Court Opinion

ID: 9471970
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:45:30.604426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:40.134561
License: Public Domain

EDWARD S. SMITH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion today and would affirm the trial court’s denial of class certification. As the majority points out, this court’s precedent requires the trial court to fulfill its special and important responsibility as manager of a title VII class action. In my view, however, the court met that responsibility.
Three years elapsed between the filing of this complaint, styled as a class action, and the trial court’s striking of the class allegation. During that time the first judge presiding over the case attempted three times to hold a hearing on class certification. No doubt exasperated, he then ordered in December 1979 that all class action evidence would be presented at trial on the merits. The second presiding judge again attempted to schedule a certification hearing, in accordance with the requirement of Fed.R. Civ.P. 23(c)(1) to determine “[a]s soon as practicable” whether a class action should be maintained. The first such scheduled hearing, which was actually the fourth, counting preceding attempts, was not held. The judge then gave plaintiffs 60 days (from October 28, 1980) to file a motion for class certification, and they did not respond. Faced with such lack of responsiveness on plaintiffs’ part — even considering their numerous changes of counsel — I do not know what more the trial court could have done to exercise responsibility for managing of a title VII class action, short of sending federal marshals out to haul plaintiffs and/or their counsel into court. I would therefore find that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in striking the class claims.
s.