Court Opinion

ID: 9546639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:33:17.154269+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:42.322145
License: Public Domain

Hale, J.
(dissenting) — I think it basic to the idea of due process of law that one compelled to defend himself in court not only be apprised of the nature of the claim and the facts upon which it depends but who is suing him. A person dragooned into court to wage his defense is entitled to know who are the real parties in interest against him, who it is that is putting him to the travail and costs of defending himself, and who will benefit by the judgment or decree. In a true class action, one’s adversaries are readily identifiable, and there is no mystery as to how the judgment or decree will operate.
Here, however, as I see it, the claim of representation is spurious; there is no recognizable juridical class. Except for some vague and illusory concepts of taking a decree in the public interest on behalf of the public generally and making the chief of police toe the mark, I find nothing about the case that enables one to reach a conclusion that the plaintiffs are bringing this action for anyone except themselves individually — which, of course, they have every right to do. Theirs is the extravagant claim of presuming to speak and act not only for everyone in the jail but those entering and leaving it. If this be a genuine action, small wonder that the courts are plagued with them.
We have but one issue before us, i.e., Is this a true class action? The court holds that the three actual parties plaintiff who signed and verified the complaint are maintaining this suit not only for themselves, but, by virtual representation, for all other inmates of the city jail who have not been charged or taken to court. Plaintiffs also presume, as I see it, to represent all future inmates of city jail during future intervals prior to the filing of charges, referrals to judicial officers, and releases from custody. Other than these vague concepts, the record shows nothing, in my view, that could be said to amount to a class sui juris. Application of even the most extravagant concepts of a *539juridical class will fail to locate one in this case, for at best we have no more than a constantly shifting group of people who enter the supposed class upon arrest and leave it as soon as they are charged with an offense and are taken before a judicial officer.
'Curiously, the three actual plaintiffs would not belong to the same class juridically because their situations differ remarkably.
Plaintiff Johnson, at the time of signing the complaint, says he was being held in the Seattle city jail on suspicion of forgery and had been held there for about 116 hours without being taken before a magistrate for arraignment. Plaintiff Bobala says he was held on suspicion of violating the laws relating to narcotics for 90 hours. Plaintiff James says he was held on suspicion of being a fugitive from justice for 168 hours without being taken before a magistrate. I would not question the right of each plaintiff to seek his remedy individually by habeas corpus or other extraordinary writ, but this they have done by actual join-der. I doubt whether the identical relief can or should be granted each party after trial upon the merits.
One would be hard put to more loosely describe the nature of the claim and the parties bringing it. Defendant Moore, plaintiffs allege individually and jointly, as acting chief of police of the city of Seattle, was responsible for their illegal incarceration. Plaintiffs demand (1) a writ of habeas corpus; (2) declaratory judgment relief; (3) preliminary and permanent injunctions against the defendant acting chief of police; and (4) writs of mandamus not only jointly and severally but also on behalf of a class of individuals whom they claim to represent and for whom, they say, they are maintaining this action. Employing language reminiscent of that found in an antitrust suit or one brought for redress for unlawful restraint of trade, plaintiffs describe the class in their complaint as
all persons incarcerated in the jail of the City of Seattle, Washington, who have been subjected to the practices employed by the defendant in a consistent, concerted and repeated course of conduct, complained of . . .
*540and go on to complain of consistent, concerted and repeated course of conduct “directed toward the plaintiffs and the class.” On behalf of themselves and all others of their class, plaintiffs claim that the chief of police has been arresting and imprisoning them and the class without charging the plaintiffs and the class with a crime; and failing to bring the “plaintiffs and class before a magistrate, without unnecessary delay, as required by law.”
This combined petition for writ of habeas corpus, complaint for declaratory judgment, application for preliminary injunction and permanent injunction, and petition for writ of mandate goes on to demand that the plaintiffs be set free or otherwise dealt with according to law; that the chief of police desist from “detaining plaintiffs and the class for an unreasonable period of time on ‘suspicion’ and without arraignment;” for an injunction against continuing these practices; and for a mandate to take “plaintiffs and members of the class forthwith before a magistrate following arrest . . . but in no event later than noon on the court
day next following the day of arrest;” and
For an order requiring Frank Moore and his employees and agents to book members of the class for the crime for which they were arrested and not on an “open” or “suspicion” category.
Just how the chief or his successor will go about booking “members of the class for the crime for which they were arrested” is not made clear.
No one seriously disputes the proposition that plaintiffs cannot be lawfully held in police custody without formal charges, and that the constitutions' require reasonably early reference to a judicial officer after arrest and judicial consideration of admission to bail, nor that habeas corpus, ubiquitous, perennial and eternal, is available to anyone in custody. But all of the issues raised by the three named plaintiffs can be and were reached by habeas corpus and perhaps mandamus or some other form of extraordinary remedy sought individually or by ready joinder. The only *541matter before us is whether the trial court properly decided that this was not a true class action and accordingly dismissed it as a class action leaving the plaintiffs to their respective individual remedies, separately or by joinder.
Common sense, I think, vindicates the trial judge’s ruling. First, the idea of a class action is quite pointless when all of the parties directly concerned may readily join in the action or sue separately. No barriers whatever appear in this record against the joinder of other occupants of the Seattle city jail. All of them could readily join as parties plaintiff simply by verifying the complaint, intervening separately or bringing separate actions. The trial court’s judgment of dismissal of the class action deprived neither the actual plaintiffs nor any other occupants of the jail of any rights or remedies not already available. Any one of the class whom the plaintiffs purport to represent if in jail at the time could readily have sought the identical relief and asserted the same remedies which plaintiffs are seeking individually.
On its face, the complaint brought as it is under CR 23, demonstrates this is not a true class action. CR 23(a) states:
One or more members of a class may sue or be sued as representative parties on behalf of all only if (1) the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable, (2) there are questions of law or fact common to the class, (3) the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of the claims or defenses of the class, and (4) the representative parties will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class.
The first requisite — practicability—is wanting here. There is no showing that it would be impracticable to join all consenting occupants of the city jail at the time of filing the complaint, and thus one of the fundamental reasons for allowing class action at all did not exist. For that reason alone, the trial court’s ruling should be sustained.
What are the essentials of a class that can be judicially deemed sui juris en masse? Most of the essentials (see 59 *542Am. Jur. 2d Parties §§ 56-75 (1971)) are set forth in CR 23 and, as amplified judicially, are:
1. The class, as just observed, must be so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable. In the instant case, all purported members are as available as it is possible to make them — in jail, under the same roof — except for those to be arrested in the future.
2. There must be a community of interest, i.e., questions of law or fact common to the class. Whatever claims plaintiffs in the present case have in common are overshadowed by the differences not only among themselves but with other members of the purported class. Plaintiffs are held in jail on widely differing accusations for widely differing times. Unnamed members of this so-called class may be in custody under such varying accusations as drunk driving, murder, kidnapping for ransom, armed robbery, embezzlement, etc. Some may be undisclosed juveniles whose identities and true ages are under investigation. Some may have counsel whose initial efforts on behalf of their clients is to delay the filing of public charges, either in the interests of persuading the prosecution that the client is innocent and should not be charged at all or that investigation will establish a lesser or different offense than the one for which the arrest was made. The pleadings alone show lack of that community of interest requisite to a true class action.
3. The claims or defenses of the parties bringing or defending the action must be typical of all members of the class. Obviously, the claims of the three signatory plaintiffs here are not and cannot be typical of the claims of all inmates of the city jail awaiting the filing of charges and referral to a judicial officer. The disparate nature of such claims and circumstances is contemplated by JCrR 2.03. Under that rule — that arresting officers are to take persons who cannot make bail or whose alleged offense is unbaila-ble before a judge without unnecessary delay — the term “directly and without delay” means as soon as reasonably practicable. That rule, adopted by this court after careful consideration, deliberately avoided prescribing a time limit *543in terms of hours, minutes and days in fixing the minimum time.
4. The actual parties must fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class. All persons in the Seattle city jail held without the filing of formal charges in court would not be fairly and adequately represented by these three plaintiffs, nor in any suit short of individual claims separately urged. Some occupants of the jail may have employed counsel whose first thought conceivably could have been to prevent having the police accusations officially spread upon the court records and thus put into the public domain; others may be mentally deranged but, nevertheless, under arrest for crimes for which they were not legally responsible; others may be in custody on fugitive warrants from other states or countries awaiting documentation of extradition papers; some may have been suspected but unadmit-ted juveniles whose case will ultimately be filed in the juvenile department of the superior court; and others may be held under such widely disparate conditions, circumstances and hopes as to resist being herded into court along with other members of the class plaintiffs claim to represent. It is quite likely that a number of the jail occupants resent and would reject plaintiffs’ offers on their behalf and deem it officious intermeddling and do not welcome a suit on their behalf to compel the chief of police to see to it that charges are filed against them in open court instanter.
5. Finally, and of overriding import, the members of the class must be readily ascertainable. Here we have what is probably the most fundamental of all the essentials, for individual members of the class must be readily identifiable so that they individually can either claim under or will be bound by a judgment. Unless this basic requisite exists, the suit is a spurious class action and the class limited to those who actually by joinder or intervention become parties. Rath v. Armour & Co., 136 N.W.2d 142 (N.D. 1965).
To be one of a readily ascertainable class, therefore, it must appear that one would seek the remedy demanded, would enforce it if obtained and, without having sought it, *544not be prejudiced by having others obtain the relief demanded.
Members of the class should have a right to insist that the interests to be preserved by the named parties and those of the class are so nearly identical that the motives for obtaining the remedy will be identical or nearly so with all members of the class. Industrial Generating Co. v. Jenkins, 410 S.W.2d 658 (Tex. Civ. App. 1966); County of Los Angeles v. Winans, 13 Cal. App. 234, 109 P. 640 (1910).
Nor can there be a class action on behalf of persons whose identities as members of a class cannot be established at the time the relief was sought. As soon as a charge is filed against the purported class member and he is taken before a judicial officer, he leaves the class and cannot claim relief according to the remedy granted to the members of his former juridical class. Unlike such cases where minority stockholders, members of an unincorporated association, bondholders, taxpayers similarly affected by a taxing measure, trust beneficiaries and even prisoners awaiting execution (59 Am. Jur. 2d Parties § 75 (1971)), who may be deemed members of a class in a given instance, here there is no survival of rights from those leaving the class to those entering it. Where a true class may survive changes in actual membership by assignment, transfer, sale or operation of law, here there can be no survival of such rights because there are no derivative rights passing from one jail inmate to another. For example, a stockholder, landowner or taxpayer or trust beneficiary may by transfer of the res accord derivative rights to his successor in interest and his successor thereby acquire the same derivative rights, and a true class may arise in such instance by derivation. But here it is quite unlikely that an occupant of the city jail has alienable rights which he can transfer to a succeeding occupant of his jail cell. Those who, as successors in interest or by derivation as a class, might claim a share in the relief obtained in a judgment or decree do so not as general members of the public but because of their rights to and interests in the same thing or remedies at the *545same time arising through common interests and the common right of recovery upon the same facts. Davies v. Columbia Gas & Elec. Corp., 151 Ohio St. 417, 86 N.E.2d 603 (1949); Wolf v. Bennett, 118 Ind. App. 567, 82 N.E.2d 262 (1948).
Accordingly, in Weaver v. Pasadena Tournament of Roses Ass’n, 32 Cal. 2d 833, 198 P.2d 514 (1948), the Supreme Court of California held that all ticket holders to the Rose Bowl game who had been wrongfully refused admission (lid not constitute a class of parties plaintiff for whom a few could sue on behalf of the many to recover a statutory penalty. Despite what might appear to be a definite community of interest in the remedy, and a readily ascertainable property interest arising by ownership of a Rose Bowl ticket, and the denial of admission to the game, the court found there was no class by virtual representation for which an action could be brought. The claims had to be individually enforced by those claiming to have been wronged, although as a group this might involve several thousand individual ticket holders. In summarizing, the court said, at page 841, “So the fact that ‘numerous parties’ have separate and distinct claims against the same person or persons will not alone suffice to sustain a representative suit where there is no community of interest.” See, also, Gerhard v. Stephens, 68 Cal. 2d 864, 69 Cal. Rptr. 612, 442 P.2d 692 (1968).
To be a true class action, then, the right to be enforced must be joint, common, derivative or secondary so that the judgment obtained will similarly affect all members of the class. Salt Lake City v. Utah Lake Farmers Ass’n, 4 Utah 2d 14, 286 P.2d 773 (1955). Thus, where plaintiffs as members of a committee which had sold dairy products to the defendant corporation brought suit to recover the purchase price for goods sold and delivered and to recover punitive damages as well on behalf of plaintiffs and others who had sold, delivered to and were unpaid by defendant, it was held to be not a true class, but what is known in law as a spurious class action requiring actual joinder to enforce the *546judgment. Rath v. Armour & Co., supra. The court held that any judgment had to be separately obtained for the particular relief of a particular plaintiff in the amount of his particular damages. In a spurious class action, the judgment rendered extends only to plaintiffs who have become actual parties before judgment. Rath v. Armour & Co., supra.
One of the leading recent cases, in my opinion, on the question of spurious versus true class representation is Puget Sound Alumni of Kappa Sigma, Inc. v. Seattle, 70 Wn.2d 222, 422 P.2d 799 (1967), involving an action to recover from the city money paid by abutting owners for the vacation of streets. Holding that, although abutting owners could not be required to pay for the land inuring to them through vacation of a street, nevertheless this court held that the plaintiffs could not maintain the action on behalf of some 92 persons who earlier but within the statutory period of limitations had paid the city for the property vacated to them by the city. Citing Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur v. Cauble, 255 U.S. 356, 65 L. Ed. 673, 41 S. Ct. 338 (1921) in support of the binding nature of a judgment upon all members of a class in a true class action, this court pointed out that the spurious class suit requires permissive joinder (3 J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 23.10(3) (2d ed.)), which simply means that one is not a party until he becomes a party by joining in the action. We said in Puget Sound Alumni, 70 Wn.2d at 235:
In the present case, the claims asserted against the city of Seattle do not have the characters of either joint or common right as used in class actions under Rule 23. Each claim for recovery differs upon the respective appraised values of the vacated streets abutting the respective properties. This is a spurious class action and the rights of absent parties may not be determined in this action. See Elston v. King Cy., 178 Wash. 210, 34 P.2d 906 (1934), referred to by Professor Orland as illustrative of a spurious class action brought long before the adoption of Rule 23. 3 Orland, Wash. Prac., at 707.
If Puget Sound Alumni of Kappa Sigma, Inc. v. Seattle, *547supra, an action to recover money for the same injury, i.e., money paid to the city for earlier street vacation, by persons in the precise situation, i.e., abutting landowners, is not a true but rather a spurious class action, and requires actual joinder of all parties, there is little basis in law to find a true class in the instant case where all parties are held in the city jail awaiting the filing of charges and presentation to court and are all readily available to join plaintiffs as additional parties or seek the same remedies individually.
I would, therefore, affirm the trial court in ruling that this is no true class action and let each plaintiff assert his remedy individually.
Stafford, J., concurs with Hale, J.