Court Opinion

ID: 8890896
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 23:12:21.887294+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:07:11.311376
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM E. MILLER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
It is my firm conviction that it is premature at this time for the Court to adjudicate any of the questions arising from the various orders of the district court from which this appeal is taken. This is true for the reason that school districts and parties to be affected by a metropolitan plan or remedy have not been afforded an opportunity to be heard or to present evidence upon all of the issues involved.
The majority opinion does indeed state:
On remand, any party against whom relief is sought, including school districts which heretofore have intervened and school districts which hereafter may become parties to this litigation, shall be afforded an opportunity to offer additional evidence, and to cross-examine available witnesses who previously have testified, on any issue raised by the pleadings, including amendments thereto, as may *284be relevant and admissible to such issues. The District Court may consider any evidence now on file and such additional competent evidence as may be introduced by any party.
The effect of this conclusion is, in my opinion, vitiated by the two succeeding sentences:
However, the District Court will not be required to receive any additional evidence as to the matters contained in its Ruling on the Issue of Segregation, dated September 27, 1971, and reported at 338 F.Supp. 582, or its Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law on the “Detroit-only” plans of desegregation, dated March 28, 1972. We hold that the findings of fact contained in these rulings are not clearly erroneous, Rule 52(a), Fed.R.Civ.P., but to the contrary are supported by substantial evidence.
Parties to be affected and against whom relief is sought should be accorded, in compliance with basic principles of due process, an opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner not only with respect to the ultimate scope of the remedy to be fashioned, but also with respect to important, significant and perhaps even controlling issues, including the issue of segregation, a “Detroit only” school plan and the propriety of a metropolitan remedy. If any one of these issues is resolved in favor of parties outside the Detroit School District, the nature and scope of a remedy embracing outlying districts would not be reached. Hence the outlying districts have a vital interest in each issue separately and should be heard on each in a true adversary sense. Until this is done our expression of view on the merits of the several questions is uncalled for and ill-advised. To permit these additional parties to be heard only in the restricted sense set forth in the majority opinion is to deny them basic rights guaranteed not only by Rule 19, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but by the Constitution itself.
I would, therefore, vacate all orders appealed from the district court, remand the action for the joinder of all parties to be affected, and direct the district court to afford the parties a proper opportunity to be heard and to present evidence on the issues indicated above.