Opinion ID: 439951
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: additional law of the case and waiver issues

Text: 36
37 NWA does not dispute that Laffey I actually decided two issues which it now seeks to relitigate: first, that equal work was performed by NWA stewardesses and pursers, and second, that NWA, as a matter of law, could have willfully violated the Equal Pay Act notwithstanding the absence of an iniquitous ... state-of-mind. Laffey I, 567 F.2d at 461; NWA Brief at 11 n. 1, 13. NWA seeks to reopen these two issues, not by positing the existence of supervening case law, but by arguing that our prior holdings were clearly erroneous and that adherence to law of the case in these instances would work a manifest injustice. Melong v. Micronesian Claims Commission, 643 F.2d 10, 17 (D.C.Cir.1980) (quoting White v. Murtha, 377 F.2d 428, 432 (5th Cir.1967)). 18 Because we perceive no error whatever in Laffey I 's disposition of these two issues, let alone the clear error and manifest injustice that would warrant departure from the law of the case, we reject NWA's arguments and reaffirm the holdings of Laffey I with respect to the issues of equal work and willfulness. 38 Moreover, we take this opportunity to emphasize that this court will not, absent truly exceptional circumstances, Laffey II, 642 F.2d at 585, look favorably on arguments against the law of the case which fall only under the manifest injustice rubric. 19 We do not intend to allow this avenue of attack on the law of the case to become an auxiliary vehicle for the repetition of arguments previously advanced, without success, in appellate briefs, petitions for rehearing, and petitions for certiorari.
39 In its 1973 Findings, the district court concluded that the jobs of purser and stewardess at NWA require equal skill, effort and responsibility and are performed under similar working conditions. 366 F.Supp. at 788, 789 (Findings of Fact (FOF) 78; Conclusions of Law 2, 4). In Laffey I, this court explicitly affirmed this finding and conclusion, 567 F.2d at 453, thus establishing the equal work prerequisite to Equal Pay Act liability as the law of the case. 40 NWA's challenge to this holding hinges on its interpretation of two of the district court's findings of fact in 1973. In one pivotal finding, FOF 65, the district court described the chain of command for an NWA flight: 41 If one purser is aboard, he is denominated the Senior Cabin Attendant irrespective of his relative length of service as compared to the other attendants. If two or more pursers are aboard the flight, the most senior purser is the Senior Cabin Attendant. If no purser is aboard the flight, the most senior stewardess or FSA is the Senior Cabin Attendant. 42 1973 Findings, 366 F.Supp. at 785. The nature and scope of a Senior Cabin Attendant's supervisory responsibilities is described in another critical finding, FOF 67: 43 Stewardesses who serve as Senior Cabin Attendant are subject to discipline if they fail to carry out their supervisory responsibilities, and are held just as accountable as pursers who fail to carry out their supervisory responsibilities. 44 Id. The district court also noted in this latter finding that NWA had no merit pay adjustment whereby either pursers or stewardesses who supervise effectively were paid more than less capable or effective supervisors. 45 Seizing upon the district court's recognition in FOF 65, above, that pursers supervised stewardesses, but not vice versa, NWA argues vehemently that the two jobs cannot be deemed equal because [j]obs that entail different degrees of supervisory responsibility are not equal within the meaning of the Equal Pay Act. NWA Brief at 41. Next, relying upon the court's description in FOF 67, above, of the cabin attendants' accountability for the discharge of their supervisory duties, NWA maintains that the district court's findings compel the conclusion that the supervisory responsibility had real content and that Laffey I 's conclusion that the pursers' supervisory function was insignificant thus actually contradicted the trial judge's findings. Id. at 42. 46 We cannot accept either branch of NWA's argument. It is, of course, elementary that jobs need not be identical in every respect before the Equal Pay Act is applicable .... Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U.S. 188, 203 n. 24, 94 S.Ct. 2223, 2232 n. 24, 41 L.Ed.2d 1 (1974). In Laffey I, this court explained: 47 [T]he phrase equal work does not mean that the jobs must be identical, but merely that they must be substantially equal. A wage differential is justified only if it compensates for an appreciable variation in skill, effort or responsibility between otherwise comparable job work activities. 48 567 F.2d at 449 (citations omitted). This substantially equal test, which has been adopted by no fewer than nine other circuits, Thompson v. Sawyer, 678 F.2d 257, 272 n. 12 (D.C.Cir.1982), necessarily implies that there can be job responsibilities--including supervisory duties--so  'insubstantial or minor'  as not to  'render the equal pay standard inapplicable.'  Laffey I, 567 F.2d at 449 (quoting 29 C.F.R. Sec. 800.122 (1975)). 49 Therefore, to the extent that NWA's argument suggests that any difference in supervisory responsibility renders jobs unequal, it is manifestly incorrect as a matter of law. Critically, the authority NWA cites as support for this proposition is not, in fact, inconsistent with the substantially equal test. 20 Indeed, NWA itself acknowledges several other cases in which supervisory responsibilities were found to be too minor to warrant a finding of unequal responsibility. See Hill v. J.C. Penney Co., 688 F.2d 370, 373-74 (5th Cir.1982); Hodgson v. American Bank of Commerce, 447 F.2d 416, 422 (5th Cir.1971). 50 NWA's claim that Laffey I 's finding of equal work actually contradicted the district court's findings is also patently incorrect. As we understand NWA's argument, FOF 67, when read together with FOF 65, compels the conclusion that the district court viewed the supervisory responsibilities as not insubstantial. This contention, however, plainly overlooks the district court's express finding that the pursers' supervisory functions require no greater skill, effort or responsibility than the other functions assigned to all cabin attendants, 1973 Findings, 366 F.Supp. at 786 (FOF 69), and its further explicit finding of equal skill, effort and responsibility on the part of stewardesses and pursers, id. at 788-89 (FOF 78; Conclusions of Law 2, 4). It follows as ineluctably as night follows day that the district court found that the pursers' supervisory duties did not alter the equivalence of the two jobs under scrutiny in this case. 21 51 There is, in cutting through the prolific underbrush planted in our way by NWA, upon analysis no conflict whatever between the district court and this court as to the importance of the supervisory duties assigned to pursers. Laffey I affirmed the district court's finding that NWA purser and stewardess positions are substantially equal within the intent of the Equal Pay Act.... 567 F.2d at 453. NWA has come forward with nothing to suggest that this affirmance of the district court's conclusion with respect to the importance of supervisory duties was in error. NWA's argument, based ultimately on a tortured reading of the district court's findings and an inaccurate portrayal of the applicable law, fails.
52 Under 29 U.S.C. Sec. 255(a) (1976), a willful violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), of which the Equal Pay Act is a part, triggers a three-year, as opposed to the Act's ordinary, two-year statute of limitations. In Laffey I, this court determined that NWA's violation of the Equal Pay Act had been willful within the meaning of section 255(a), 567 F.2d at 463, thus rendering NWA liable for a third year of backpay. In reaching this conclusion, the court canvassed the legislative history of section 255(a) and rejected NWA's suggestion that a violation must be animated by a bad purpose or evil intent to be deemed willful. Id. at 461. Instead, the court determined that employer noncompliance with the Equal Pay Act is willful in at least two other instances: where the employer is cognizant of an appreciable possibility that he may be subject to the statutory requirements and fails to take steps reasonably calculated to resolve the doubt, and where an equally aware employer consciously and voluntarily charts a course which turns out to be wrong. Id. at 462. 53 NWA was held to have failed the second branch of this test: 54 NWA not only knew of the Equal Pay Act and its content but also correctly understood its prohibition on different salary levels for men and women performing substantially similar work. With little or nothing beyond internal consideration by laymen--even after the present legal challenge got under way--the company consciously though erroneously concluded that its treatment of pursers and stewardesses was unaffected by the Act. We deem that sufficient to comprise willfulness; in the District Court's words, [t]he conduct of the Company in the exercise of that judgment was willful. Id. at 463 (citation omitted). 22 55 In this appeal, NWA argues that the law of the case established in Laffey I is clearly erroneous and the source of manifest injustice, once again urging upon us a contrary analysis of the legislative intent undergirding section 255(a). NWA contends that a proper reading of the legislative history of the 1966 FLSA amendments confirms that Congress meant [the willfulness standard] to encompass only intentional disregard for the law, rather than the deliberate-but-erroneous test adopted in Laffey I. NWA Brief at 23. For the reasons stated below, we disagree with NWA as to the proper test of willfulness under the Equal Pay Act. Accordingly, we reaffirm Laffey I 's finding that NWA willfully violated the Act within the meaning of section 255(a). 56 In recasting its version of the relevant legislative intent, NWA argues that the Laffey I court was erroneously of the view that there was no relevant legislative history to shed light on the pivotal word, willful. NWA Brief at 85. NWA accordingly invites us to focus on three unadopted 1965 bills which were the predecessors of the 1966 amendments. NWA deems crucial certain portions of the hearings on one of those bills, H.R. 8259, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965), and the report of the House Education and Labor Committee on a second bill, H.R. 10518. H.R.Rep. No. 871, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965). The importance of the latter is touted on the basis that it represents the first appear[ance] [of section 255(a) ] in its present form. NWA Reply Brief at 42. 23 57 The original administration-sponsored bill, H.R. 8259, sought, inter alia, to increase the limitations period to three years for all FLSA claims, and accordingly did not prescribe willfulness as a precondition to liability for the third year. NWA attempts to fashion a favorable interpretation of the willfulness provision ultimately incorporated into section 255(a) in the following manner: first, NWA summarizes a few snippets of testimony against H.R. 8259, 24 and then notes that at the conclusion of the hearings, the Subcommittee met in executive session and drafted a new bill that included the [willfulness] language ultimately enacted. NWA Brief at 85. NWA then attributes this change to legislators who opposed the extension of liability in cases not involving conscious disregard of the law. Id. at 86. To substantiate this new learning as to the true meaning of the legislative materials, NWA cites a sentence from the minority statement in the Committee report on the revised bill, indicating that the Subcommittee's discussions had resulted in the adoption of several amendments offered by members of the minority. Id. (citing H.R.Rep. No. 871, supra, at 74). NWA jumps from this statement to the conclusion that the willfulness provision was adopted in response to the criticism of the proposal to impose an additional year of liability even on 'honest' violators of the [Equal Pay] Act. NWA Reply Brief at 42. 58 NWA's argument proves no such thing. The single sentence upon which it relies from the minority statement provides woefully inadequate support for its restrictive reading of the willfulness language. That sentence stands all by itself in the introduction to the minority report. Nowhere in this document is there any description of the amendments which the minority proposed, why it proposed them, what the majority said in response to the proposals, or why the proposals were adopted by the full Committee. Moreover, the minority report does not contain a single word about the willfulness provision in H.R. 10815. This brings us, then, to a broader point about this provision. The proposed legislation was lengthy, complex, and dealt with a number of thorny issues, including an increase in the minimum wage and a significant expansion of the FLSA's coverage. Adoption of the willfulness language ultimately codified in section 255(a) was undoubtedly a matter of limited congressional focus in the 1965 and 1966 deliberations over this legislation; the paucity of pertinent legislative materials, therefore, is not surprising. 59 Given the relative silence of the legislative record in this respect, Laffey I, 567 F.2d at 460, a silence which NWA has not persuasively broken with its theory advanced on this third appeal, we defer to the careful treatment and final settlement of this issue in Laffey I. The law of the case we honor here rests on the Laffey I court's painstaking review of the legislative history, including Congress' pivotal concern over small, unsophisticated businesses--a category that manifestly excludes NWA--which might not recognize the sweep of the FLSA's coverage. Id. at 460-61. Equally important, Laffey I recognized the need for a liberal construction of remedial statutes, and at the same time appropriately took into account the absence of clear congressional intent to impose upon plaintiffs the heavy burden of demonstrating an employer's evil intent. Id. This latter point is especially important in light of the fact that the Equal Pay Act merely allows a plaintiff to recover, after an appropriate showing, wages which have been improperly denied, and does not involve the imposition of criminal sanctions. 60 In short, we find nothing compelling, and certainly nothing demonstrating clear error in this court's earlier opinion, in the 1965 sources relied upon by NWA. The careful analysis of the meaning of 29 U.S.C. Sec. 255(a) set out in Laffey I must stand.
61 Moving from the domain of the Equal Pay Act's legislative history to an issue under Title VII, the district court's 1974 Remedial Order awarded each Title VII plaintiff 25 backpay in the amount of the full difference between what she earned as a stewardess and what she would have earned if she had been paid at the same rate as a purser of equal seniority. 374 F.Supp. at 1385-86. On appeal in Laffey I, NWA challenged certain aspects of these remedial measures, 567 F.2d at 437, including what it saw as the district court's improper refusal to adjust the pursers' rates of pay downward in the amount of the compensation allegedly based on the foreign flying required of pursers. Of pivotal importance, however, NWA failed at that time to appeal the underlying decision to use pursers' pay rates as the upper end of the back-pay formula. 62 The court in Laffey I determined that NWA had failed to show that any portion of the pursers' pay was attributable to foreign flying. 567 F.2d at 452 n. 153. See infra section III. B.2. The Laffey I decision also affirmed the back-pay formula adopted by the district court. Id. at 478. 63 In 1978, following the remand of these proceedings to the district court after Laffey I, NWA for the first time attacked the use of the full purser rates, apart from its unsuccessful, earlier argument with respect to the alleged foreign flying component. NWA at this juncture claimed that the district court should use a hypothetical wage rate which would have been paid to a single, combined class of cabin attendants, rather than purser rates, in computing backpay. Record Document (R.) 16. The district court, however, refused to entertain NWA's argument, on the ground that the relief requested is precluded by the Judgment of the Court of Appeals in that it is beyond the Mandate of that Court and seeks to raise issues not challenged on appeal .... Order Denying Motion to Modify Award of Backpay to the Title VII Class (D.D.C. July 9, 1979), R. 50. 64 NWA now seeks to avoid the law of the case as to the computation of backpay by arguing that under the post-Laffey I decisions of the Supreme Court in International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 97 S.Ct. 1843, 52 L.Ed.2d 396 (1977), City of Los Angeles v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702, 98 S.Ct. 1370, 55 L.Ed.2d 657 (1978), and Ford Motor Co. v. EEOC, 458 U.S. 219, 102 S.Ct. 3057, 73 L.Ed.2d 721 (1982), the back-pay award here impermissibly overcompensates the Title VII plaintiffs by placing them in a better position than they would have been in if the alleged discrimination had not occurred. NWA Brief at 15; see also id. 43-47. NWA also revives its earlier, unsuccessful argument that the back-pay awards under both Title VII and the Equal Pay Act are incorrectly inflated by the court's failure to exclude from pursers' pay that portion attributable to foreign flying. NWA once again tries to characterize foreign flying compensation as a factor other than sex for Equal Pay Act purposes, and invokes the three above-cited High Court decisions in support of its claim that Title VII damages should be reduced by this amount. 65 Because this court affirmed the back-pay awards in Laffey I, and inasmuch as we discern no relevant supervening change in the law embodied in the decisions relied upon by NWA, we decline the invitation to overturn the law of the case as to the computation of backpay. 66
67 NWA strenuously contends that if it had not maintained the sex-segregated job classifications of purser and stewardess and had, instead, used only a single cabin attendant classification, the wage rate paid to employees in that hypothetical classification would have closely approximated the rates paid by other airlines with only a single classification, rather than the premium pay level NWA established for pursers. In support of this proposition, NWA relies upon an affidavit proffered in 1978. See Declaration of Terry M. Erskine, Joint Record Excerpts (J.R.E.) 139. 68 NWA argues that the use of the pursers' pay rate in the back-pay formula, rather than the lower rate which arguably would have been paid to those in the hypothetical, combined cabin attendant classification, violates the bedrock rule that Title VII backpay may not catapult [plaintiffs] into a better position than they would have enjoyed in the absence of discrimination. Ford Motor, supra, 458 U.S. at 234, 102 S.Ct. at 3067. It also argues that Manhart, in particular, establishes that the back-pay remedy here was improper. NWA Brief at 43-44. 69 We disagree. In the first place, and most critically, we do not read these three High Court decisions as establishing any pertinent new rule of law as respects this case under Title VII. The fundamental proposition that the purpose of Title VII remedies is to make whole the victims of discrimination has been settled for some time, see, e.g., Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 421, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 2373, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975), and was clearly recognized by this court in Laffey I. See 567 F.2d at 476 (The remedial order in this case is to make employees whole, but not more than whole.). Therefore, we perceive nothing new, as respects NWA's argument, in these three decisions. 70 We also find unpersuasive NWA's assertion that Manhart compels the abandonment of the back-pay formula affirmed in Laffey I. Above all, Manhart arose out of the extraordinarily sensitive setting of a sex-based contributory system in a pension plan, circumstances far removed from the situation here of treating female employees differently although they performed the same work as male employees. Second, the only language that provides comfort to NWA is set forth in a single footnote, 26 consisting of guardedly worded dicta. Manhart, in contrast to the case before us, disallowed any retroactive monetary award, and in the course of so doing suggested that if such an award had been appropriate, the lower court should at least have considered a different formula. The High Court's understandably deep concern for equitable considerations, including the grave consequences to pension funds flowing from a retroactive finding of liability, strongly suggests that this portion of the Manhart footnote was not addressed to the matter of remedies in garden-variety Title VII cases, such as the case at hand. 27 71 Moreover, in the absence of supervening, controlling authority, NWA cannot properly request--for the first time--that this court mandate the use of averaging techniques in the back-pay formula. 28 As explained supra at p. 1076, the procedural posture of this case at the time of Laffey I enabled review on the merits of all interrelated features of the order save those the District Court had reserved for future adjudication, Laffey II, 642 F.2d at 584 n. 49. The issues reserved by the district court dealt only with the mechanics of payment pursuant to the 1974 Remedial Order. See 374 F.Supp. at 1389. The part of the case that the court reserved obviously did not include the back-pay formula itself, which was clearly set out by the district court, id. at 1385-87 (paragraphs 5-7), and which plainly used the full purser pay rates as the upper end of the back-pay computation. 29 Thus, NWA had the opportunity to appeal any feature of the back-pay award, including the use of the full purser rates, in Laffey I. Therefore, NWA must be deemed to have waived any argument available at that time which it did not assert. 72 Adherence to the rule that a party waives a contention that could have been but was not raised on [a] prior appeal, Munoz v. County of Imperial, 667 F.2d 811, 817 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 825, 103 S.Ct. 58, 74 L.Ed.2d 62 (1982), is, of course, necessary to the orderly conduct of litigation. Failure to follow this rule would lead to the bizarre result, as stated admirably by Judge Friendly, that a party who has chosen not to argue a point on a first appeal should stand better as regards the law of the case than one who had argued and lost. Fogel v. Chestnutt, 668 F.2d 100, 109 (2d Cir.1981), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 828, 103 S.Ct. 65, 74 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982). NWA's failure to challenge the backpay formula on its first appeal resulted in the Laffey I affirmance of that portion of the 1974 Remedial Order, and the inclusion of the formula in the law of the case. See Raxton Corp. v. Anania Associates, Inc., 668 F.2d 622, 624 (1st Cir.1982).
73 As previously indicated, NWA reargues its already rejected position that purser pay included compensation directly traceable to foreign flying and that this component of compensation should be excluded as a factor other than sex under the Equal Pay Act back-pay computations, and from the Title VII back-pay computations under the Supreme Court decisions discussed supra in section III.B.1. 74 We disagree. We find, for the reasons outlined in the preceding section, that the Supreme Court decisions in Manhart, Teamsters, and Ford Motor do not bring into question the treatment in Laffey I of the foreign flying issue, as those cases merely articulate already established principles of Title VII law. 30 NWA's other arguments on this issue are foreclosed by the law of the case, clearly set out in Laffey I, 567 F.2d at 452-53 n. 153. Unless there is supervening authority, and we have concluded that there is none, NWA must satisfy the stringent test of clear error and manifest injustice, a rigorous standard which has not been met as to the foreign flying issue. As this court held eight years ago, NWA simply failed to carry its burden on this issue the first time around. We refuse to replough this well-worn field that much deserves henceforth to lie fallow.
75 NWA challenges the composition of the Title VII class on several grounds. It argues that the district court's order of December 5, 1980, J.A. 168, improperly added to the class hundreds of new employees who had been hired after the cut-off date for the last round of notices of the class action. NWA Brief at 55-56. NWA also appeals from the district court's order of June 6, 1980, J.R.E. 162, which included in the Title VII class two groups of stewardesses which NWA seeks to exclude--those on leave from their jobs as stewardesses as of the cut-off date who subsequently decided not to return to work, and those who as of the cut-off date had transferred permanently to non-stewardess jobs at NWA. We consider each of these arguments separately. 76
77 In its February 1971 order, the district court certified the instant case as a class action under both Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b)(2) and 23(b)(3). The court defined the Title VII class as all female in-flight cabin attendants currently employed by [NWA] and/or employed by [NWA] any time since July 2, 1965. 321 F.Supp. 1041, at 1043. Thereafter, two rounds of notices were sent to class members, in 1971 and 1972, pursuant to the requirements of Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(c)(2). 78 The district court, in its 1974 Remedial Order, again defined the term Title VII plaintiff(s) to include all female cabin attendants employed by [NWA] at any time on or after July 2, 1965, excluding only those who filed timely written elections with this Court to be excluded from this lawsuit in its entirety. 374 F.Supp. at 1384. In its appeal from this order in Laffey I, NWA did not challenge the foregoing definition of the class on the grounds it now advances. NWA did, however, challenge the inclusion of stewardesses whose employment with NWA was terminated prior to the ninetieth day preceding the first filing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The Laffey I court agreed, and directed the district court to exclude this group of ex-employees from the class. See infra section III.C.2. On remand, the district court corrected its earlier error (and another, minor mistake as to the actual date of the first EEOC filing). It redefined the Title VII class to include only stewardesses who were employed by NWA on or after January 29, 1970. Employees terminated prior to this date were to be included only on a showing of certain extenuating circumstances. This redefinition was reflected in the district court's Order Respecting Computation of Backpay and Implementation of Final Judgment, November 30, 1982. 31 Thus, NWA had scrutinized the Title VII class definition at the time of Laffey I. 79 Seeking to avoid waiver and law of the case obstacles to appellate review, NWA claims, in effect, that it was not on notice at the time of Laffey I that the district court would include in the class stewardesses never furnished the requisite notice or opportunity to opt out under Rule 23(b)(3). NWA interprets the district court's refusal to exclude those stewardesses who had not received notice of the class action, J.A. 168, as dependent upon the district court's view that the parties and the court had shared, as of the time of the 1971 and 1974 orders, the intent and understanding that the definition of the Title VII class adopted therein was broad enough to encompass the disputed group of stewardesses. NWA Brief at 56-57. 80 NWA argues that there was no such understanding between the parties, and claims that it proceeded to trial with the understanding that the backpay class had been fixed by the universe of cabin attendants to whom notice was sent. NWA Brief at 57. It further argues that the December 1980 order was improper, inasmuch as Rule 23(c)(1) permits a court to alter a class certification only prior to the decision on the merits. NWA perceives here the evil of one-way intervention. 81 Appellees, on the other hand, heatedly dispute NWA's claim as to the original understanding that the Title VII class did not include the disputed group of stewardesses. Appellees cite to substantial portions of the record as support for the true understanding of an open-ended class. 32 Under appellees' theory, NWA had full knowledge of the manner in which the class definition would be applied and thus waived the arguments now advanced here because it did not assert those contentions in the proceedings leading up to the 1974 Remedial Order or in its appeal to this court in Laffey I. Appellees further argue that Laffey I established the open-ended class definition as the law of the case, which, as an additional ground, bars NWA from now attacking inclusion of the disputed group of stewardesses. 82 Without deciding whether the parties had the disputed understanding as to the meaning of the 1971 definition of the Title VII class, we conclude that NWA's attack on the 1980 order (and definition) is barred by the doctrines of waiver and law of the case. We reach this conclusion in light of the fact that the 1974 Remedial Order, issued long after the 1972 cut-off date now urged by NWA, contained essentially the same open-ended class definition as the 1971 certification order. NWA knew, or should have known, that the express terms of the 1974 order--sweeping into the class all female cabin attendants employed by [NWA] at any time on or after July 2, 1965  (emphasis added)could manifestly be read as extending beyond 1972. It was up to NWA to test the meaning of the 1974 order as to stewardesses who had not received notice of the class action, if it so desired, in its appeal from that order--the appeal which culminated in Laffey I. NWA failed to do so. NWA, albeit represented now by different counsel, must be held to have waived the opportunity to raise this issue. For the reasons stated supra at pp. 1089-1090, we must recognize the law of the case established in Laffey I. 83 In addition, we note that NWA's argument regarding the impropriety of one-way intervention has been rejected by other courts which have held that classwide backpay under Title VII can be awarded in a [Rule 23] (b)(2) class action. 33 This development in Title VII law, signalled by the Fourth Circuit's 1971 decision in Robinson v. Lorillard Corp., 444 F.2d 791 (4th Cir.), cert. dismissed, 404 U.S. 1006, 92 S.Ct. 573, 30 L.Ed.2d 655 (1971), was well under way as of NWA's appeal in Laffey I. Had NWA wished to clarify the definition of the Title VII class in relation to this expansion of (b)(2) actions, it clearly had the opportunity to raise the issue in Laffey I. 34
84 In Laffey I, NWA argued that the district court erred, in its 1974 Remedial Order, in granting relief pursuant to Title VII in the form of backpay to stewardesses whose employment with [NWA] [had] terminated more than ninety days prior to the first filing by an employee of [a] ... charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 567 F.2d at 472. NWA's argument was based upon the settled rule that only those employees who could have filed charges with the Commission individually when the class filing was made are properly members of the ... class. Id. NWA reasoned that the discrimination in this case could not be deemed continuing as to those who left [NWA's] employ more than ninety days prior to the class filing with the [EEOC], id. at 473, and that, as a result, those employees were not entitled to recover as members of the Title VII class. 85 The Laffey I court agreed with NWA's contention in this respect: 86 A severing of the employment relationship ordinarily terminates a discrimination against the severed employee, and activates the time period for filing charges with the Commission concerning any violation which occurred at separation or which may have been continuing up to the date thereof. To hold otherwise would effectively read the timely-filing requirement out of the statute. 87 Id. (citations omitted). Accordingly, the Laffey I opinion directed the district court, on remand, to exclude from the Title VII recovery those employees whose connection with NWA was dissolved more than ninety days before the class filing with the [EEOC], while retaining those terminated stewardesses who would have brought themselves within the Equal Pay Act class .... Id. at 476. 88 After remand, NWA then sought the exclusion of two additional groups of ex-stewardesses: those on leaves of absence on the 90th day prior to the filing of the first EEOC charge and who, subsequent to that date, left the employ of NWA without having returned to work as stewardesses; and those who were employed by NWA at least until the 90th day prior to the first EEOC filing, but who had transferred to non-stewardess positions. The district court denied NWA's requested exclusions in an order dated June 6, 1980. J.R.E. 162. This denial was based on the district court's understanding that Laffey I had resolved this issue. See District Court's Order of February 19, 1981, denying reconsideration of its June 6, 1980 order. J.A. 172, 173. 89 NWA challenges the June 6, 1980 order, arguing that the district court misunderstood Laffey I. Downplaying the fact that Laffey I dealt explicitly only with terminated stewardesses, NWA claims that a truer indication of that court's mandate was its recognition that only those employees who could have filed charges with the Commission individually when the class filing was made are properly members of the litigating class. 567 F.2d at 472. This language, NWA argues, empowered the district court to consider its claims that certain stewardesses, other than those in the terminated group expressly dealt with in Laffey I, had no viable claims allowing their inclusion in the class. NWA traces the district court's failure to so interpret the mandate of Laffey I to its overly wooden reliance on the phrase 'left the Company's employ ....'  NWA Brief at 61. 90 Without reaching the merits of NWA's arguments against inclusion of the two disputed groups of stewardesses, we hold that the district court correctly construed the Laffey I mandate. NWA had the opportunity in Laffey I to raise the issue of the status of these two additional groups of class members, just as it had the opportunity to raise the issue of the terminated stewardesses. NWA simply and indisputably failed to do so. Its failure to raise these arguments constituted a waiver of them. See supra at pp. 1089-1090. Moreover, as to the law of the case, in Laffey I the court affirm[ed], 567 F.2d at 478, the award of backpay to all class members except those whose connection with [NWA] was dissolved more than 90 days before the class filing with the Commission. Id. at 476 (emphasis added). NWA's attack on the district court's December 1980 ruling is thus barred by the principles of waiver and law of the case. 91