Court Opinion

ID: 9472225
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:53:35.670735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:49.102530
License: Public Domain

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
While a strong argument can be made that the applicant for intervention was entitled to an evidentiary hearing before denial of her petition, it became plain in the en banc proceedings that she wanted no such hearing.1 Instead, she rests on the assertion that as a matter of law she is entitled to intervene. I reject that proposition, concluding that, if the facts are as the applicant for intervention now concedes them to be, the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing intervention.
I add this brief writing only to note that I share the concern for procedural regularity expressed by Judge Rubin’s opinion and earlier by Judge Goldberg; this concern, I think, is shared by the members of the court on both sides of this case. Thus, despite the division of the court as to the outcome of this appeal, the case is a warning to courts struggling with public law cases. Difficult legal questions, particularly in school cases, are magnified by failure to adhere strictly to procedure. With these public law cases we are learning that the fastest path between two points is not a straight line. It is, instead, the sometimes tedious and seemingly tortuous path of procedural due process.
Some school cases have proceeded in ways more akin to congressional hearings than judicial proceedings. The very nature of the cases with their changing class memberships dulls sensitivity to otherwise routine procedures — procedures so routine that we overlook their fundamental due process role. When Judge Stagg inherited this snarled mass, it had lost many of its judicial features, and was a breeding ground for just the sort of difficulties this appeal has generated. Critically, failure to define the parties to this lawsuit in times past has led to difficulty in achieving a final result.
I am persuaded that, on balance, this record sufficiently reflects fundamental fairness and opportunity to be heard. Finally, if, as is the case, this uncertified “class” lacks sufficient definition as a jural entity to save a ease from mootness, its “absence” from the negotiation of the consent decree cannot have unsettling consequences.
*939ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge, with whom CLARK, Chief Judge, GOLDBERG, RANDALL, TATE and JOHNSON, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.
Without holding a hearing, the district court denied as untimely a motion on behalf of a class of black parents and children seeking to intervene in this long-pending school desegregation case; the movant sought to object to a consent decree negotiated between attorneys for the United States Department of Justice and the School Board. The court also treated the case, instituted as a class action, as not being a class action although it had never held a class certification hearing as required by this court in a prior decision relating to the same case. Jones v. Caddo Parish School Board, 499 F.2d 914 (5th Cir.1974). While the failure to hold a class-certification hearing was due to the failure of counsel for the putative class to seek such a hearing, the class-action allegations should not have been disregarded, and, once a consent decree was proposed, some formal action should have been taken on them. I would, therefore, remand the case for consideration of its class-action status and for a hearing on the motion to intervene.
I.
Seven black school children and their parents filed a complaint in 1965 charging that the Caddo Parish public schools were being operated on a segregated basis in violation of rights secured to them by the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment. They sought to represent themselves and a class of “Negro children and their parents in Caddo Parish,” pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a)(3) as then in effect. The case was assigned to District Judge Ben C. Dawkins, Jr., who enjoined the operation of the dual school system and ordered the School Board to prepare a desegregation plan. After the School Board had submitted a proposal, the United States moved to intervene as a party plaintiff pursuant to Title IX of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.1 The district court adopted the School Board’s plan and denied intervention by the United States. Both rulings were reversed by us in United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 372 F.2d 836 (5th Cir.1966), aff'd with modifications, 380 F.2d 385 (5th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 840, 88 S.Ct. 77, 19 L.Ed.2d 104 (1967). Since then, the United States has been an active participant.
The School Board thereafter prepared other plans. Each was approved by the district court and then disapproved by this court. See Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Board, 417 F.2d 801 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 904, 90 S.Ct. 218, 24 L.Ed.2d 180 (1969) (rejecting a freedom of choice plan), and Jones v. Caddo Parish School Board, 421 F.2d 313 (5th Cir.1970) (reversing the district court’s approval of a plan submitted by the School Board and remanding for consideration of Singleton v. Jackson Municipal Separate School District, 419 F.2d 1211 (5th Cir.1969) (en banc), reversed, 396 U.S. 290, 90 S.Ct. 608, 24 L.Ed.2d 530 (1970)).
In February 1972, plaintiffs filed a petition for further relief requesting the elimination of racially identifiable schools and professional staffs, and a declaration that the apportionment scheme for school board elections was unconstitutional. An amended motion for further relief focused on the School Board’s failure to dismantle “schools with substantially disproportionate racial compositions” and sought the elimination of the remaining vestiges of the dual school system. The motion was signed by counsel who were associated with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York City. The lawyer who appeared in this motion had not represented the plaintiffs originally, but had been listed on some of the previous filings as being associated with other Legal Defense Fund attorneys. While these motions were pending, Judge Dawkins recused himself from the case and it was assigned to Chief Judge Nauman S. Scott.
*940In March 1973, the United States responded to the motions for further relief by requesting that the court appoint a biracial committee of citizens of Caddo Parish (“the Committee”) to assess the progress of the existing desegregation scheme and to develop alternate proposals. The district court ordered the establishment of such a committee, and the Committee presented its report and desegregation plan on June 1, 1973. Shortly thereafter, plaintiffs filed their objections to the pupil assignment portion of the Committee’s proposed method of desegregation. They also moved to add additional parties as plaintiffs. The United States filed comments on the Committee plan, noting that the plan permitted the continued operation of thirty-four one-race or predominantly one-race schools. The United States stated that it was unable to determine whether the plan was constitutional because the plan did not, as required by court order, set forth facts that might justify continued existence of one-race schools.
Thereafter plaintiffs’ original counsel moved to dismiss the lawyers from the Legal Defense Fund “because of the objections [they] filed to the Court Appointed Citizens Committee Desegregation Plan.” The court signed an order submitted by plaintiffs substituting as their counsel yet another lawyer, who moved to strike the previously filed objections. About a week later the court adopted the Committee’s desegregation plan and directed that it be implemented in time for the start of the 1973-74 school year.
Four months later, the Legal Defense Fund lawyers filed a motion to intervene on behalf of several black school children and their parents who resided in Caddo Parish. The named individuals sought to represent a “class of present and future black public schoolchildren who are or will be eligible to attend the public schools of Caddo Parish.” They attached a complaint assailing the constitutionality of the Committee’s pupil assignment plan for its retention of one-race schools within the parish. The district court denied the application for intervention, finding that the original plaintiffs adequately represented the class and that the motion to intervene was untimely. This court vacated that decision and remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing on the motion to intervene. Jones v. Caddo Parish School Board, 499 F.2d 914 (5th Cir.1974). We instructed the district court to “determine the class and who properly represents it.” Id. at 917. However, no hearing was ever sought by the plaintiffs and none, therefore, was held.
For two years, there were no further legal proceedings and the Caddo Parish school system operated under the Committee’s desegregation plan. In July 1976, the Citizens Advisory Committee, a group appointed to oversee the implementation of the 1973 plan, filed a report with the district court indicating several areas in which the School Board had not met the requirements established by the plan. That report recommended a one-year extension of the court order directing compliance with the 1973 Committee desegregation plan. After examining data submitted by the School Board, Chief Judge Scott appointed a Special Master “for the specific purpose of investigating, examining and producing evidence to enable the Court to determine the degree of conformity achieved by the Cad-do Parish School Board in satisfying the conditions and provisions of the [1973] plan.”
The following month, the School Board filed a motion with the district court seeking a declaration that the Caddo Parish school system was unitary and dismissal of this action. Opposing this motion, the United States stated that any declaration of unitary status prior to the completion of the Special Master’s duties would be premature. The original plaintiffs, now represented by yet another lawyer as counsel,2 *941also filed a memorandum in opposition to the School Board’s motion. On December 30, 1977, after considering deposition testimony, Judge Scott found that the “former state-imposed dual system had been completely eradicated” and declared the Caddo Parish school system “a unitary system.” The same day he signed a judgment dismissing the suit.
Neither the United States nor the original plaintiffs appealed from this decision, but two weeks later the government moved to amend the district court’s judgment and findings, claiming that there had been procedural irregularities in the proceedings held by the Special Master and substantive deficiencies in the determination that a unitary status had been achieved. No one appeared on behalf of the original plaintiffs. However, no action was taken on the motion and the judgment of dismissal remained on the record. In July 1978, the School Board requested that the district court lift the previously-imposed requirement that the faculty ratio be fifty percent white and fifty percent black. The United States filed an opposition to the School Board’s request for partial relief, but, again, no one appeared on behalf of the original plaintiffs.3
On August 16, 1979, Chief Judge Scott recused himself and the case was transferred to a third district judge, Judge Thomas E. Stagg (who has since succeeded Judge Scott as Chief Judge). It was evident that at least some of the litigants or their counsel had permitted the case to languish. In both the public interest and the interest of the litigants, Judge Stagg promptly attempted to move the already-fourteen-year-old litigation to a conclusion. He convened a status conference, but only counsel for the School Board and the government appeared, and no lawyer appeared to represent either the original plaintiffs or those seeking to intervene. The next day, June 3, 1980, the court entered a minute order that provided in part:
If the original plaintiffs still have a viable interest in this case, their counsel should contact the court, in writing, within thirty (30) days of this order. If the plaintiffs’ counsel does not respond, this court will consider that the plaintiffs acquiesce in having their interests represented by the United States as plaintiff-intervenor.
Copies of this were mailed to the many lawyers who had appeared in the past for, or who still were shown as representing, both the original plaintiffs and those seeking to intervene. While responses were received, in one form or another, from several lawyers who had appeared at one time or another to represent the plaintiffs, none indicated a present interest in the case and none objected to “having their [clients or former clients] represented by the United States as plaintiff-intervenor.” No judgment based on the order was ever entered, no hearing was held with regard to the class action, no order with respect to the status of the case was entered, and no notice was given either to any of the plaintiffs or to members of the class.
At this point, the United States and the Caddo Parish School Board entered into negotiations in an attempt to arrive at a settlement. In the course of these negotiations, which lasted for almost a year, none of the plaintiffs or their counsel attempted to participate. On May 5, 1981, the United States and the School Board signed a settlement agreement. Two days later, pursuant to a joint motion of these two parties, the district court entered a consent decree embodying that agreement.
The order approving the consent decree directed the clerk of the court to give public notice of the terms of the decree. The district court also set a ten-day period in which “interested parties” could file written objections to the decree. Within that period, the court received fifteen objections, one of which was filed by June Phillips. Her objection was confined to the *942failure of the decree to provide “enrichment programs” for black students at many of the district’s elementary schools. In addition, she specifically reserved “the right to intervene in these proceedings on behalf of herself or on behalf of a class of Black persons whose children will need” enrichment programs.
Pour days after the period for filing objections had expired, Phillips filed a motion to intervene individually and on behalf of a class of black children in the Caddo Parish school system and their parents. Her petition alleged that there were numerous deficiencies in the pupil assignment plan contained in the consent decree and requested that the district court set the decree aside. On May 27, Phillips filed a first supplemental motion to intervene. On June 8, Phillips filed a second supplemental motion to intervene. That same day the United States and the School Board filed separate responses to the objections to the consent decree and memoranda opposing Phillips’ attempt to intervene.
The district court denied Phillips’ motion to intervene on June 17, 1981. It found both that her proposed intervention was untimely and that it failed to raise any issues that had not previously been considered by the School Board and the United States. On July 2, the district court overruled all objections to the consent decree. Phillips appeals from the denial of her intervention and the rejection of her objections to the consent decree. Taking the opposite tack from the parties to the consent decree, she does not seek merely a hearing. She also seeks orders permitting her to intervene both individually and as a class representative, setting aside the consent decree, directing the district court to appoint experts to help formulate a new plan, and requiring all parties to file new plans “with as many alternative methods of desegregating the system as possible.”
II. CLASS ACTION
In its memorandum ruling denying Phillips’ intervention, the district court found that “this action, in its present posture, is not in fact a class action.” The court reasoned that the action brought by the private plaintiffs, despite allegations of a “class” status, had never been certified as a class action and that the United States had never been designated as a class representative. In describing the history of the case, the court noted that the original plaintiffs had not taken an “active role in this litigation for some time,” prior to June 1980, and that none of these plaintiffs or their counsel had responded to the June 3 minute entry. The court therefore viewed the settlement negotiations and the resulting consent decree as the efforts of the only two remaining parties, the School Board on one side and the United States on the other.
The historical facts recited by the district court are clearly correct. However, the fact that nothing had been done about class certification did not ipso facto determine that this was not a class action.
The June 3 minute entry neither purported to be nor was either a dismissal of the class action or a refusal to certify the plaintiffs as class representatives. While some of the lawyers who had appeared for the plaintiffs responded to the court that they were no longer in the case, none of them indicated to the court that the parties had been consulted by them or that the parties did not wish to prosecute the class action. The situation was much as if the lawyers had withdrawn, leaving the plaintiffs in the lawsuit unrepresented. Thereafter, no further action was taken on this order.
While the June 3 minute entry had stated, “... this court will consider that the plaintiffs acquiesce in having their interests represented by the United States,” the district court’s opinion denying Phillips’ intervention said:
The government has never been designated as a class representative, nor ... has it ever “purported” to represent a class. The government has “represented” parties in this case only in the sense that it is “entitled to the same relief as if it had instituted the action” *943under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ____ (Emphasis added.)
At least, however, until the court found that the government did not represent the original plaintiffs’ interests, those plaintiffs might be justified in assuming that it was doing so.
When the suit was filed, no class certification order was necessary. In 1966, Rule 23 was amended to require the plaintiffs in a class action to apply for class certification. The amendment applied to pending cases. Eight years later no action had been taken to certify the class, so we ordered a class action hearing. Jones v. Caddo Parish School Board, 499 F.2d 914, 917 (5th Cir.1974). Now, ten years after our mandate issued, there has still been no determination whether the action should be maintained as a class action. Rule 23(c)(1) provides that the court shall make such a determination “as soon as practicable after the commencement of an action brought as a class action.”4 While it was the responsibility of the parties to move for a hearing under Rule 23(c)(1), their failure to do so did not absolve the district court of responsibility. It should have held a hearing sua sponte, even if only to determine whether the class representatives would fairly and adequately represent the class. “The trial court has an independent obligation to decide whether an action was properly brought as a class action, even where neither party moves for a ruling on class certification.” McGowan v. Faulkner Concrete Pipe Co., 659 F.2d 554, 559 (5th Cir.1981).5 6 Especially when an appellate court has specifically ordered that a class action hearing be held, the district court should see that the class is either certified or that the suit is not properly maintainable as a class action. That hearing should now be held.
On occasion, the Supreme Court has held that a district court’s failure to certify an action as a class action deprives the case of its class action status. See Baxter v. Pal-migiano, 425 U.S. 308, 310 n. 1, 96 S.Ct. 1551, 1554 n. 1, 47 L.Ed.2d 810, 816 n. 1 (1976); Pasadena City Board of Education v. Spangler, 427 U.S. 424, 430, 96 S.Ct. 2697, 2702, 49 L.Ed.2d 599, 605 (1976); Board of School Commissioners v. Jacobs, 420 U.S. 128, 95 S.Ct. 848, 43 L.Ed.2d 74 (1975). Those cases, however, deal solely with mootness and do not purport to determine “whether, for example, a court of appeals may treat an action as a class action in the absence of formal certification by the district court.” Baxter, 425 U.S. at 325 n. 1, 96 S.Ct. at 1561 n. 1, 47 L.Ed.2d at 825 n. 1 (Brennan, J., dissenting). Furthermore, in none of those cases had an appellate court directed that a class certification hearing be held.
I would not now decide the effect of possible certification of a class on the consent decree negotiated by the United States and the School Board, an issue that has not been briefed or argued by the parties.
III. TIMELINESS OF INTERVENTION
When the consent decree was presented to the district court, the court entered it without a hearing and allowed ten days in which post-entry objections could be filed. Within that time, Phillips filed objections reserving the right to intervene. On May 22, fifteen days after publication of the consent decree, she sought to intervene on behalf of a class of black parents and students. She thereafter filed supplemental *944motions to intervene. Without a hearing, the district court denied her intervention as untimely on its face.
Even though factual allegations are not required by notice pleading,6 Phillips’ pleadings contained allegations that sufficed to show both her interest in the litigation and the timeliness of her assertion of it. She alleged that, although the June 3 minute entry appeared to have designated the United States as the sole representative of the class of black students and their parents, the government had failed to protect their interests in negotiating the consent decree. Phillips proposed to intervene to represent the class adequately. In her first supplemental motion to intervene, filed on May 27, Phillips further asserted that her intervention was timely because she had assumed that the United States was adequately representing the black families of Caddo Parish until she learned the contents of the consent decree — which she said she first learned during “the week of May 11, 1981 to May 15, 1981.” She alleged that, sometime between November, 1980, and March, 1981, the United States had changed trial attorneys,7 and that the new attorney had not, to her knowledge, “held any meetings in the Black community,” nor had he communicated with her personally.8
If proved, these factual allegations, though unnecessary, would establish timeliness under the well-settled law of this circuit. Indeed, in its brief on rehearing en banc the United States “agrees that timeliness under Rule 24(a)(2), Fed.R.Civ.P., must be measured from the date that the alleged inadequacy of representation first arose.”
The Supreme Court has defined the timeliness requirement as being met when, “as soon as it became clear to the respondent that the interests of the unnamed class members would no longer be protected by the named class representatives, she promptly moved to intervene to protect those interests.” United Air Lines v. McDonald, 432 U.S. 385, 394, 97 S.Ct. 2464, 2470, 53 L.Ed.2d 423, 432 (1977). Assuming, as we must at this stage in the proceedings, the truth of Phillips’ allegations, she did just that. She was not required to do more. Although in her first supplemental motion she attempted to negate the possible defense that her intervention was untimely, she was not obliged to do so; such an issue must be raised by the opponent as a defense and its merit is best determined in a hearing.
Our timeliness standard follows United Air Lines. We have twice discussed the factors that ought to be considered in making a timeliness determination. In Stallworth v. Monsanto Co., 558 F.2d 257, 264-66 (5th Cir.1977), and in Piambino v. Bailey, 610 F.2d 1306, 1320-21 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1011, 101 S.Ct. 568, 66 L.Ed.2d 469 (1980), we set them forth as follows:
(1) the length of time during which the would-be intervenor actually knew or *945reasonably should have known of his interest in the case before he petitioned for leave to intervene; (2) the extent of the prejudice that the existing parties to the litigation may suffer as a result of the would-be intervenor’s failure to apply for intervention as soon as he actually knew or reasonably should have known of his interest in the case; (3) the extent of the prejudice that the would-be intervenor may suffer if his petition for leave to intervene is denied; and (4) the existence of unusual circumstances militating either for or against a determination that the application is timely.
Phillips’ allegations, if proved, would have established timeliness,9 but the district court denied her motion to intervene without granting her a hearing in which she could establish their verity or in which the School Board and the Justice Department might negate them. As we have repeatedly held, such a hearing is a minimal step necessary to comport with due process.
When parents move to intervene in school desegregation cases, the important constitutional rights at stake demand a scrupulous regard for due process considerations. Jones v. Caddo Parish School Board, 499 F.2d 914 (5th Cir.1974). This court has determined that intervention, rather than a separate action, is the proper vehicle for parents claiming inadequate representation to assert their rights. Denial of a plea in intervention, therefore, often will deprive those parties of their only opportunity to be heard. Consequently, we adhere to our earlier decisions requiring the district court to conduct an evidentiary hearing, and to enter findings based upon an adequate record. Jones v. Caddo Parish School Board, 499 F.2d 914 (5th Cir.1974); Calhoun v. Cook, 487 F.2d 680 (5th Cir.1973). See also United States v. Perry County Board of Education, 567 F.2d 277 (5th Cir.1978).
Adams v. Baldwin County Board of Education, 628 F.2d 895, 897 (5th Cir.1980).10
The district court made what appears to be a factual finding concerning Phillips’ failure to act timely: “Surely she cannot contend that the extended and well-reported events of the past months escaped her notice.” But Phillips does not appear to contend that she did not know of the negotiations. She does contend that, until the consent decree was entered, she was not aware of the inadequacy of the Justice Department’s representation of her interests and those of the class she sought to represent. There was indeed no evidence concerning when Phillips first became aware that the Department allegedly no longer adequately represented her or the class’s interests.
The district court’s ruling that Phillips’ intervention motion was untimely rested on narrow grounds. The court simply noted that, because she failed to participate in formulation of the consent decree, her efforts to “second-guess” that decree came too late. The district court thus focused on the one factor we have disapproved in Rule 24 timeliness decisions. “[T]he timely application requirement under Rule 24 was not intended to punish an intervenor for not acting more promptly but rather was designed to insure that the- original parties should not be prejudiced by the intervener’s [sic] failure to apply sooner.” Note, The Requirement of Timeliness Under Rule 24 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 37 Va.L.Rev. 863, 867 (1951), quoted in McDonald v. E.J. Lavino Co., 430 F.2d 1065, 1074 (5th Cir.1970).
*946The intervention effort cannot be held untimely solely because of the length of time that had passed between the original filing of the suit and either the entry of the consent decree or the filing of the motion to intervene. This sort of “absolute” measure of timeliness is a factor that we expressly said in Stallworth should be “ignored.” 558 F.2d at 266. See also Reeves v. IT & T, 616 F.2d 1342, 1349 (5th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1077, 101 S.Ct. 857, 66 L.Ed.2d 800 (1981).
In United Airlines, the Supreme Court ruled that a party might intervene even after judgment for the purpose of prosecuting an appeal that the named parties did not choose to pursue. In both Piambino and Stallworth, we allowed parties to intervene after discovering, when consent decrees were filed, that their interests were adversely affected. In Piambino, the intervention motion was filed seventeen days after the intervenor learned his interests were not being adequately represented; in Stallworth, the delay was twenty-eight days. Phillips contends that she did not learn of her interest until at least May 11; if that allegation is proved, her delay in moving to intervene amounts to only eleven days. Even if timeliness is measured from the entry of the consent decree on May 7, a delay of fifteen days is not unreasonable compared to those allowed in Piambino and Stallworth.
In addition, the district court made no findings on the three other factors Stall-worth tells us to consider: prejudice to the existing parties; prejudice to the interve-nor; and unusual circumstances.
Consideration of prejudice to existing parties if the intervention is allowed is critical. Indeed, in McDonald v. E.J. Lavino Co., 430 F.2d 1065, 1073 (5th Cir.1970), we explained that this was “the most important consideration” and that “courts are in general agreement that an intervention of right under Rule 24(a) must be granted unless the petition to intervene would work a hardship on one of the original parties.” Prejudice is the heart of the timeliness requirement. “[T]he prejudice ... that is relevant is only that prejudice which would result from the would-be intervenor’s failure to request intervention as soon as he knew ... about his interest in the action.” Stallworth, 558 F.2d at 265.11 Without a hearing, we cannot know whether or not either the United States or the School Board would have been prejudiced at the time intervention was sought.
The district court also did not address the prejudice that would result to Phillips and the class she sought to represent if she were not permitted to intervene. Yet that is the third factor identified by Piambino and Stallworth as minimally necessary to a resolution of the timeliness question. To some extent, this prejudice is self-evident. The class was not represented in the final resolution of a lawsuit that will have a significant impact on the education of its children. The United States was the only party even putatively adverse to the School Board, and its status was that of a party plaintiff, not that of a representative of any class. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000h-2 (1976).
The final timeliness factor that the district court must consider under Stallworth and Piambino is the existence of special circumstances. This factor was also pre-termitted by the district judge’s opinion. Although Phillips should have had the opportunity to present evidence on any special circumstances that might be present in the case, at least one is obvious: the fact that this school desegregation case was resolved without any in-court representation of the black community of Caddo Parish.
A hearing on the motion to intervene would have required little time. The mo*947tion might or might not have been granted. The district judge might have allowed Phillips to intervene either as a party or for the limited purpose of objecting to the consent decree. If granted, Phillips’ intervention would not necessarily have resulted in setting aside the consent decree; it would have assured only that Phillips and the class she sought to represent had a chance to challenge the decree in court.
The Department urges, correctly, that even now Phillips has the right to file a new suit contesting the consent decree and seeking changes in the Caddo Parish school system.12 While she assuredly has that right, its exercise would be at least as dilatory and even more inefficient in securing an adjudication of her right to seek changes in the school system, and, should that be recognized, the merit or lack of merit of her position. The preferred course of action for parental groups who have an interest in desegregation litigation is to intervene in a pending action, not to file separate lawsuits of their own. Hines v. Rapides Parish School Board, 479 F.2d 762, 765 (5th Cir.1973). In Hines, we sought to prevent the “fostering [of] a multiplicity of new lawsuits over the same complicated and emotional issues which have already once been fought out in an all too lengthy court battle.” Id. That objective applies equally here.
IY. ADEQUACY OF REPRESENTATION
One of the requirements for intervention of right under Rule 24(a)(2), in addition to timeliness, is that the movant’s interests are not adequately represented by the existing parties. As an alternative ground for denying Phillips’ motion to intervene, the district court held that Phillips raised no new issues and that she raised no significant issue that she could “best represent.” See Hines v. Rapides Parish School Board, 479 F.2d 762, 765 (5th Cir.1973). This question of adequacy of representation, like that of timeliness, should not have been resolved without a hearing. See Adams v. Baldwin County Board of Education, 628 F.2d 895, 897 (5th Cir.1980).
In her motion and supplemental motions to intervene, Phillips raised several objections to the consent decree, the most significant of which is that it does not adequately desegregate the Caddo Parish school system because forty-seven percent of the black students remain in predominantly black schools. Without a hearing, the district court accepted the contentions of the School Board and the government that Phillips’ figures were “inflated.” Due process requires that Phillips be afforded a hearing at which she may offer evidence in support of her claims.
Like many lawyers, Phillips’ counsel sought more than we now allow: he urged *948us simply to permit intervention. He did not thereby waive Phillips? right to a hearing if we did not grant her a whole-loaf of relief, and unlike my brother Higgin-botham, I cannot view counsel’s pressing for complete victory as a waiver of Phillips’ constitutional right to be heard.
The interests of Phillips and the United States cannot be considered identical simply because both seek desegregation. Clearly, Phillips is dissatisfied with the level of segregation that the government is willing to accept. As in a previous round of this litigation, we are faced with a putative class “who desire the achievement of greater desegregation than is necessary to satisfy plaintiffs [now, the United States as plaintiff-intervenor].” Jones v. Caddo Parish School Board, 499 F.2d 914, 917 (5th Cir.1974).
Some courts have imposed a heavier burden on a movant who alleges inadequate representation by the government, as opposed to a private existing party. See 7A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1909, at 528 n. 85 (1972), and cases cited therein. But Phillips may meet that burden if she makes “a concrete showing of circumstances in the particular case that make the representation inadequate ... [Intervention will be allowed if ... for any ... reason it appears that the representative is not making a diligent effort to protect those whom he represents.” Id. at 529-30 (footnotes omitted). An interest in a different sort of remedy from that the government desires is sufficient to support intervention of right.13 Similarly, intervention of right may be allowed when the movant demonstrates greater enthusiasm than the government in pressing a particular claim.14
V. CONCLUSION
For these reasons, the case should be remanded to the district court with directions to hold a hearing to determine whether it should be certified as a class action and whether Phillips should be permitted to intervene. I, therefore, respectfully dissent.

. Phillips's original brief identified remand for a hearing as one option open to the court — the other two being an order vacating the consent decree and granting intervention, and a ruling in favor of the school board — but opined that such a hearing would be "a total waste of time.” Phillips’s second supplemental brief incorporates by reference the pleadings of her original brief and then specifically requests, inter alia, an order granting intervention; remand for a hearing on intervention is not listed even as an alternative form of requested relief. Finally, Phillips's fourth supplemental brief declares that such a hearing would be "a waste of judicial energy.” From these statements we are entitled to infer that Phillips desires no hearing on intervention. I would not find that the trial court abused its discretion in denying what Phillips characterizes as a "total waste of time.”

. 42 U.S.C. § 2000h-2.

. Why this lawyer appeared on behalf of the plaintiffs is not stated in the record. On September 15, 1976, he filed a notice of appearance as counsel and four months later he signed the memorandum in opposition to the School Board’s motion. The memorandum does not refer to the lawyer who had previously appeared as original plaintiffs’ counsel.

. The United States eventually moved to withdraw its objection to the School Board’s request for partial relief on May 7, 1981, after the two parties had negotiated a consent decree. The court granted the United States' motion.

. See Manual for Complex Litigation § 1.40, at 16 (5th ed. 1978) ("The mandatory language of Rule 23(c)(1) is based upon sound and urgent practical considerations. If the determination whether the action should proceed as a class action is delayed, serious injustices may result, and avoidable procedural errors of great magnitude may ensue.")

. See 7A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1785, at 128 (1972); see also Manual for Complex Litigation, supra note 5, § 1.40, at 16 (“If class action proceedings are initiated by the court sua sponte by means of an order to show cause, in determining the certification question, the court should make tentative written determinations, including the requisite findings of fact under subdivisions (a) and (b) of Rule 23 and should, in an evidentiary hearing, afford the opposing party or parties an opportunity to refute such findings.") (footnote omitted).

. Rule 24 states the procedure for intervention: "A person desiring to intervene shall serve a motion to intervene upon the parties.... The motion shall state the grounds therefor and shall be accompanied by a pleading setting forth the claim or defense for which intervention is sought."

. The record shows that the United States changed trial attorneys in November 1980.

. The United States and the School Board assert that in February, March, and April of 1981, a number of public meetings were held throughout the community to inform citizens about various desegregation approaches and to allow for community participation. The United States further asserts that Justice Department representatives met with black civic leaders and solicited the views of black citizen and parent groups. Whether such meetings were in fact held is a factual question that should have been resolved at an evidentiary hearing. Another disputed question of fact is the extent to which the consent decree was publicized after it was entered. The School Board contends that it was published in its entirety in the two local newspapers and was covered by three local television stations. Phillips denies this.
Even if the allegations of the School Board and the United States were proved, Phillips’ motion would not necessarily be untimely. The ultimate question for the district court would be when she knew or should have known that her interests were not adequately represented.

. Accord Lelsz v. Kavanagh, 710 F.2d 1040, 1044 (5th Cir.1983). Other circuits have also recognized this as the crucial test in class actions. See Hill v. Western Electric Co., 672 F.2d 381, 386 (4th Cir.1982); Legal Aid Society v. Dunlop, 618 F.2d 48, 50 (9th Cir.1980).

. Cf. Davis v. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, 721 F.2d 1425 (5th Cir.1983) (parents’ motion to intervene in school desegregation case denied after hearing); United States v. Perry County Board of Education, 567 F.2d 277 (5th Cir.1978) (when parents sought to intervene on grounds unrelated to desegregation, district court properly denied intervention without a hearing).

. The district judge did not explicitly address the question of prejudice, but he did refer to the disruption Phillips' intervention would cause after "the months of turmoil and negotiations carried on by the parties.” Even assuming that this is an oblique evaluation of prejudice to the existing parties, the court could not properly address the question of prejudice until it had first determined, on the basis of evidence, when Phillips knew or should have known that her interests were adequately represented; the two inquiries are intertwined.

. Because the only parties to the consent decree are the United States and the School Board, neither Phillips nor the class she seeks to represent are bound by the decree. Cf. General Telephone Co. v. EEOC, 446 U.S. 318, 100 S.Ct. 1698, 64 L.Ed.2d 319 (1980) (when EEOC sues employer in its own name, and not as certified representative of a class, individual employees are not bound by relief obtained under EEOC settlement or judgment against employer). Nor would a separate lawsuit filed by Phillips necessarily be barred by Thaggard v. City of Jackson, 687 F.2d 66 (1982), cert. denied sub nom., Ashley v. City of Jackson, - U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 255, 78 L.Ed.2d 241 (1983). In Thaggard, a group of white plaintiffs sued the city of Jackson, contending that the city practiced reverse discrimination. The city answered that the challenged practices were mandated by consent decrees entered in previous employment discrimination cases. The white plaintiffs had been denied intervention in those cases. We held that the white plaintiffs’ suit against the city was an impermissible collateral attack upon the consent decrees. We found that the white plaintiffs’ claims in Thaggard would have required the court to decide, first, whether the challenged actions were in compliance with the consent decrees, and second, whether the consent decrees themselves were illegal. If Phillips were to file a separate lawsuit against the School Board, however, her complaint presumably would be directed, not at segregation caused by the consent decree, but at segregation that preexisted the consent decree and was not remedied by it. Cf. Ross v. Houston Independent School District, 699 F.2d 218, 229-30 (5th Cir.1983) (denial of leave to amend pleading on grounds of undue delay does not bar filing of new suit raising issues asserted in proposed amendment).

. Cf. Cohn v. EEOC, 569 F.2d 909, 911 (5th Cir.1978) (intervention allowed when government’s interest was in contesting contempt for violating consent decree, and movants’ interests were in narrowing range of possible sanctions).

. See United States v. Georgia, 428 F.2d 377 (5th Cir.1970) (in school desegregation suit brought by United States, community residents allowed to intervene to attack parts of order that United States failed to appeal).