Court Opinion

ID: 9463980
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:22:07.266739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:23.829780
License: Public Domain

*220GIBBONS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent from the denial of appellant’s petition for rehearing in banc. That petition presents an issue which meets every criterion for in banc reconsideration far more than most cases that this court has recently so considered. See Fed.R.App.P. 35(a); Walton v. Eaton Corp., — F.2d —(3d Cir. filed July 18, 1977) (Gibbons, J., dissenting). Moreover, the panel opinion, in a case in which it was not even necessary to reach the question, has announced a broad prohibition against review-ability of pendente lite denials of class action injunctive relief in civil rights cases. Such a prohibition is inconsistent with the prior law of this circuit, inconsistent with the better reasoned decisions in other circuits,1 and unsound except as an indication of hostility to the underlying rights being asserted. In that unarticulated hostility, of course, lies the explanation for the decision.
As Judge Aldisert’s opinion for the panel majority acknowledges, the seminal opinion in this circuit on the reviewability of class action determinations is Hackett v. General Host Corp., 455 F.2d 618 (3d Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 407 U.S. 925, 92 S.Ct. 2460, 32 L.Ed.2d 812 (1972), in which we declined to adopt the so-called “death knell” rule of the Second Circuit, that an order denying a motion to permit a case to proceed as a class action may be reviewable as a collaterally final order within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949). But while Hackett declined to treat a negative class action determination as a final order it carefully preserved the right to seek appellate review under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) where the denial of class certification amounts to the denial of preliminary injunctive relief. In Hackett, we specifically referred to
“ . . . those cases in which the refusal to grant class action designation amounts to a denial of a preliminary injunction broader than would be appropriate for individual relief. 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). See, e. g., Oatis v. Crown Zellerbach Corp., 398 F.2d 496 (5th Cir. 1968); Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. v. Continental Record Co., 386 F.2d 426 (2d Cir. 1967); Brunson v. Board of Trustees, 311 F.2d 107 (4th Cir. 1962). This category of interlocutory appeals is adequate, we think, to protect against most district court inhospitability to class action litigation involving civil rights, the elective franchise, protection of the environment and the like.”
455 F.2d at 622. The point made in Hackett, a point that, in my view at least, was the essential justification for rejecting the Second Circuit’s “death knell” rule as announced in Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 370 F.2d 119 (2d Cir. 1966), cert. denied, 386 U.S. 1035, 87 S.Ct. 1487, 18 L.Ed.2d 598 (1967), was that in civil rights litigation, injunctive relief in favor of a single plaintiff usually would do nothing whatsoever for the remaining members of the class. A single black child might be placed in a white school, while all of the child’s fellow black classmates were left in a segregated school. In such a case the denial of class action treatment would have the practical effect of denying injunctive relief to the entire class. Moreover, the key issue in such a case, and the key issue in the position taken by the panel majority, is the availability of pendente lite injunctive relief. Hackett concluded that we did not need the Eisen interpretation of § 1291 because a denial of pendente lite relief benefiting a class, in the guise of a denial of class action treatment, was reviewable under § 1292(a)(1). Now, without taking the case in banc, a panel majority has overruled the very fundamental premise on which our Hackett holding rests. It has done so, moreover, despite the fact that we reiterated that premise in Rodgers v. United States Steel Corp., 541 F.2d 365, 372-73 (3d Cir. 1976); Rodgers v. United States Steel Corp., 508 F.2d 152, 160 (3d Cir. 1975) and Samuel v. University of Pittsburgh, 506 F.2d 355, 358 n. 6 (3d Cir. 1974).
*221In Hackett we also noted the availability of appellate review, in cases where the denial of class action relief might not amount to the denial of injunctive relief benefiting a class either under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) or under Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b). A plurality of this court in banc has demonstrated a determination to make the § 1292(b) route a practical impossibility. See Link v. Mercedes-Benz of North America, Inc., 550 F.2d 860, 870 (3d Cir. 1977) (Gibbons, J., dissenting). The court has also erected a major, useless, and frequently disregarded impediment to the utilization of Rule 54(b). See Allis Chalmers Corp. v. Philadelphia Electric Co., 521 F.2d 360 (3d Cir. 1975). Thus, each of the alternative safeguards upon which we premised the Hackett holding has now been eliminated or substantially eroded.
The panel majority opinion need not have reached out to overrule completely the fundamental premise of the Hackett holding in this case. It could have noted, as Judge Seitz’ concurrence does at note 1, that the complaint in this case did not request pendente lite relief in favor of the proposed class. Thus the majority could have restricted its language so as to apply its rejection of § 1292(a)(1) appealability to that situation only, leaving open the possibility of an appeal when the putative class representative did seek pendente lite relief. Instead, in sweeping language, it totally rejects a substantial and well considered body of authorities which recognize the appealability of denials of class certification under § 1292(a)(1) where the denial amounts to a rejection of pendente lite injunctive relief.2
The only explanation we are given in defense of this broad judicial pronouncement is the brief sentence: “We perceive no irremediable consequences flowing from a postponement of review.” Majority Op. at 212. That is indeed a faulty perception. If class action pendente lite relief is denied in a voting rights case, elections will pass before the case reaches us on final hearing, and class members will have been disenfranchised at those elections. If class action pendente lite relief is denied in a school desegregation case, class members will remain for years in segregated classrooms, suffering the permanent psychological effects of inadequate educational opportunities. If class action pendente lite relief is denied in an employment discrimination case, years will go by during which class members remain locked in dead end jobs lacking challenge, stimulation, and opportunity for intellectual growth. To suggest that these would not be irremediable consequences is to make a mockery of equitable principles respecting pendente lite relief, and to defy the intention of Congress when it provided in the Evarts Act, Act of March 3,1891, 26 Stat. 826, for appellate review of grants or denials of injunctive relief.
I find most disturbing the signals which have gone out from this court to the district courts of this circuit with respect to class action determinations. We seem to be saying that we have totally abdicated.all responsibility for making Rule 23 serve its intended remedial purposes. This last signal is the most disturbing of all, because it removes completely from appellate review pendente lite review of denials of class action injunctive relief in civil rights cases. In most economic class action cases, e. g., cases under § 10(b) of the Securities Act of 1934,3 a preliminary injunction in favor of the individual plaintiff will, for all practical purposes, fully protect the entire class. A preliminary injunction against a deceptive practice or a false proxy statement will terminate the ongoing effect of either. In such case a denial of pendente lite injunctive relief in the individual’s case will be appealable, and that appeal will inure to the *222benefit of the economic class whether or not the district court granted class action treatment. Thus, instances in which an economic class will be subjected pendente lite to a continuing course of illegal conduct will be comparatively rare.
In the civil rights area of the law, however, an individual voter may be registered and allowed to vote pendente lite, an individual child plaintiff may be transferred and enrolled pendente lite in a desegregated school, an individual female may be promoted pendente lite, while the discrimination against the class of which he or she was a member continues. If the district judge is favorably disposed to the underlying civil rights claim, grants class action treatment, and affords injunctive relief benefiting the class, the defendant will be able to appeal under § 1292(a)(1). If, however, that district judge is unfavorably disposed, the panel majority opinion has indicated to him precisely how to shield from an appellate review his unwillingness to grant pendente lite relief to the class.
All of our opinions dismantling opportunities for review of district court actions in class action cases refer, in one way or another, to the diluvian consequences upon our caseload of any other than door closing rules. In Link v. Mercedes Benz, supra, I observed that an actual count of § 1292(b) applications belied any need for such a concern. 550 F.2d at 873-74. I am equally convinced that dismantling of the protection afforded to potential class members by the availability of pendente lite appellate review pursuant to § 1292(a)(1) will have about as significant an effect on our appellate caseload as taking a bucket of water out of the Delaware River today will have on tomorrow’s tide at Cape May. The real issue is this court’s hospitality or inhospitality to class actions, particularly those asserted on behalf of minorities. The vibrations I feel are decidedly hostile.
This case warrants the court’s in banc attention. If the Supreme Court is at all interested in the availability of pendente lite injunctive relief in civil rights class actions, it warrants that Court’s attention as well.
Circuit Judge Adams, too, believes that this case warrants the Court’s in banc attention.

. See note 2 infra.

. Doctor v. Seaboard Coast Line R. R., 540 F.2d 699 (4th Cir. 1976); Jones v. Diamond, 519 F.2d 1090 (5th Cir. 1975); Price v. Lucky Stores, Inc., 501 F.2d 1177 (9th Cir. 1974); Yaffe v. Powers, 454 F.2d 1362 (1st Cir. 1972); Spangler v. United States, 415 F.2d 1242 (9th Cir. 1969); Brunson v. Board of Trustees, 311 F.2d 107 (4th Cir. 1962); see Illinois Migrant Council v. Pilliod, 540 F.2d 1062 (7th Cir. 1976).

. 15 U.S.C. § 78j(b); See Securities and Exchange Commission Rule 10b-5, 17 C.F.R. § 240.1 Ob-5 (1974).