Court Opinion

ID: 9427829
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:03.01242+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:09.821140
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
concurring.
I write briefly to state what seems to me to be sufficient differences between this case and United States Parole Comm’n v. Geraghty, post, p. 388, to allow the appeal of the denial of class certification in this case, and to. dismiss the attempted appeal of the same question in Geraghty as moot. If I were writing on a clean slate, I might well resolve both these cases against the respondents. But the Court today has not cleaned the slate or been successful in formulating any sound princi*341ples to replace what seem to me to be the muddled and inconsistent ones of the past. Compare Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U. S. 393 (1975), with Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747 (1976); United Airlines, Inc. v. McDonald, 432 U. S. 385, 393 (1977), with Pasadena City Bd. of Education v. Spangler, 427 U. S. 424, 430 (1976); Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463, 469, 470, n. 15 (1978), with Indianapolis School Comm’rs v. Jacobs, 420 U. S. 128 (1975); and now this case, with United States Parole Comm’n v. Geraghty.
Article III, and this Court’s precedents in Jacobs, supra, and Spangler, supra, require dismissal of the action in Geraghty because there is simply no individual interest remaining, no certified class or intervenors to supply that interest, and the action is not within that “narrow class of cases” that are “distinctly ‘capable of repetition, yet evading review.’ ” Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103, 110, n. 11 (1975). The facts in this case, in contrast, fit within the framework of the precedents permitting continuation of the action.
The distinguishing feature here is that the defendant has made an unaccepted offer of tender in settlement of the individual putative representative’s claim. The action is moot in the Art. Ill sense only if this Court adopts a rule that an. individual seeking to proceed as a class representative is required to accept a tender of only his individual claims. So long as the court does not require such acceptance, the individual is required to prove his case and the requisite Art. Ill adversity continues. Acceptance need not be mandated under our precedents since the defendant has not offered all that has been requested in the complaint (i. e., relief for the class) and any other rule would give the defendant the practical power to make the denial of class certification questions unreviewable. Since adversity is in fact retained, and this set of facts fits within a “narrow class of cases” where a contrary rule would lead to the “reality” that “otherwise the issue would evade review,” I think our precedents provide for the main*342tenance of this action. Sosna, supra, at 402, n. 11; Gerstein, supra. Accordingly, I join in the opinion of the Court in this case and in Mr. Justice Powell’s dissent in Geraghty.