Court Opinion

ID: 9487973
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:32:05.489313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:36.028934
License: Public Domain

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority today takes the extraordinary step of granting defendants’ petition for a writ of mandamus and directing the district court to rescind its order certifying the plaintiff class. Although certification orders like this one are not immediately appealable (see Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978)), the majority seizes upon our mandamus powers to effectively circumvent that rule. Because, in my view, our consideration of Judge Grady’s decision to certify an issue class under Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(c)(4) should await an appeal from the final judgment in Wadleigh, I would deny the writ.
The Supreme Court has consistently cautioned that mandamus is a drastic remedy to be employed only in the most extraordinary of cases. See, e.g., Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. v. Mayacamas Corp., 485 U.S. 271, 289, 108 S.Ct. 1133, 1143-44, 99 L.Ed.2d 296 (1988); Allied Chem. Corp. v. Daiflon, Inc., 449 U.S. 33, 34, 101 S.Ct. 188, 189-90, 66 L.Ed.2d 193 (1980) (per curiam); Kerr v. United States District Court for the Northern District of California, 426 U.S. 394, 402, 96 S.Ct. 2119, 2123-24, 48 L.Ed.2d 725 (1976). The writ traditionally has been used only “to confine an inferior court to a lawful exercise of its prescribed jurisdiction” and is justified only by “exceptional circumstances amounting to a judicial ‘usurpation of power.’ ” Will v. United States, 389 U.S. 90, 95, 88 S.Ct. 269, 273, 19 L.Ed.2d 305 (1967); see also Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., 485 U.S. at 289, 108 S.Ct. at 1143-44; Allied Chemical, 449 U.S. at 35, 101 S.Ct. at 190; Kerr, 426 U.S. at 402, 96 S.Ct. at 2123-24. “To ensure *1305that mandamus remains an extraordinary remedy,” the Supreme Court requires the proponents of a writ to “show that they lack adequate alternative means to obtain the' relief they seek,” and that their right to relief is “clear and indisputable.” Mallard v. United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, 490 U.S. 296, 309, 109 S.Ct. 1814, 1822, 104 L.Ed.2d 318 (1989); see also Allied Chemical, 449 U.S. at 35, 101 S.Ct. at 190 (party seeking issuance of writ must “have no other adequate means to attain the relief he desires”); Kerr, 426 U.S. at 403, 96 S.Ct. at 2123-24; Eisenberg v. United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, 910 F.2d 374, 375 (7th Cir.1990) (petitioner must show “that immediate correction is necessary — without it the petitioner will suffer serious and irreparable injury.”).
Even when a petitioner’s right to relief is sufficiently clear, a writ should not issue if an adequate alternative is available. See Maloney v. Plunkett, 854 F.2d 152, 154 (7th Cir.1988); In re American Airlines, Inc., 972 F.2d 605, 608 (5th Cir.1992) (“unless [petitioner] demonstrates that it lacks an ade-. quate alternative means to obtain relief, we need not consider whether its right to a writ of mandamus is ‘clear and indisputable.’”), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1262, 122 L.Ed.2d 659 (1993). We observed in Maloney, for example, that clear error is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the issuance of the writ: “Not only must the error be clear; it must be irremediable by the regular appellate remedies.” 854 F.2d at 154; cf. Will, 389 U.S. at 104, 88 S.Ct. at 278 (“Mandamus,, it must be remembered, does not run the gauntlet of reversible errors.” (internal quotation omitted)). And when review of the challenged order is available by direct appeal after entry of a final judgment, “it cannot be said that the litigant ‘has no other adequate means to seek the relief he desires.’ ” Allied Chemical Corp., 449 U.S. at 36, 101 S.Ct. at 191; see also In re City of Springfield, Illinois, 818 F.2d 565, 568 (7th Cir.1987); J.H. Cohn & Co. v. American Appraisal Assoc., Inc., 628 F.2d 994, 999 (7th Cir.1980); Campanioni v. Barr, 962 F.2d 461, 464 (5th Cir.1992).
The majority concedes that this court would have an opportunity to review the certification order on appeal from a final judgment addressed to the named plaintiffs in Wadleigh. (Ante at 1297.) Yet the majority finds this avenue inadequate because “it will come too late to provide effective relief to the defendants.” (Id.) This is so because class treatment of plaintiffs’ claims will pose a liability risk of such magnitude that defendants “will be under intense pressure to settle.” (Id. at 1298.) And if that risk produces the predicted settlement, the district court’s certification order would evade this court’s review. (Id.) Because of the likelihood of a settlement, then, the majority believes that the first condition for issuance of a writ of mandamus has been satisfied, and it proceeds to consider whether the district court’s discretionary decision to certify a class amounts to a “judicial usurpation of power.” (Id. at 1299.)
I find the majority’s reasoning troubling in several respects. First, it means that the preliminary requirement for mandamus — the lack of an alternative means of obtaining relief — will be satisfied by virtually every class certification order, which then authorizes the court to assess the relative merits of the order to determine whether it is “usur-pative.” The majority’s complaint about Judge Grady’s order — that it will make a settlement more likely than if defendants’ negligence were to be determined by separate juries in individual trials — is true of most every order certifying a large plaintiff class. Certification orders almost always increase the likelihood of settlement by expanding the scope of defendants’ exposure. Yet that does not make the order any less reviewable if defendants resist the temptation to settle and litigate to final judgment. See In re Sugar Antitrust Litigation, 559 F.2d 481, 483 n. 1 (9th Cir.1977). Indeed, in concluding that certification orders are not immediately appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, the Supreme Court, observed that any order certifying a large plaintiff class “may so increase the defendant’s potential damages liability and litigation costs that he may find it economically prudent to settle and to abandon a meritorious defense.” Coopers & Lybrand, 437 U.S. at 476, 98 S.Ct. at *13062462. Yet that did not stop the Court from finding that “orders granting class certification are interlocutory” and thus not immediately appealable as of right. Id. But the majority here would override Coopers’ edict, making certification orders reviewable on mandamus simply because the likelihood of a settlement makes the order unreviewable at the end of the cáse. I cannot reconcile this conclusion with Coopers & Lybrand or with the Supreme Court’s mandamus cases. See In re Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina, 973 F.2d 1138, 1137 (4th Cir.1992) (court reluctant to permit' mandamus to accomplish “what Coopers & Lybrand so clearly prohibits by way of interlocutory appeal not certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).”); DeMasi v. Weiss, 669 F.2d 114, 118-19 (3d Cir.1982) (refusing to employ mandamus to circumvent Coopers & Lybrand); see also In re School Asbestos Litigation, 921 F.2d 1338, 1342 (3d Cir.1990) (“[T]his court adheres to its decision in DeMasi and does not intend to dilute our clear holding that precludes the use of mandamus to reverse the grant or denial of a class certification.”).1 I thus cannot agree that the possibility of a settlement satisfies defendants’ burden under the first of the two requirements for mandamus.
I also am wary of the majority’s application of a “settlement theory” in this case, as defendants did not offer that rationale in support of their petition. Their failure to do so is important because the Supreme Court has required the party seeking mandamus to bear the burden of establishing that it lacks an alternative means of obtaining relief. See, e.g., Mallard, 490 U.S. at 309, 109 S.Ct. at 1822; In re Catawba Indian Tribe, 973 F.2d at 1136; In re Recticel Foam Corp., 859 F.2d 1000, 1006 (1st Cir.1988). Nowhere in their petition or in their briefs to this court did defendants suggest that Judge Grady’s order would prompt them to settle. Instead, defendants argued that irreparable harm would result from the class trial itself, as well as from the satellite litigation it would spawn.2 The possibility of a settlement was raised for the first time by the court itself at oral •argument. Generally, arguments not raised in a party’s brief, but only at oral argument, are waived. See, e.g., United States v. Rodriguez, 888 F.2d 519, 524 (7th Cir.1989). But even assuming that we may consider the argument (see ante at 1299), I fail to see how counsel’s vague statements at oral argument about the possibility of a settlement can be said to satisfy defendants’ substantial burden of establishing that they will suffer irrepara*1307ble harm. The only “evidence” supporting counsel’s assertion has been supplied by the majority’s own statistical conjecturing, to which plaintiffs have had no opportunity to respond. Cf. LB Credit Corp. v. Resolution Trust Corp., 49 F.3d 1263, 1268 (7th Cir.1995) (refusing to consider argument raised for the first time in a post-judgment motion because the opposing party had no opportunity to test the assumptions underlying the argument). The burden of proving irreparable harm lies with the party seeking mandamus relief, not with the court, and defendants wholly failed to meet that burden here.
Furthermore, even if the possibility of a settlement were relevant to the first mandamus requirement, and even if it had been asserted by defendants in support of their petition, I still cannot agree with the majority’s premise that Judge Grady’s order in fact will prompt a settlement. Contrary to the clear implication of the majority’s opinion (ante at 1298), the class portion of the anticipated trial in this case would not go so far as to establish defendants’ liability to a class of plaintiffs; it would instead resolve only the question of whether defendants were negligent in distributing tainted clotting factor at any particular point in time. Even if defendants were faced with an adverse class ver-diet, then, a plaintiff still would be required to clear a number of hurdles before he would be entitled to a judgment. For example, defendants no doubt would contest at that stage whether a particular plaintiff could establish proximate causation or whether his or her claim is in any event barred by the statute of limitations. Thus, contrary to the majority’s implication, a class verdict in favor of plaintiffs would not automatically entitle each member of the class to a seven-figure judgment. (See ante at 1300.) The defendants will thus have ample opportunity to settle should they lose the class trial. And that would seem to me an advisable strategy in light of the success they have had in earlier cases. That factor distinguishes this case from a more standard class action, where a non-bifurcated trial would resolve all relevant issues and conclusively establish liability to the class. Perhaps that explains why defendants’ own arguments in support of their petition are based on the assumption that a class trial would ensue, rather than on the proposition that a settlement would follow inevitably from Judge Grady’s order.3
Finally, although the availability of review on direct appeal after final judgment makes it unnecessary for me to discuss the merits of the certification order, the majority’s arguments addressed to the propriety of forcing *1308“defendants to stake their companies on the outcome of a single jury trial” or of allowing a single jury to “hold the fate of an industry in the palm of its hand” seem to me at odds with Fed.R.Civ.P. 23 itself. (See ante at 1299, 1300, 1304.) That rule expressly permits class treatment of such claims when its requirements are met, regardless of the magnitude of potential, liability. And I see nothing in Rule 23, or in any of the relevant cases, that would make likelihood of success on the merits a prerequisite for class certification. (Cf. ante at 1299, 1304.) The majority’s preference for avoiding a class trial and for submitting the negligence issue “to multiple juries constituting in the aggregate a much larger and more diverse sample of decision-makers” (ante at 1300) is a rationale for amending the rule, not for avoiding its application in a specific ease. Cf. Coopers & Lybrand, 437 U.S. at 470, 98 S.Ct. at 2458-59 (policy arguments addressed to the benefits and burdens of class litigation are matters only for legislative consideration).
I must concede that I too have doubts about whether the class trial proposed by Judge Grady will succeed, and I sympathize with many of the apprehensions of my brothers. But in my view, the law requires that Judge Grady’s plan be given the opportunity to succeed. Class certification orders are, after all, conditional orders subject to modification or revocation as the circumstances warrant. Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(c)(1); Coopers & Lybrand, 437 U.S. at 469, 98 S.Ct. at 2458; DeMasi, 669 F.2d at 118; General Motors Corp. v. City of New York, 501 F.2d 639, 647 (2d Cir.1974). If the problems envisioned by the majority were to materialize at a class trial, Judge Grady could always modify his earlier ruling or even abandon it altogether, and his response in that regard would be reviewable by this court on direct appeal, once the actual ramifications of the certification order were evident. See In re Diamond Shamrock Chem. Co., 725 F.2d 858, 862 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1067, 104 S.Ct. 1417, 79 L.Ed.2d 743 (1984).
In the final analysis, I think it significant that the majority recognizes the need for limits on the mandamus power — “if unca-bined,” that power has the potential “to unravel the final-decision rule” of 28 U.S.C. § 1291. (Ante at 1295.) The way to cabin that power, the majority explains, is “[b]y taking seriously the. two conditions for the grant of a writ of mandamus.” (Id.) Yet in holding that the possibility of a settlement satisfies the first condition, the majority, regrettably, has failed to heed its own counsel. I respectfully dissent.

. The majority relies on In re Fibreboard Corp., 893 F.2d 706 (5th Cir.1990), to support its writ here, contending that the Fifth Circuit, like "[m]ost federal courts, ... refuse[s] to permit the use of the class-action device in mass-tort cases.” (Ante at 1304; see also at 1295.) In Fibreboard, however, the court objected to a procedure whereby the claims of nearly 3,000 plaintiffs would be resolved in a "sample” trial of only forty-one representative class members. 893 F.2d at 711. On the basis of the evidence addressed to the sample, the jury would determine actual damages due the entire class, rather than the amount due each plaintiff. Id. at 709. The court issued a writ of mandamus because this procedure would violate Texas law. Id. at 711-12. But contraty to the majority's assertions here, the Fifth Circuit did not refuse to permit any class treatment of the plaintiffs' claims, nor did it discourage use of the class action device in mass torts. Instead, the court expressly authorized a class trial addressed, inter alia, to whether the defendants had acted negligently. Id. at 708 (describing Phase I trial) & 712 (authorizing Phase I trial); see also Jenkins v. Raymark Indus., Inc., 782 F.2d 468 (5th Cir.1986) (affirming class certification ruling in earlier phase of same litigation). The Phase I trial authorized in Fibre-board is similar to that envisioned by Judge Grady here, and the Phase II trial to which the Fibreboard court objected bears no resemblance to the individual Phase II trials that would follow the class negligence trial under Judge Grady's plan. Moreover, to the extent that Fibreboard may support the issuance of a writ even where a direct appeal is later available, that decision fails to explain why the opportunity for a later appeal would not provide an adequate alternative means of obtaining relief. Perhaps the court was concerned, however, that a direct appeal could only follow a class-wide judgment, whereas here, the class issues would be reviewable on direct appeal from a judgment addressed only to the named plaintiffs.

. Specifically, defendants argued that Judge Grady's certification order did not envision entry of a final judgment (a position the majority has appropriately rejected), that a class trial would spawn additional litigation in jurisdictions throughout the country over the effect of the class verdict, and that the class trial would delay discovery in other cases, perhaps preventing defendants from deposing plaintiffs whose health continues to deteriorate. (Pet. for a Writ of Mandamus at 45-48.)

. As an alternative to its settlement theory, the majority suggests that the irreparable harm requirement is relaxed in this case because the certification order infringes defendants’ Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. (Ante at 1295, 1303-04.) But the circumstances here are unlike those in Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U.S. 500, 79 S.Ct. 948, 3 L.Ed.2d 988 (1959), and Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U.S. 469, 82 S.Ct. 894, 8 L.Ed.2d 44 (1962), which the majority cites to support its position. In those cases, mandamus issued after the district court had decided to try equitable claims to the court before trying related legal claims to a jury. Because the court’s findings on the equitable claims would have. effectively denied defendants their right to jury resolution of issues common to their legal claims, the Supreme Court granted mandamus to protect defendants' right to a jury trial. Beacon Theatres, 359 U.S. at 510-11, 79 S.Ct. at 956-57; Dairy Queen, 369 U.S. at 472-73, 82 S.Ct. at 897; see also Will v. Calvert Fire Ins. Co., 437 U.S. 655, 665 n. 7, 98 S.Ct. 2552, 2559 n. 7, 57 L.Ed.2d 504 (1978). The Court believed that there was no need to await an appeal from a final judgment in that circumstance to remedy an obvious violation of the Seventh Amendment. See First Nat'l Bank of Waukesha v. Warren, 796 F.2d 999, 1004 (7th Cir.1986). Here, by contrast, the district court's certification order does not present such an obvious Seventh Amendment problem, as it will not deprive defendants of their right to have a jury resolve any issue. Instead, the Seventh Amendment violation the majority envisions might appear, if at all, only in a phase II trial. It is thus a possible but by no means imminent consequence of the certification order. And if any constitutional problem were to materialize, it would be reviewable either by this court after the class trial or by other courts reviewing phase II trials. In either event, the reviewing court would .then have a record to examine, rather than speculating about a potential constitutional violation, as the majority does here. See In re Diamond Shamrock Chem. Co., 725 F.2d 858, 862 (2d Cir.) (denying mandamus because "[rjeview of the many issues raised by the class certification will be available [on direct appeal] when the ramifications of each aspect of the ruling will be evident.”), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1067, 104 S.Ct. 1417, 79 L.Ed.2d 743 (1984). I thus cannot agree that the mere possibility of a constitutional violation somehow eliminates the first mandamus requirement.