Court Opinion

ID: 9466662
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:22:30.888906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:51.666475
License: Public Domain

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge,
with whom JOHN R. BROWN, GEE, HENDERSON and REAVLEY, Circuit Judges, join, specially concurring;
I concur only in the result because I believe the majority’s analysis inexcusably ignores the principle that “a federal court should not decide federal constitutional questions where a dispositive nonconstitutional ground is available.” Hagans v. Lavine, 415 U.S. 528, 547, 94 S.Ct. 1372, 1384, 39 L.Ed.2d 577 (1974). The non-constitutional ground that would dispose of the ease is that the district court abused its discretion when, without making any findings of fact, it entered the order restricting the parties’ and counsel’s communications with actual or potential class members who were not formal parties.
The majority’s analysis begins with an examination of the “basis” of the order. The opinion immediately rejects the notion that the district court’s order could have *479rested on Gulf Oil Company’s unsworn allegations that one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys had improperly communicated with actual or potential class members who were not formal parties: “We can assume that the district court did not ground its order on a conclusion that the charges of misconduct made by Gulf were true. Nothing in its order indicates that it did . . . .” Ante at 466. Even if the district court had based its order on a conclusion that Gulf’s charges were true, the opinion reasons, “such a conclusion would have been procedurally improper and without eviden-tiary support.” Id. Therefore, the majority “presumes” that the district court must have based its order “upon the rationale of the [Manual for Complex Litigation ] that the court has the power to enter a ban on communications in any actual or potential class action as a prophylactic measure against potential abuses envisioned by the Manual.” Id. ■
Logic and sound jurisprudence insist that the majority next consider the procedural propriety and evidentiary support of an order founded solely on the rationale and model order of the Manual. Instead, the opinion inexplicably leaps to the question of the constitutionality of the Manual’s suggested order and holds that the order is an unconstitutional prior restraint. Since the district court’s order was based entirely on the model order and policy considerations set out in the Manual, it follows that the district court’s order is unconstitutional as well. The opinion then belatedly and, in light of the disposition of the constitutional issue, somewhat gratuitously turns to the question of procedural propriety, concluding that an unconstitutional order cannot be “appropriate” within the meaning of Fed.R. Civ.P. 23(d).
In my view, the federal policy of avoiding unnecessary constitutional rulings requires that this court reserve consideration of the first amendment problems that the district court’s order may raise and address first the question of the district court’s authority to issue the order. As Judge Godbold persuasively demonstrates in his dissenting opinion to the panel decision, the district court misused its discretion in entering the order in this case. Bernard v. Gulf Oil Co., 596 F.2d 1249, 1262-76, vacated, 604 F.2d 449 (5th Cir. 1979) (Godbold, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Therefore, we need not reach the constitutional question.
Rule 23(d) permits district courts, in conducting class actions, to “make appropriate orders: . . . (3) imposing conditions on the representative parties . . . .” Although this provision gives a district court “extensive power” to manage a class action, 7A C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1791 at 192 (1972), the orders that a court issues pursuant to the rule are certainly subject to review for abuse of discretion. In re Nissan Motor Corporation Antitrust Litigation, 552 F.2d 1088, 1096 (5th Cir. 1977). As this court observed in Nissan, “Appellate review is necessary to assure that the rights of absentee class members are not inundated in the wake of a district court’s brisk supervision.” . Id. The reviewability of rule 23(d) orders is also implicit in the language of the rule. The district court is limited to issuing those orders that are “appropriate.” If this constraining language is to be effectual, rule 23(d) orders must be reviewable by the courts of appeals.
Since rule 23(d) orders are reviewable, it follows that such orders must be based on findings of fact:
[Ijssuance of an order . . . without an adequate statement of the reasons for the order does not meet minimum standards of procedural fairness and regularity. . . . Nor does an order issued without a deliberate articulation of its rationale, including some appraisal of the factors underlying the court’s decision, allow for a disciplined and informed review of the court’s discretion.
Sargeant v. Sharp, 579 F.2d 645, 647 (1st Cir. 1978) (citations omitted) (vacating and remanding district court’s order denying attorney fees to successful civil rights plaintiff). Cf. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a) (“in granting or refusing interlocutory injunctions the *480court shall similarly set forth the findings of fact and conclusions of law which constitute the grounds of its action”).
The general principle restated by the Sargeant court applies to any court order that is based on the court’s assessment of conflicting evidence or policy considerations. I see no reason to suppose that the principle is not pertinent here. A request for a rule 23(d) order restricting communications between counsel and potential or actual class plaintiffs is not essentially different from an ordinary petition for a preliminary injunction.1 Communications like those prohibited by the district court’s order certainly create a potential for abuse, but they may also be beneficial. For example, such communications, “in many instances serve to effectuate the ‘purposes of Rule 23 by encouraging common participation in [a lawsuit].’ ” Bernard v. Gulf Oil Co., 596 F.2d at 1268 (Godbold, J., dissenting) (quoting Coles v. Marsh, 560 F.2d 186, 189 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 985, 98 S.Ct. 611, 54 L.Ed.2d 479 (1977). Just as if it had been faced with a request for an injunction, the district court should have ruled on Gulf’s motion for an order restricting communications only after weighing, on the record, the potential for abuse that would be generated by permitting free communications between the parties and class members against the benefits flowing from such communications. As in the ordinary case involving a request for a temporary injunction, the burden of proof would be on the movant — here, Gulf. To meet its burden of proof, Gulf would have to make “a factual showing . . . that unsupervised communications between counsel and named plaintiffs on one hand and potential class members on the other have materialized into actual abuses of the class action device or that abuses are imminently threatened.” Bernard v. Gulf Oil Co., 596 F.2d at 1267 (Godbold, J., dissenting).
As the majority opinion notes, the district court entered the order in this case without making any findings of fact. The only “evidence” Gulf presented that the restricted communications would lead to abuses was unsworn allegations of misconduct on the part of one of the class attorneys., and the accused attorney denied the charge under oath. Even if the district court had explicitly based its order on Gulf’s charges, I would find that entry of the order was an abuse of discretion on the ground that Gulf had not conceivably met its burden of proof. It is still more clear that the Court abused its discretion by issuing the order without elucidating any factors that contributed to its decision.
The absence of any findings of fact leads the majority to conclude that the district court founded its order on the Manual for Complex Litigation’s model order and rationale. Ante at 466. In my view, the record does not adequately support this conclusion. The district court cited the Manual not to justify the imposition of the order, but to defend the order from plaintiffs’ First Amendment attack: “[T]his order comports with the requisites set out in the Manual for Complex Litigation, Section 1.41, p. 106 CCH Edition 1973, which specifically exempts constitutionally protected communication when the substance of such communication is filed with the Court.” Record at 128e. The court’s mere mentioning of the Manual obviously does not constitute the deliberate articulation of rationale that is necessary if there is to be any possibility of meaningful review.
Moreover, even if the court had relied explicitly on the rationale of the Manual’s model order to support the order, the *481court’s entry of the order would have been procedurally improper. The Manual is not a source of authority with the force of a statute or rule of civil procedure. Therefore, a trial court could not evade its responsibility to make findings of fact on the record simply by relying on the Manual. In other words, it would have been an abuse of discretion for the court to have adopted the Manual’s apparent conclusion that a court order restricting communications is appropriate in every class action. This is because the validity of the Manual’s analysis and conclusion is not the sort of undisputed knowledge that would justify what would be, in effect, judicial notice. Since there is reason to believe that communications between counsel and actual and potential class members are not always abusive of the class action device, “[t]he Manual’s general discussion of potential abuses flowing from unrestrained communications is no substitute for reasoned inquiry into the harms and benefits on the particular facts of each case.” Bernard v. Gulf Oil Co., 596 F.2d at 1268 (Godbold, J., dissenting).2
For the reasons I have stated, I would hold that the district court abused its discretion when it entered the order restricting communications. I think this conclusion is unavoidable, whether the order is viewed as based upon the trial judge’s assessment of the particular case before him or as based on the Manual’s general discussion of potential abuses. Therefore, I must regard the majority’s first amendment analysis as a needless excursion into a difficult and little-explored area of constitutional law.3

. Judge Godbold makes this point nicely in his panel dissent:
The wide disparity between what was done here and normal judicial procedures is demonstrated by posing this question: “What would have happened if Gulf had asked for a temporary injunction imposing the exact restrictions that were imposed in this case?” I believe that the court would have insisted upon requirements of notice, time limits, proof of likelihood of harm, the public interest and similar familiar requirements, and this court would have reviewed an injunction under the usual standards, especially since constitutional rights are involved.
Bernard v. Gulf Oil Co., 596 F.2d 1249, 1270, vacated 604 F.2d 449 (5th Cir. 1979) (Godbold, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

. Of course, there are some communications that a court may restrict, in the interests of the administration of justice, without making findings or even considering the facts of the particular case. For example, a trial judge may certainly instruct members of the jury not to discuss a case with anyone while the trial is in progress. The crucial difference between this example and the case before us is that, first amendment considerations aside, there could be no purpose served by permitting the jury to discuss a case during the trial, while it is not open to question that such communications would always pose an imminent threat to the fair administration of justice. On the other hand, communications like those enjoined in the present case might actually benefit the judicial process through serving the rule 23 policy of encouraging common participation in a lawsuit. See p. 464, supra.

. Although the majority concludes that the order in this case was an unconstitutional prior restraint, the opinion certainly does not preclude a district court’s entering an order similar to the Manual’s model order after making a proper finding of facts. The majority condemns only restrictions of communications “constructed on the foundation of asserted potential abuses in class actions generally,” ante at 475, and admits that a “prior restraint” may be justified “by a showing of direct, immediate and irreparable harm.” Ante at 476.