Bennett v. Tucker
| Decision Date | 30 September 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 86-2628,86-2628 |
| Parties | 44 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 962, 44 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 37,349, 56 USLW 2146, 8 Fed.R.Serv.3d 950 Roy BENNETT and Hattie Cunningham, on their own behalf and on behalf of all those similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Joyce E. TUCKER, Director of the Illinois Department of Human Rights, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Jonathan K. Baum, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs-appellants.
Jeffrey W. Finke, Illinois Atty. Gen., Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellee.
Before BAUER, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.
In Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Company, 455 U.S. 422, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982), the Supreme Court held that the Illinois Fair Employment Commission's refusal to process a discrimination claim, solely because the Commission had failed to act on the claim within the time provided by state law, deprived a claimant of his property without due process. Eleven months after the Supreme Court decided Logan, plaintiffs Bennett and Cunningham filed this Sec. 1983 action. The plaintiffs alleged that the refusal of the Illinois Department of Human Rights (the successor agency to the Illinois Fair Employment Commission) to process their discrimination claims, solely because the Commission had failed to act on their claims within the time provided by state law, was depriving them of their property without due process. The plaintiffs sought an injunction requiring the defendant, in her official capacity as Director of the Department of Human Rights, to process their claims. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendant on the grounds that Cunningham's federal claim was barred by laches, and that Bennett had not complied with state procedural requirements when he filed his discrimination claim. We disagree with the district court's conclusions, and reject the alternate grounds for upholding the judgment advanced by the defendant. We therefore reverse the judgment of the district court and remand for further proceedings.
Roy Bennett filed a complaint with the Illinois Fair Employment Commission on August 3, 1976, alleging that he had not been recalled to work because of a physical handicap. Soon thereafter, Hattie Cunningham filed a similar complaint, alleging that she had been denied employment because of her race. In each case, the Commission failed to take any action within 180 days of the filing of the complaint.
On January 20, 1978, the Illinois Supreme Court held that p 858.01(c) of the Illinois Fair Employment Practices Act, Ill.Ann.Stat. ch. 48, p 858.01(c) (Smith-Hurd 1978) (repealed 1980), which provided that the Illinois Fair Employment Commission "shall" act within 180 days of the filing of an unfair employment practice complaint, imposed a mandatory time limit within which the Commission had authority to act on a claim. See Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Plan Commission v. Fair Employment Practices Commission, 71 Ill.2d 61, 68-69, 15 Ill.Dec. 623, 626, 373 N.E.2d 1307, 1310 (1978). If the Commission failed to act within this period, the court ruled, the claimant lost the right to pursue the claim. See id. Following the Springfield-Sangamon decision, the Commission ceased work on 2,500 to 3,000 claims that it had not processed within 180 days of submission.
During 1979, the Commission sent notices to the affected claimants, including Bennett and Cunningham, advising them of the Springfield-Sangamon decision, and asking them if they were still interested in having the Commission process their claims. Bennett and Cunningham responded, informing the Commission that they wished to have their claims processed. However, the Illinois Supreme Court subsequently decided Board of Governors v. Illinois Fair Employment Practices Commission, 78 Ill.2d 143, 35 Ill.Dec. 524, 399 N.E.2d 590, appeal dismissed, 449 U.S. 807, 101 S.Ct. 54, 66 L.Ed.2d 11 (1980), in which the court held that the Commission could make no exceptions to the 180-day rule set forth in Springfield-Sangamon.
On July 1, 1980, all charges pending before the Illinois Fair Employment Commission were transferred to the Department of Human Rights. See Ill.Ann.Stat. ch. 68, p 9-102(a) (Smith-Hurd Supp.1987). Two months later, the Department informed Cunningham that it was "administratively closing" her case. Although Illinois law makes no provision for an agency to administratively close a case, the Department stated that it was acting on the authority of the Illinois Supreme Court's decision in Board of Governors. The Department never took any action on Bennett's claim.
Two weeks after the Department of Human Resources closed Cunningham's case, the Illinois Supreme Court decided Zimmerman Brush Company v. Fair Employment Practices Commission, 82 Ill.2d 99, 44 Ill.Dec. 308, 411 N.E.2d 277 (1980). In that case, the court was required to construe another provision of the Fair Employment Act, which had required the Commission to hold a conference within 120 days of the filing of a complaint. Relying on its previous decisions in Springfield-Sangamon and Board of Governors, the court held that the claimant had lost the right to pursue a fair employment claim because the Commission had not met this deadline. See Zimmerman, 82 Ill.2d 99, 102-07, 44 Ill.Dec. 308, 310-13, 411 N.E.2d 277, 279-82 (1980).
On February 24, 1982, the Supreme Court reversed the Illinois Supreme Court's decision, holding that the Commission had deprived the claimant of the property interest that he had in his discrimination claim without due process. See Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Company, 455 U.S. 422, 102 S.Ct. 1148, 71 L.Ed.2d 265 (1982). Based on the Supreme Court's decision in Logan, an attorney for Bennett and Cunningham contacted the Illinois Department of Human Rights on March 17, 1982, and requested it to resume work on the plaintiffs' claim. In August or September of 1982, the Department informed plaintiffs' counsel that it would not take any action on the plaintiffs' claims.
The plaintiffs filed this suit, under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, on January 23, 1983. The plaintiffs sought an injunction ordering Joyce Tucker, the Director of the Department of Human Resources, to process their claims. They also sought certification of a class composed of those individuals whose fair employment claims had never been acted on because the state had failed to meet its own deadlines. Three months after the plaintiffs filed suit, the defendant moved to dismiss the action on eleven separate grounds. The district court, concluding that the defendant's arguments had no merit, denied the motion. See Bennett v. Tucker, No. 83 C 480 (N.D.Ill. Aug. 8, 1983) (memorandum and order).
On December 2, 1983, the plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability, and for class certification. Director Tucker opposed the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, and filed a cross-motion requesting summary judgment on the same grounds that the court had previously rejected. The case was subsequently reassigned to a new judge, who granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment on May 8, 1986. The district court held that Cunningham's federal claim was barred by laches, and that Bennett had no federal claim because it was undisputed that he had failed to file his original claim within the period of time required by state law. See Bennett v. Tucker, 634 F.Supp. 355 (N.D.Ill.1986) (memorandum opinion and order). The plaintiffs moved to alter or amend the judgment. The district court denied the motion, and the plaintiffs appealed.
Although neither party raised the issue, this case presents a question regarding our jurisdiction. In this case, the district court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment without first expressly deciding the plaintiffs' motion for class certification. This is a violation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23, which requires the district court to decide the question of class certification "as soon as practicable," Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(c)(1). In Glidden v. Chromalloy American Corporation, 808 F.2d 621 (7th Cir.1986), we held that, under certain circumstances, a district court's failure to comply with this rule would deprive us of appellate jurisdiction.
In Glidden, the district court granted summary judgment, but expressly declined to decide the issue of class certification. See id. at 623. Based on our review of the record, we concluded that the court probably had decided to withhold its decision because the named plaintiff did not appear to be representative of the class. Because the district court's order granting summary judgment "explicitly contemplate[d] further proceedings to ascertain who [would] be bound," id., we concluded that the district court's judgment did not constitute a "final decision" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. We therefore dismissed the case for want of appellate jurisdiction. Nonetheless, we left open the question of whether, in some cases in which a district court had not ruled on class certification, it would be permissible for us to proceed "as if the district judge had certified the class," id. at 624.
Our subsequent decision in Gomez v. Illinois State Board of Education, 811 F.2d 1030 (7th Cir.1987), addressed the question left open in Glidden. In Gomez, the district court dismissed the action for failure to state a claim, without ruling on class certification. We noted that the district court had dismissed the plaintiffs' suit in its entirety, and concluded that the court's failure to rule on class certification did not deprive us of appellate jurisdiction because "the district court did not retain anything for later determination," id. at 1034 n. 1.
In this case, as in Gomez, the district court seems to have believed that no further proceedings would be required...
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