Court Opinion

ID: 9458933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:05:54.996978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:57.182701
License: Public Domain

DUFFY, Senior Circuit Judge.
This is a suit by Thomas T. Schrader, a Wisconsin Selective Service registrant who sought, in District Court, a pre-in-duction judicial review of the refusal of his Local Board to grant him a III-A fatherhood deferment.
The Wisconsin District Court (Western District of Wisconsin) relying on a Michigan District Court’s purported class-action judgment in Gregory v. Hershey, 311 F.Supp. 1 (E.D. Mich., 1969), issued a restraining order against the induction of the plaintiff in this case.
Following the reversal of the Michigan District Court’s judgment by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Government moved the Wisconsin District Court for a dissolution of the restraining order. However, the Wisconsin District Court, instead of dissolving the restraining order, entered an order enjoining the induction of the plaintiff unless the Local Board first reopened his classification, 328 F.Supp. 891. It is from this order that the United States Government takes this appeal.
The facts are not in dispute. During the period from 1963 to June 1967, when plaintiff was an undergraduate student, he was granted a II-S student deferment. In September 1967 during his first year in law school, Schrader requested and received a II-S graduate student deferment.1 Upon the expiration of that deferment, he requested and received a III-A hardship deferment. This deferment was subsequently extended to June 1, 1970. In June 1969, the plaintiff became a father and in October 1969, so informed his Board. When his III-A deferment expired in June 1970, plaintiff requested a renewal thereof, and also requested a III-A deferment based upon his fatherhood status. These requests were denied following plaintiff’s personal appearance before the Board. He was subsequently classified I-A.2
Plaintiff appealed from the denial of the III-A fatherhood deferment but the State Appeal Board affirmed that classification. On November 23, 1970, plaintiff was informed by the Local Board that an order for him to report for induction was being placed in the mails.
In the Gregory (District Court) ease, the plaintiffs, as a class, had each been granted II-S graduate deferments under the Military Selective Service Act of 1967. They contended they were entitled to a III-A fatherhood deferment notwithstanding the language of 32 C. F.R. 1622.30(a) which denied fatherhood deferments to persons who had been “classified in Class II-S under the 1967 Act.”
Furthermore, in Gregory, the plaintiffs claimed their suit was a class action. The Michigan District Court agreed with plaintiffs’ claims, ruling plaintiffs must be classified as III-A instead of I-A as ordered by their representative Boards, and that the action was properly maintained as a class action.3 The Government promptly appealed, and the Sixth Circuit reversed. Gregory v. Tarr, 436 F.2d 513 (6 Cir., 1971). The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. (403 U.S. 922, 91 S.Ct. 2229, 29 L.Ed.2d 701).
*75The difference between the status of plaintiff Schrader in the instant case and the plaintiffs in Gregory is that here, Schrader sought a III-A fatherhood deferment after the District Court had decided Gregory but prior to the reversal of that decision by the Court of Appeals.
The Wisconsin District Court ruled that Gregory, which judgment was binding on the parties to that suit, was a class action, and that plaintiff herein was a membér of the Gregory class. Therefore, the District Court reasoned, the National Director of Selective Service was required to classify plaintiff in Class III-A although the plaintiffs in Gregory never had been thus reclassified.4
 Evidently the Wisconsin District Court, in this action, was under the impression that the determination by the Michigan District Court in Gregory was res judicata with respect to the validity of the class action. The Gregory District Court ruled that “. [N] otification of members of the class is impractical because of the number of members and the absence of any reasonable way of identifying them. . . .” Thus, the Gregory court seemingly was under the impression that no notice to class members was required because of the permissive language of Rule 23(d) (2), F.R.Civ.P. However, we are of the opinion that the absolute failure to give any indicia of notice to absent members renders the purported class action in Gregory futile. The Michigan District Court in Gregory erred in not requiring notice to be given in some manner to absent class members, and the Wisconsin District Court erred applying the principle of res judicata to the Gregory ruling.
Certain authorities are of the opinion that notice is not required, as a matter of due process, when the class action is maintained under Rule 23(b) (1) or 23(b) (2), F.R.Civ.P. as was the Gregory action. However, the one Circuit Court of Appeals which has ruled on the requirement of notice when proceeding under the above-mentioned sections of Rule 23 held “. . . notice is required as a matter of due process in all representative actions, and 23(c) (2) merely requires a particularized form of notice in 23(b) (3) actions.” Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 391 F.2d 555, 564 (2 Cir., 1968).
We are of the opinion that the Eisen, supra, decision is the correct interpretation of the notice requirement for Rule 23(b) (1) and (b) (2). The more recent District Court opinions agree that pre-judgment notice is required in all representative actions. Pasquier v. Tarr, 318 F.Supp. 1350, 1353 (E.D.La., 1970), aff’d. 444 F.2d 116 (5 Cir., 1971); Zachary v. Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., 52 F.R.D. 532 (S.D.N.Y.1971).
In our view, the District Court proceedings in Gregory was not a valid class action and was not binding upon anyone except the named plaintiffs to that action. See Pasquier v. Tarr, supra. The Wisconsin District Court improperly applied the Gregory case to the case at bar under the principle of res ju-dicata. We feel plaintiff is without standing to assert, with respect to his claim for a III-A deferment, that the National Director acted in a lawless *76manner in failing to reclassify him and others similarly situated.
We now consider, absent the effect of the Gregory class action before the Michigan District Court, whether the plaintiff herein has overcome the bar of Sec. 10(b) (3) which, except for well-distinguished exceptions, precludes pre-induction judicial review.
The Supreme Court recently stated in Fein v. Selective Service System Local Board No. 7, Yonkers, N.Y., 405 U.S. 365, 92 S.Ct. 1062, 31 L.Ed.2d 298 (1972) with respect to the meaning and reach of See. 10(b) (3) and the recent Court decisions considering pre-induction judicial review, at page 374, 92 S.Ct. at page 1069:
“Thus Oestereich, Gabriel, Breen and Boyd [v. Clark, D.C., 287 F.Supp. 561] together establish the principles (a) that § 10(b) (3) does not foreclose pre-induction judicial review in that rather rare instance where administrative action, based on reasons unrelated to the merits of the claim to exemption or deferment, deprives the registrant of the classification to which, otherwise and concededly, he is entitled by statute, and (b) that § 10(b) (3) does foreclose pre-induction judicial review in the more common situation where the board, authoritatively, has used its discretion and judgment in determining facts and in arriving at a classification for the registrant. In the latter ease the registrant’s judicial review is confined— and constitutionally so — to situations where he asserts his defense in a criminal prosecution or where, after induction, he seeks a writ of habeas corpus.”
The action taken herein by the Local Board in refusing a III-A classification to plaintiff Schrader had a statutory basis in Selective Service Regulation 1622.-30(a). Evident from this regulation is the fact that registrants who have received a II-S graduate deferment are foreclosed from a III-A classification. Therefore, it cannot be maintained on appeal by the plaintiff that his local board clearly departed from its statutory mandate. Oestereich, supra; Breen v. Selective Service Local Board No. 16, Bridgeport, Conn., 396 U.S. 460, 90 S.Ct. 661, 24 L.Ed.2d 653 (1970). Rather, the reclassification of plaintiff Schrader to I-A was well within the statutory authority of the Selective Service System, and involved an exercise of their discretion which cannot be interfered with by court action before induction. Clark v. Gabriel, 393 U.S. 256, 89 S.Ct. 424, 21 L.Ed.2d 418 (1968); Fein v. Selective Service Local Board No. 76, Yonkers, N.Y., supra; Edwards v. Selective Service Local Board No. 111, 432 F.2d 287 (5 Cir., 1970); McCarthy v. Director of Selective Service System, 460 F.2d 1089 (7 Cir., 1972)
The Wisconsin District Court failed to establish any deprivation of a classification to which plaintiff Schrader would be statutorily entitled. We hold, therefore, the plaintiff’s instant suit for pre-induction judicial relief was and is barred by Sec. 10(b) (3).
As our Court recently stated in a per curiam opinion, McCarthy v. Director of Selective Service System, supra, with respect to Sec. 10(b) (3):
“In conclusion, it deserves emphasis that the purity of the legal question submitted to a court is not the detriment of whether the bar of Section 10(b) (3) may be circumvented. Fein makes this much abundantly clear. Now Section 10(b) (3) is understood to mean what it says except in such highly unusual and strictly limited circumstances as were present in Oes-tereich and Breen.”
Such circumstances are not present in this case.
The order of the Wisconsin District Court dated July 20, 1971, is reversed and the District Court is instructed to vacate its prior orders enjoining the induction of the plaintiff herein. Plaintiff Schrader was improperly included in the Gregory class, and pre-induction judicial review was improperly granted in *77this action by the Wisconsin District Court.
Reversed and remanded for further action pursuant to this opinion.5
Reversed and remanded.

. 50 U.S.C.App. § 451 et seq.

. The basis of the rejection of the fatherhood claim was 32 C.F.R. 1622.30(a) which, at that time, precluded the award of a fatherhood deferment to any registrant who had been classified in Class IIS after the enactment of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967.

. The court order determining the validity of the class action and judgment was reported as Gregory v. Hershey, 51 F.R.D. 188 (E.D.Mich. Feb. 27, 1970), 2 SSLR 3604.

. The District Court herein opined that during the interim when the Gregory District Court order was effective, the National Director was bound by the Gregory order to reclassify to III-A any registrant who made a showing that he was a member of the Gregory class. The District Court below reasoned that the failure of the National Director to abide by the Gregory order was the same type of administrative lawlessness on the part of the Selective Service System as evidenced in Oestereich v. Selective Service, 393 U.S. 233, 89 S.Ct. 414, 21 L.Ed.2d 402 (1969). Therefore, the District Court was of the opinion that in this case as in Oestereich, supra, pre-induction judicial review, usually barred by Sec. 10(b) (3) of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, 50 U.S.C.App. § 460(b) (3), was warranted.

. The reversal of the District Court order is on jurisdictional grounds and is not intended to preclude or have a res judicata effect on whatever post-induction defenses plaintiff may have.