Beavers v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co.
| Citation | 852 F.2d 527 |
| Decision Date | 15 August 1988 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 87-7475,87-7514 and 87-7612,s. 87-7475 |
| Parties | 47 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 925, 47 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 38,198, 11 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1572 Ray Wayne BEAVERS, Oscar D. Jenkins, and Terry Chaffin, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. AMERICAN CAST IRON PIPE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. Ray Wayne BEAVERS, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, James Dollar, Applicant in Intervention and a Member of the Putative Class Appellant, v. AMERICAN CAST IRON PIPE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. Ray Wayne BEAVERS, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, Charles Harmon and Richard Johnson, Plaintiffs-Intervenor Movants-Appellants, v. AMERICAN CAST IRON PIPE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit) |
Gordon, Silberman, Wiggins & Childs, Robert L. Wiggins, Jr., Ann K. Norton, Birmingham, Ala., for plaintiffs-appellants.
J. Patrick Logan, J. Frederic Ingram, F.A. Flowers, III, Burr & Forman, Maura R. Goodwyn, Birmingham, Ala., for defendant-appellee.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Before JOHNSON, Circuit Judge, HENDERSON *, Senior Circuit Judge, and PITTMAN **, Senior District Judge.
Ray Wayne Beavers, Oscar D. Jenkins and Terry Chaffin appeal from an order entered by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama dismissing with prejudice their action based on sex discrimination. They also appeal from an order "disqualifying" their attorney, Robert L. Wiggins, Jr. from further representation in the case. James Dollar, Charles Harmon and Richard Johnson appeal from two orders denying their respective motions to intervene. We reverse the dismissal of the action and the "disqualification" of Wiggins, vacate the denial of the motion for intervention and the motion for class certification and remand the case for further consideration.
This case began on May 23, 1983, when Beavers filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") alleging that the American Cast Iron Pipe Company ("ACIPCO") had established a policy that "children and legally adopted children must reside full time with a permanent full time or retired employee in order to be eligible for medical services." EEOC Charge, p. 1. The EEOC charge further alleged that ACIPCO's residency policy applied to other health benefits and insurance. Beavers claimed that "[b]ecause women have historically been awarded custody of children in divorce actions more frequently than men, the practice of conditioning receipt of benefits and services upon the residency of children operates to exclude male employees from receipt of such benefits at a disproportionate rate in comparison to female employees." Id. Beavers alleged that this practice had a disparate impact on him and all other "divorced male employees who have not been awarded children or whose children do not reside with them." Id. The EEOC investigated the charge and issued a right-to-sue letter.
On October 24, 1986, Beavers filed this complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama on behalf of himself and on behalf of a putative class composed of past, present and future male employees of ACIPCO. The complaint challenged the residency policy on health benefits and services, alleging that this policy violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq. and the Equal Pay Act of 1963, as amended, 29 U.S.C. Sec. 206(d). Three days later, an amended complaint was filed adding Jenkins and Chaffin as additional plaintiffs and class representatives. The case was assigned to the same district judge before whom was pending Cox v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., 585 F.Supp. 1143 (N.D.Ala.1984), rev'd in part and vacated in part, 784 F.2d 1546 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 883, 107 S.Ct. 274, 93 L.Ed.2d 250 (1986), on remand, 847 F.2d 725 (11th Cir.1988), a class action involving charges of widespread sexual discrimination against women which was being actively litigated at the time of the filing of the current case.
The plaintiffs in this case and in Cox were represented by Wiggins. ACIPCO is represented by the law firm of Burr & Foreman. Between 1972 and 1980, Robert F. Childs, Jr., was employed as a lawyer at Burr & Foreman. While Childs worked for the firm, ACIPCO was involved in a substantial amount of Title VII litigation. Between 1978 and 1980, Childs worked extensively on one of these cases, Pettway v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., 721 F.2d 315 (11th Cir.1983), cert. denied sub nom. Daniel v. Pettway, 467 U.S. 1243, 104 S.Ct. 3515, 82 L.Ed.2d 824 (1984), and, in fact, negotiated a consent decree with Wiggins, representing the Pettway plaintiffs. In 1980, Childs also billed ACIPCO for 52 hours of work performed in the Cox case. In October, 1980, Childs left Burr & Foreman to become a sole practitioner. In 1985, however, he, without objection from Burr & Foreman, 1 merged his practice with that of Wiggins, each becoming a partner in the firm of Gordon, Silberman, Wiggins & Childs.
On December 5, 1986, the district court entered an order sua sponte in the Cox litigation directing Wiggins to "show cause in writing, if he can do so, why he and his law firm should not be disqualified" from representing the plaintiffs in both the Cox case and the Beavers case. In an accompanying memorandum, the court stated that it "cannot find any satisfactory rationalization for what appears to be a clear conflict of interest" by Wiggins in the two cases.
Wiggins responded by arguing that no conflict of interest existed between Cox and Beavers that would warrant disqualification. Wiggins also argued that, assuming arguendo that the district court believed that such a conflict existed, one alternative to disqualification in the Cox case would be withdrawal in the Beavers case. Wiggins stated that, "[w]hile the plaintiffs in Beavers ... would very much like to keep Mr. Wiggins as their attorney, they also acknowledge that their case would be far less disrupted by the retention of new counsel than would be the case for the Cox plaintiffs...." ACIPCO addressed the conflict issue in a letter to the district court. The letter did not mention any conflicts problems arising from the partnership of Wiggins and Childs and specifically stated that "it does not appear that [Wiggins's] representation of employee classes and individuals in employment discrimination litigation against [ACIPCO] presents an actual conflict of interest with respect to [ACIPCO]." Finding Wiggins's alternative solution to be "the most plausible solution to the conflicts problem," the district court, in an order dated March 6, 1987, granted Wiggins ten days within which to file a motion for leave to withdraw. Wiggins filed a motion to withdraw as counsel in the Beavers case, noting that he continued "to believe that there is no conflict and that disqualification is unnecessary." Nonetheless, Wiggins correctly concluded that the district court disagreed and that, in order to avoid disqualification in the Cox case, he had "no choice but to obey." The district court entered an order holding that the motion was "well taken" and gave the plaintiffs thirty days to obtain new counsel. Ironically, the district court subsequently disqualified Wiggins in the Cox case anyway on conflict of interest grounds.
In April, 1987, David Arendall became plaintiffs' counsel in the Beavers case. The plaintiffs filed a second amended complaint, adding a claim under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"), 29 U.S.C. Sec. 1001 et seq. Unfortunately, the relationship between Arendall and the plaintiffs never developed into one that was mutually satisfactory. On June 3, 1987, Beavers notified Arendall that he no longer wanted Arendall to represent him and that he had lost interest and wanted to withdraw from the case. On June 5, 1987, Arendall filed a motion to withdraw as counsel, citing the lack of a workable attorney-client relationship between himself and the plaintiffs.
In the meantime, on June 2, 1987, ACIPCO noticed Beavers's deposition for June 4, 1987. Jenkins's and Chaffin's depositions were noticed for June 16, 1987. Neither the plaintiffs nor Arendall appeared on either date for the depositions. On June 19, 1987, ACIPCO...
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...the individual claims and denied class certification. The United States Court of Appeals vacated and remanded. Beavers v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., 852 F.2d 527 (11th Cir.1988). In June, 1988, Oscar Jenkins, Richard Johnson and James Dollar filed a separate but identical action, Jenkins ......