Allen v. Alabama State Bd. of Educ.

• Decision Date: 11 January 1999
• Docket Number: No. 97-6808,97-6808
• Citation: 164 F.3d 1347
• Parties: 80 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 151, 74 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,734, 75 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,734, 131 Ed. Law Rep. 920, 12 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 417 Margaret T. ALLEN, Yolanda F. Lamar, et al., each individually and on behalf of others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, Board of Trustees for Alabama State University; Eria P. Smith, et al., Intervenors-Plaintiffs-Appellees. v. The ALABAMA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION; Fob James, et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1347

164 F.3d 1347

80 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 151,

74 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,734,

75 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,734, 131 Ed. Law Rep. 920,

12 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 417

Margaret T. ALLEN, Yolanda F. Lamar, et al., each

individually and on behalf of others similarly

situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees,

Board of Trustees for Alabama State University; Eria P.

Smith, et al., Intervenors-Plaintiffs-Appellees. v. The ALABAMA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION; Fob James, et al.,

Defendants-Appellants.

No. 97-6808.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Jan. 11, 1999.

Michael White, Denise Boone Azar, Ashley H. Hamlett, State Dept. of Educ., Dorman Walker, Balch & Bingham, LLP, David R. Boyd, Montgomery, AL, for Defendants-Appellants.

Solomon S. Seay, Jr., Kenneth L. Thomas, Mark Englehart, Montgomery, AL, Gregory B. Stein, Mobile, AL, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Jeremiah A. Collins, David M. Silberman, Washington, DC, for Board of Trustees for Alabama State University.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.

Before BIRCH and BARKETT, Circuit Judges, and ALAIMO ^*, Senior District Judge.

BARKETT, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Alabama State Board of Education ("the Board") appeals from an adverse decision of the district court rejecting its motion to vacate a consent decree entered in 1987. The consent decree successfully ended Allen's civil rights class action against the Alabama State Board of Education challenging under the Equal Protection Clause and various federal civil rights laws, principally

Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, the Board's requirement that applicants for state teacher certification pass certain standardized tests. The Board argues that the district court should have vacated the consent decree because (1) it has fully complied with it, notwithstanding that it has not implemented the testing safeguards required by the decree, and (2) because the decree contains race-conscious measures that violate the Equal Protection Clause. Because the Board has failed to show that the district court abused its discretion in denying the motion to vacate the consent decree, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

In 1985, the attorneys for the parties reached an agreement in the form of a consent decree to settle this case. The Board attempted to withdraw from the settlement, but this Court ultimately held that the consent decree was enforceable. Allen v. Alabama State Bd. of Educ., 816 F.2d 575 (11th Cir.1987). The consent decree was finally approved and entered on May 14, 1987.

The decree first provided for the immediate certification of teachers who had failed the challenged tests and granted fairly modest monetary relief to plaintiffs that had been denied certification--$400 for each class member and an additional $5000 for the four named class representatives. The decree also provided that any future certification examinations would be fashioned by using a system designed to avoid an unjustifiable discriminatory impact on African-American teacher candidates, and specifically forbade the use of any teacher certification examination that would have a discriminatory impact on African-Americans unless that exam had been validated for teacher certification. Most importantly, the decree required the Board, in developing new tests, to follow what is known as the "Golden Rule" methodology and provided for the creation of an independent monitoring panel to oversee the test development process. ¹ In exchange, plaintiffs gave up the opportunity to seek a more substantial award of backpay for the class. See Richardson v. Lamar County Bd. of Educ., 729 F.Supp. 806 (M.D.Ala.1989) (awarding reemployment and backpay to teacher who was terminated after failing the same teacher certification tests challenged here), aff'd sub nom. Richardson v. Alabama State Bd. of Educ., 935 F.2d 1240 (11th Cir.1991).

After the consent decree was entered in 1985, the Board notified the district court of its intent to develop a new teacher certification examination and a monitoring panel was appointed. Although the Board received a proposal to develop a test consistent with the consent decree from one major test developer, by the fall of 1988, the Board decided to suspend their efforts to develop a new test. From 1988 to 1995, the Board did not require candidates for teacher certification to pass an examination. Instead, it allowed teachers to be certified based on the degrees they earned at school and other criteria--an option permitted under the consent decree.

In June 1995, the Alabama legislature directed the Board to "review the requirements of programs for teacher education and select a nationally normed teacher examination to be used." Ala.Code § 16-3-16.1(a). After this statute was passed, plaintiffs

moved for a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the statute and the Board moved to vacate the consent decree. After letting the parties conduct discovery and holding a one-day trial, the district court denied both motions. Allen v. Alabama State Bd. of Educ., 976 F.Supp. 1410 (M.D.Ala.1997) (denying motion to vacate consent decree); Allen v. Alabama State Bd. of Educ., 983 F.Supp. 1084 (M.D.Ala.1997) (denying preliminary injunction). The Board then filed this interlocutory appeal of the district court's denial of its motion to vacate the consent decree.

DISCUSSION

Before addressing the merits of this appeal, we must first consider whether we have jurisdiction to entertain it. Allen argues that we lack jurisdiction because the district court denied the Board's motion without prejudice, permitting the Board to return after making a good faith effort to develop a certification test consistent with the consent decree. We conclude that we have jurisdiction based on the plain language of 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), which confers appellate jurisdiction over orders "granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions, or refusing to dissolve or modify injunctions ...." (emphasis added). This provision gives us jurisdiction to hear an interlocutory appeal of a district court's refusal to vacate a consent decree containing injunctive relief. See Kerwit Med. Prods., Inc. v. N & H Instruments, Inc., 616 F.2d 833, 836 (5th Cir.1980) (treating denial of Rule 60(b) motion to vacate consent judgment as a " 'interlocutory order' continuing or refusing to dissolve an injunction which is appealable under § 1292(a)(1)"). Accordingly, we turn to the merits of the Board's appeal.

Rule 60(b)(5) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows a district court to vacate or modify a consent decree when "it is no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective application...." We reverse a trial court's decision whether to vacate a consent decree, however, only if there is an abuse of discretion. See Ensley Branch, NAACP v. Seibels, 31 F.3d 1548, 1563 (11th Cir.1994). As Justice O'Connor noted in Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, 502 U.S. 367, 112 S.Ct. 748, 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992), "[d]etermining what is 'equitable' is necessarily a task that entails substantial discretion, particularly in a case like this one, where the District Court must make complex decisions requiring the sensitive balancing of a host of factors." Id. at 393-94, 112 S.Ct. 748 (O'Connor, J., concurring). Accordingly, the Board faces a heavy burden in seeking to overturn the district court's denial of its 60(b) motion. "It is not enough that the granting of relief might have been permissible, or even warranted--denial must have been so unwarranted as to constitute an abuse of discretion." Seven Elves, Inc. v. Eskenazi, 635 F.2d 396, 402 (5th Cir. Unit A Jan.1981) (emphasis in original). We find no abuse of discretion here.

It is well-settled that, before a consent decree may be terminated, the party seeking termination of the decree must show that the basic purposes of the decree have been fully achieved and that there is no significant likelihood of recurring violations of federal law once the decree has been lifted. See Board of Educ. of Okla. City Pub. Sch. v. Dowell, 498 U.S. 237, 246-50, 111 S.Ct. 630, 112 L.Ed.2d 715 (1991); United States v. City of Miami, 2 F.3d 1497, 1505-06, 1508 (11th Cir.1993). Under Dowell and Miami, therefore, the trial court must consider whether the defendant has carried its burden of proving that it complied with the decree in good faith by fulfilling the decree's basic objectives and eliminating any vestiges of past discrimination. Dowell, 498 U.S. at 247, 249-50, 111 S.Ct. 630; Miami, 2 F.3d at 1505. Further, the trial court must consider whether it is "unlikely that the school board [will] return to its former ways" if the decree is vacated. See Dowell, 498 U.S. at 247, 111 S.Ct. 630; Miami, 2 F.3d at 1508 (noting need for the district court to determine whether the consent decree is "necessary ... to prevent discrimination in the future"); see also Inmates of Suffolk County Jail v. Rufo, 12 F.3d 286, 292 (1st Cir.1993) ("Implicit in [Dowell 's] requirements is the need for the district court ... to be satisfied that there is relatively little or no likelihood that the original ... violation [of federal law] will promptly be repeated when the decree is lifted.").

In 1985, the Board suspended teacher certification examinations, issued teacher certifications to the 429 class members who had failed the challenged certification tests, and paid the class members the liquidated damages provided by the consent decree. The Board argues that this constitutes full compliance with the consent decree and that if it wants to now reinstitute testing, it should not be forced to fashion tests consistent with the provisions of the consent decree. However, one of the primary purposes of the consent decree was to ensure that any future testing requirements did not impose an unjustified racially discriminatory impact on African-American teacher candidates. Dowell...