Opinion ID: 628621
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standard for modification or termination of consent decrees in employment discrimination class actions

Text: Historically, courts have looked to United States v. Swift & Co. 9 as the seminal case on the propriety of changing a standing consent decree. In Swift, a Sherman Act anti-trust case brought by the United States, five meat packing companies in 1920 entered into a consent decree with the government that enjoined their monopolistic practices. In 1930 these companies sought a modification of the decree, which was granted in part by the district court. The Supreme Court reversed. Since then courts have applied what has become known as the Swift grievous wrong standard: Nothing less than a clear showing of grievous wrong evoked by new and unforeseen conditions should lead us to change what was decreed after years of litigation with the consent of all concerned. 10 Recently, however, the Supreme Court has articulated more flexible standards to be applied to consent decrees which were entered for the purpose of amicably redressing statutory and constitutional wrongs committed against individuals by public institutions. Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail 11 began as a lawsuit by inmates who sought to correct unconstitutional conditions at the Suffolk County Jail. Eventually, the parties agreed to, and the district court entered, a consent decree, pursuant to which the defendants expressed their desire to provide, maintain and operate  'a suitable and constitutional jail.'  12 The decree specifically incorporated the provisions of an architectural program that called for a new jail with a specified number of  '[s]ingle occupancy rooms.'  13 Several years later, while the new jail was still under construction, the defendants moved to modify the decree to allow some double bunking of prisoners; the defendants argued, among other things, that the dramatic increase in the prisoner population justified modification. Citing the Swift grievous wrong standard, the district court denied the motion to modify, reasoning that the single cell requirement had been an important element of the relief sought in the litigation. The court of appeals affirmed the district court's decision. The Supreme Court vacated the decision of the court of appeals, holding that the district court had applied the wrong standard in denying the defendants' motion. The Court distinguished between consent decrees  'that give protection to rights fully accrued upon facts so nearly permanent as to be substantially impervious to change'  and those  'that involve the supervision of changing conduct or conditions and are thus provisional and tentative.'  14 The Court held that, in cases involving the latter class of decrees, the standard for modification should be flexible: Because [consent decrees in institutional reform litigation] often remain in place for extended periods of time, the likelihood of significant changes occurring during the life of the decree is increased. 15 The Court then articulated the following flexible standard to be applied to consent decrees in institutional reform litigation: [A] party seeking modification of a consent decree must establish that a significant change in facts or law warrants revision of the decree and that the proposed modification is suitably tailored to the changed circumstance. 16 Applying this flexible standard to the facts of the case before it, the Court concluded that the district court had erred in determining that the single cell requirement was an important element of the relief sought in the litigation and that modification of this requirement was, therefore, inappropriate. The Court explained: Even if the decree is construed as an undertaking by petitioners to provide single cells for pretrial detainees, to relieve petitioners from that promise based on changed conditions does not necessarily violate the basic purpose of the decree. That purpose was to provide a remedy for what had been found, based on a variety of factors, including double celling, to be unconstitutional conditions obtaining in the [Suffolk County Jail]. If modification of one term of a consent decree defeats the purpose of the decree, obviously modification would be all but impossible. That cannot be the rule. The District Court was thus in error in holding that even under a more flexible standard than its version of Swift required, modification of the single cell requirement was necessarily forbidden. 17 Thus, the Court determined that while modification would not be appropriate if it would violate the basic purpose of the decree, the modification of the single cell requirement did not violate the basic purpose of the decree at issue and, therefore, was not necessarily forbidden. We do not read the Supreme Court's explanation of the interplay between the basic purpose of a decree and a requested decree modification as a broad holding that the change of a single decree term can never defeat the decree's basic purpose. Rather, we read the Supreme Court as rejecting a broad rule that modification of a single decree term necessarily defeats the decree's purpose. 18 As Justice O'Connor said in her concurrence: It may be that the modification of one term of the decree does not always defeat the purpose of the decree. [Citation omitted.] But it hardly follows that the modification of a single term can never defeat the decree's purpose, especially if the term is the most important element of the decree. 19 Thus, a court faced with a motion to modify a consent decree in institutional reform litigation must begin by determining the basic purpose of the decree. If the decree term that is the subject of the requested modification is central to the decree, or, as Justice O'Connor put it, the most important element of the decree, then the modification is likely to violate the basic purpose of the decree and, therefore, will be forbidden. If, on the other hand, the decree term at issue merely sets out one of several means of accomplishing the purpose of the decree or one of several means of measuring compliance with the decree's objective, then the requested modification is not necessarily prohibited. 20 A court faced with a motion to terminate, as opposed to merely to modify, a consent decree must begin by determining the basic purpose of the decree. We find instructive the Supreme Court's recent decisions as to the propriety of the termination of decrees in the school desegregation cases. In Board of Education of Oklahoma City Public Schools v. Dowell, 21 a case in which the district court had dissolved a desegregation decree, the Supreme Court, as it did in Rufo, rejected as erroneous the application of the Swift grievous wrong standard. Noting that a decree may not be changed  'if the purposes of the litigation as incorporated in the decree ... have not been fully achieved,'  22 the Court stated: In the present case, a finding by the District Court that the Oklahoma City School District was being operated in compliance with the commands of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that it was unlikely that the school board would return to its former ways, would be a finding that the purposes of the desegregation litigation had been fully achieved. No additional showing of grievous wrong evoked by new and unforeseen conditions is required of the school board. 23 The Supreme Court then went on to emphasize the importance of a school board's good faith compliance with a decree requiring desegregation when a court is determining whether the decree should be terminated. 24 Summarizing, the Court said: The District Court should address itself to whether the Board had complied in good faith with the desegregation decree since it was entered, and whether the vestiges of past discrimination had been eliminated to the extent practicable. 25 We find that the principles articulated in Rufo and Dowell are applicable to requests to modify or terminate decrees in employment discrimination class actions, like the one before us. 26 Generally, the remedies in employment discrimination consent decrees are intended to eliminate present and future discrimination in employment and sometimes to redress the imbalance caused by past discrimination. 27 The decrees fall squarely within that class of decrees that  'involve the supervision of changing conduct or conditions and are thus provisional and tentative.'  28 These decrees are not intended to maintain employment quotas; their only purpose is to remedy the effects of past discrimination. 29 Since the impact of these decrees reaches beyond the initial beneficiaries of the lawsuit, the decrees may have a significant impact upon third parties, such as non-favored groups. 30 Accordingly, we hold that the principles applicable to requests to modify or terminate consent decrees in the institutional reform arenas of prisons and schools are also applicable to such requests in employment discrimination class actions.