Opinion ID: 792232
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: 23 The parties' arguments on appeal mirror those presented to the district court. The City first argues that the district court could not enforce the 1983 decree because the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the municipal hiring practices at issue. It again submits that, as a result of this lack of standing, the district court erred in denying the City's motion to vacate pursuant to Rule 60(b)(4). Additionally, the City renews its argument that the district court erred in not granting relief under Rule 60(b)(5) because this court's decision in Shakman II constituted a change in the law on which the 1983 Consent Decree is based. For their part, the plaintiffs reiterate the arguments on which they prevailed in the district court. 24 Shortly after briefing in this case was completed in this court, we decided O'Sullivan v. City of Chicago, 396 F.3d 843. O'Sullivan was an action to enforce the 1983 Consent Decree (and the plan for compliance adopted thereunder) brought by lieutenants in the Chicago Police Department, who claimed that the City's procedure for promotions violated the decree. See id. at 851. Although O'Sullivan concerned an enforcement action as opposed to a motion to vacate, the parties in O'Sullivan raised many of the same arguments that have been made with respect to the City's motion to vacate. Both of the parties to this action submitted O'Sullivan as supplemental authority and discussed that decision extensively at oral argument. 25 Because O'Sullivan addresses many of the arguments raised by the parties, we first shall discuss that decision. We then evaluate the district court's disposition of the motion to vacate in light of O'Sullivan.
26 In 2001, lieutenants in the Chicago Police Department brought an action to enforce the 1983 Consent Decree. Specifically, they claimed that the City's promotional practices violated the 1983 Consent Decree. See id. at 851. The City moved to dismiss the action on the ground that the plaintiffs had not alleged any injury to their rights as voters and, therefore, the plaintiffs lacked constitutional standing. The district court agreed. It observed that the decree granted standing to voters to enforce its terms, but plaintiffs had not alleged that the promotion practices at issue adversely affected their rights as voters or candidates. The district court therefore concluded that the plaintiffs had not established the injury in fact required for constitutional standing. 27 We reversed the district court's judgment. We first noted that the City's argument, and the district court's acceptance of that argument, ignored the fact that the issue of standing had been litigated fully and resolved against the City: 28 In the Shakman litigation that led to the 1983 Consent Decree, the City maintained that the voters lacked constitutional standing to challenge hiring and promotional practices, but the district court determined that, adhering to our decision in Shakman I, the plaintiffs had standing. The City took no appeal from this ruling. Under such circumstances, when a federal court has decided the question of the jurisdiction over the parties as a contested issue, the court in which the plea of res judicata is made has not the power to inquire again into that jurisdictional fact. Thus, as this court has stated, only an egregious want of jurisdiction will justify reconsideration of the standing issue. 29 O'Sullivan, 396 F.3d at 866 (quoting Stoll v. Gottlieb, 305 U.S. 165, 172, 59 S.Ct. 134, 83 L.Ed. 104 (1938), and In re Factor VIII, 159 F.3d 1016, 1018 (7th Cir.1998), respectively; citations omitted). 30 However, we also noted that our approach to the plaintiffs' enforcement action had to be informed by recent case law that addressed the special concerns raised by institutional litigation. Specifically, in Rufo v. Inmates of the Suffolk County Jail, 502 U.S. 367, 112 S.Ct. 748, 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992), the Supreme Court explained that its prior statements concerning finality of judgments should not `take on a talismanic quality, warding off virtually all efforts to modify consent decrees.' O'Sullivan, 396 F.3d at 860 (quoting Rufo, 502 U.S. at 380, 112 S.Ct. 748). Furthermore, Rufo had noted that 31 [t]he upsurge in institutional reform litigation . . . has made the ability of a district court to modify a decree in response to changed circumstances all the more important. Because such decrees often remain in place for extended periods of time, the likelihood of significant changes occurring during the life of the decree is increased. 32 Id. at 861 (quoting Rufo, 502 U.S. at 380, 112 S.Ct. 748; citations omitted). Thus, after Rufo, a party seeking modification of a consent decree does not have to prove a grievous wrong . . .; the party only `bears the burden of establishing that a significant change in circumstances warrants revision of the decree.' Id. (quoting Rufo, 502 U.S. at 383, 112 S.Ct. 748; other citations and quotation marks omitted). 33 Reading these two lines of cases in tandem, we observed that, although our case law—and that of the Supreme Court—clearly established that parties could not ignore consent decrees that they believed had become outdated in some manner, Rule 60(b) 1 provided an avenue for local governmental authorities to seek relief from consent decrees that, as a result of changed factual or legal circumstances, may have become unjust, illegal or unenforceable. We explained that 34 [t]he problem with the City's present position is that it ignores the procedural posture of this case. The present plaintiffs brought an action to enforce the 1983 Consent Decree, and the district court had the power to enforce that decree: `[F]ederal courts are not reduced to approving consent decrees and hoping for compliance. Once entered, a consent decree may be enforced.' Frew [ v. Hawkins, 540 U.S. 431, 440, 124 S.Ct. 899, 157 L.Ed.2d 855 (2004)] (quoting Hutto v. Finney, 437 U.S. 678, 690-91, 98 S.Ct. 2565, 57 L.Ed.2d 522 (1978)). A party may not simply ignore the decree because it believes that factual or legal changes since the decree's entry renders continued enforcement illegal or inequitable. Rather, Rule 60(b)provides an avenue to seek relief from some or all of the requirements of the original decree. 35 O'Sullivan, 396 F.3d at 867-68 (emphasis in original; parallel citations omitted). 36 Under the procedural circumstances presented to us in O'Sullivan, therefore, we concluded that the district court's judgment had to be reversed. See id. However, we advised that 37 [o]n remand, assuming the City wishes to pursue the issue, the focus of the district court shall be not on the law of standing as a jurisdictional concept but on the equitable standards embodied in Rule 60(b)(5). The district court should consider critically whether changes in the legal landscape since 1983 require modification or vacatur of that decree pursuant to Rule 60(b). Specifically, the cases outlined above reveal two important developments that should guide the district court's analysis. First, Rufo and circuit court decisions in its wake emphasize the need for district courts to take a flexible approach to proposed modifications of consent decrees that bind public entities: [T]he public interest and `[c]onsiderations based on the allocation of powers within our federal system' require that the district court defer to local government administrators who have the `primary responsibility for elucidating, assessing, and solving' the problems of institutional reform, to resolve the intricacies of implementing a decree modification. Rufo, 502 U.S. at 392, 112 S.Ct. 748 . . . . In short, concerns of federalism should factor strongly into the court's analysis. 38 Second, the court must consider the significant changes in the law of voter standing since the entry of the 1983 Consent Decree. As Shakman II makes clear, we have serious concerns whether the plaintiffs as voters bring to the litigation the sort of concrete adverseness to fulfill the mandate of Lujan. The court should consider whether the class of voters has the incentive to vigorously litigate and present the matter [of political patronage] to the court in the manner best suited for judicial resolution. Erwin Chemerinsky, Federal Jurisdiction § 2.3.2 (2003). Even given the vitality of Swift and its progeny, a decree fashioned in litigation in which one of the litigants did not have a sufficient concrete stake in the outcome might contain provisions that are not worthy of continued enforcement by a federal court. If the City establishes reason to modify the decree, the court should make the necessary changes; where it has not done so, however, the decree shall be enforced according to its terms. Frew, [540 U.S. at 442, 124 S.Ct. at 906]. 39 O'Sullivan, 396 F.3d at 868 (citations omitted). 40 With these standards in mind, we turn to the decision of the district court denying the City's motion to vacate the 1983 Consent Decree.
41 Our review of a district court's ruling on a motion to vacate is a deferential one: We will disturb the district court's decision only if the district court committed an abuse of discretion. See Browder v. Dir., Dep't of Corr. of Illinois, 434 U.S. 257, 263 n. 7, 98 S.Ct. 556, 54 L.Ed.2d 521 (1978). However, we note that [a] court has abused its discretion when it commits a clear error of fact or an error of law. Incredible Techs., Inc. v. Virtual Techs., Inc., 400 F.3d 1007, 1011 (7th Cir.2005) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
42 The district court's first ground for rejecting the City's motion to vacate was that the motion was untimely. In addition to enumerating the grounds on which a party may be granted relief from a final judgment, Rule 60(b) also provides that a motion made thereunder shall be made within a reasonable time. Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b). 2 [W]hat constitutes `reasonable time' for a filing under Rule 60(b) depends on the facts of each case. Ingram v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 371 F.3d 950, 952 (7th Cir.2004). 3 43 A very important fact in this case is that the 1983 Consent Decree provides for the ongoing involvement of a federal district court in the hiring decisions of the City of Chicago. 4 The decisions of the Supreme Court and of this court have noted the need to avoid, when possible, interference in the decision-making process of local governmental leaders by extending, unnecessarily, the life of a consent decree whose objectives have been achieved or have become unjust, illegal or unattainable. See Frew, 540 U.S. at 442, 124 S.Ct. 899; Rufo, 502 U.S. at 392 n. 14, 112 S.Ct. 748; O'Sullivan, 396 F.3d at 868; Evans v. City of Chicago, 10 F.3d 474, 482 (7th Cir.1993). The Supreme Court explained in Frew: 44 The federal court must exercise its equitable powers to ensure that when the objects of the decree have been attained, responsibility for discharging the State's obligations is returned promptly to the State and its officials. As public servants, the officials of the State must be presumed to have a high degree of competence in deciding how best to discharge their governmental responsibilities. A State, in the ordinary course, depends upon successor officials, both appointed and elected, to bring new insights and solutions to problems of allocating revenues and resources. The basic obligations of federal law may remain the same, but the precise manner of their discharge may not. If the State establishes reason to modify the decree, the court should make the necessary changes; where it has not done so, however, the decree should be enforced according to its terms. Frew, 540 U.S. at 442, 124 S.Ct. 899. 5 45 In the present case, the district court did not consider the public nature of the litigation in reaching its conclusion that the City's motion was untimely. Indeed, the only cases cited by the district court in support of its timeliness determination are cases involving judgments against individuals. See United States v. Deutsch, 981 F.2d 299, 302 (1992) (holding untimely a petitioner's motion to return seized property); Kagan v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 795 F.2d 601 (7th Cir.1986) (addressing 60(b) motion in employment discrimination case). 46 The district court's determination that the City's motion was untimely rested on the fact that the City certainly knew about Shakman II as soon as the opinion was issued, R.235 at 4, and yet failed to act on that knowledge. However, even with respect to purely private litigation, the litigants' knowledge of the grounds for relief is only one factor for the district court to weigh. Other factors include `the interest in finality, the reason for delay, the practical ability of the litigant to learn earlier of the grounds relied upon, and [the consideration of] prejudice [if any] to other parties.' Kagan, 795 F.2d at 610 (quoting Ashford v. Steuart, 657 F.2d 1053, 1055 (9th Cir.1981) (alteration in original)). In institutional reform litigation, unlike private disputes, there are several other parties whose interests should be considered. The Supreme Court, in discussing Rule 60(b), has observed that the public interest is a particularly significant reason for applying a flexible modification standard in institutional reform litigation because such decrees reach beyond the parties involved directly in the suit and impact on the public's right to the sound and efficient operation of its institutions. Rufo, 502 U.S. at 381, 112 S.Ct. 748; see also O'Sullivan, 396 F.3d at 868. 47 In short, any consideration of a reasonable time for filing a Rule 60(b) motion with respect to the 1983 Consent Decree must take into account the nature of that litigation as well as the resulting prejudice, if any, to the present elected officials and the public they represent. The district court did not consider these factors, and this failure constituted an abuse of discretion.
48 The district court also held that the City's agreement to the 1983 Consent Decree prevented the City from now attacking that judgment. Specifically, the district court stated that [t]he City's 1983 request that this Court enter the Consent Judgment, coupled with the dismissal of its appeal, prevents the City from subsequently attacking the judgment. R.235 at 5. The district court relied upon Ackermann v. United States, 340 U.S. 193, 71 S.Ct. 209, 95 L.Ed. 207 (1950), and Local 322, Allied Industrial Workers v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 969 F.2d 290 (7th Cir.1992), for the proposition that a party is not entitled to relief under Rule 60(b) after making a deliberate decision not to appeal a ruling of a lower court. R.235 at 6. We do not dispute this statement as a general proposition. However, we have noted that this rule is not inflexible, Allied Indus. Workers, 969 F.2d at 292; cf. Ackermann, 340 U.S. at 198-99, 71 S.Ct. 209 (discussing circumstances that might justify relief from the judgment), and the need for flexibility is particularly important with respect to institutional reform litigation. As explained by the Court in Rufo: 49 The upsurge in institutional reform litigation since Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), has made the ability of a district court to modify a decree in response to changed circumstances all the more important. Because such decrees often remain in place for extended periods of time, the likelihood of significant changes occurring during the life of the decree is increased. 50 Rufo, 502 U.S. at 380, 112 S.Ct. 748. We reiterated in O'Sullivan this need for district courts to take a flexible approach to proposed modification of consent decrees that bind public entities. 396 F.3d at 868. 51 Institutional reform litigation, and consent decrees attendant to that litigation, involve considerations of public interest and federalism that are not present in the run-of-the-mill civil case. As both the Supreme Court and this court have made clear, the district court's recognition of the uniqueness of these cases must inform its decision whether to grant or deny a motion brought pursuant to Rule 60(b). Indeed, in our instructions to the district court on remand in O'Sullivan, we specifically mentioned this need for flexibility as one of the principles that should guide the district court's analysis. Id. 6 Here, the district court's failure to adopt the flexible approach outlined above was an abuse of discretion.
52 Lastly, the district court considered, and rejected, the City's substantive argument—that the court lacked jurisdiction to enter the 1983 Consent Decree initially and also lacked jurisdiction to continue to enforce the decree. 7 The district court acknowledged that some language from the Shakman II opinion indeed supports the City's contention that this Court should now vacate the 1983 Consent Judgment. R.235 at 6. However, the court determined that 53 [u]nlike the subject matter on appeal in Shakman II, the 1983 Consent Judgment covers far more than hiring practices. The 1983 Consent Judgment explicitly included the obligations under the 1972 Consent Judgment which prohibited political firing and also prohibited conditioning . . . any term or aspect of governmental employment, with respect to one who is at the time already a governmental employee, upon or because of any political reason or factor. 54 Id. The court thus concluded that [t]he comprehensive nature of the 1983 Consent Judgment, particularly as it incorporates the terms of the 1972 Consent Judgment, clearly distinguishes the City's legal position from that of the appellants in Shakman II. Id. at 7. 55 In essence, the court acknowledged that our decision in Shakman II severely undermined the concept of voter standing to challenge municipal hiring practices. However, because the 1983 Consent Decree did not only end litigation with respect to the City's hiring practices, but also restated the terms of the 1972 Consent Decree (related to the City's responsibilities to current employees), the district court believed that the 1983 Consent Decree should not be disturbed. 56 The district court's opinion implies that vacating the 1983 Consent Decree will somehow undermine the 1972 Consent Decree. However, there is no factual or legal basis for this assumption. The City's motion to vacate was entitled Defendant City of Chicago's Motion to Vacate the June 20, 1983 Hiring Consent Decree, and sought to vacate the consent decree entered on June 20, 1983 by Judge Bua. R.157 at 1. Furthermore, in its brief in support of the motion, the City stated that it must be clear that the City does not seek to vacate the 1972 decree which protects employees once they have been hired. R.158 at 3. 8 The City reiterates this position in its brief before this court, see Appellant's Br. at 27 n. 6 ([W]e have not moved to vacate the 1972 decree.), a position that is not contested by the appellees. Thus, the protections contained in the 1972 Consent Decree, 9 which were crucial to the district court's determination not to vacate the 1983 Consent Decree, will remain in full force regardless of the district court's action on the 1983 Consent Decree. 57 Because the continued validity of the 1972 Consent Decree was not before the district court and because the 1972 Consent Decree will not be affected by the district court's determination with respect to the 1983 Consent Decree, we must conclude that the district court abused its discretion in using the 1972 Consent Decree as a basis for denying the City's motion.
58 In sum, we do not believe that the district court's denial of the City's Rule 60(b) motion can be reconciled with this court's decision in O'Sullivan or the decisions of the Supreme Court in Rufo and Frew. Those authorities make clear that, when considering a Rule 60(b) motion with respect to public litigation, the nature of that litigation must factor into the district court's decision-making process; the public interest and concerns of federalism should guide the court's analysis. O'Sullivan, 396 F.3d at 868. 59 Furthermore, as we advised in O'Sullivan, we believe that the district court's Rule 60(b) analysis must account for the significant changes in the law of voter standing since the entry of the 1983 Consent Decree, id., a factor not squarely confronted by the district court's decision. [A] decree fashioned in litigation in which one of the litigants did not have sufficient concrete stake in the outcome might contain provisions that are not worthy of continued enforcement by a federal court. Id. On remand, the district court should be guided by the current law of standing to determine whether the class of voters has the necessary interest in this litigation `to vigorously litigate and present the matter of [political patronage] to the court in the manner best suited for judicial resolution,' or whether that task is best left to individuals directly impacted by hiring decisions made by the City. Id. (quoting Erwin Chemerinsky, Federal Jurisdiction § 2.3.2 (2003)) (alteration in original).