plaintiff will benefit from relief designed to assure DHS compliance with the applicable standards. 66 Plaintiffs have alleged that systemic failure causes the DHS to violate various mandates under federal statutory and constitutional provisions. Because the children in the system are comparably subject to the injuries caused by this systemic failure, even if the extent of their individual injuries may be affected by their own individual circumstances, the challenge to the system constitutes a legal claim applicable to the class as a whole. An order forcing the DHS to comply with their statutory and constitutional mandates would constitute relief generally applicable to the entire putative class. Indeed, the violations alleged here are precisely the kinds targeted by Rule 23(b)(2). The writers of Rule 23 intended that subsection (b)(2) foster institutional reform by facilitating suits that challenge widespread rights violations of people who are individually unable to vindicate their own rights. See Rules Advisory Committee Notes to 1966 Amendments to Rule 23, 39 F.R.D. 102 (1966); 1 Newberg & Conte, Sec. 4.11 at 4-39. 67 The fact that the plaintiffs in this case seek only injunctive and declaratory relief, not individual damages, further enhances the appropriateness of the class treatment. Clearly, this action aims to define the relationship of the defendants to the universe of children with whose care the defendants are charged. Plaintiffs simply ask the district court to declare the DHS's current provision of child welfare services to the plaintiffs to be violative of the cited statutory and constitutional provisions and to order DHS to implement a system that would enable it to comply with its legal mandates in the provision of these services. Furthermore, all of the class members will benefit from relief which forces the defendant to provide, in the manner required by law, the services to which class members either are currently or at some future point will become entitled. 68 While it is true that commonality, typicality, and the Rule 23(b)(2) general applicability requirements all manifest a concern about judicial efficiency and manageability, the district court's arguments on this score miss the mark. The district court clearly erred by finding that [i]t would be impossible to conceive of an Order this court could make granting class-wide injunctive relief which could address the specific case-by-case deficiencies in DHS's performance.... Mem.Op. 10/13/93 at 4-5. But a court could, for example, order the DHS to develop training protocols for its prospective foster parents. Such an order would not, contrary to the district court's view, create an enforcement problem of staggering proportions. Id. The district court will thus not need to make individual, case-by-case determinations in order to assess liability or order relief. Rather, the court can fashion precise orders to address specific, system-wide deficiencies and then monitor compliance relative to those orders. 69 Other courts have ordered the relief required by these types of cases without finding it to be either unworkable or unenforceable. For example, in L.J. v. Massinga, 699 F.Supp. 508, 510 (D.Md.1988), the court approved a consent decree essentially embodying the terms of the preliminary injunction it had previously issued and implemented. The decree required the defendant to review the status of each foster home where there had been a report of maltreatment; visit each child in a foster home on a monthly basis; visit each child who had been the subject of a report of maltreatment on a weekly basis; assure sufficient staff and resources to ensure that appropriate medical care was rendered; and provide a written copy of any complaint of maltreatment of a foster child to the juvenile court and the child's attorney. This is precisely the sort of order that is requested in this case. Because this suit challenges conduct generally applicable to the class and because the court can enter appropriate declaratory and injunctive relief, this action patently satisfies the (b)(2) standard.