Bertulli v. Independent Ass'n of Cont'l Pilots

• Decision Date: 13 February 2001
• Docket Number: No. 99-21170,99-21170
• Citation: 242 F.3d 290
• Parties: (5th Cir. 2001) A.J. BERTULLI; JOE GRINDER; LARRY DOURIS; JOAN SANDSTROME; MARC BLACKMORE, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. INDEPENDENT ASSOCIATION OF CONTINENTAL PILOTS; CONTINENTAL AIRLINES, Defendants-Appellants
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 290

242 F.3d 290 (5th Cir. 2001)

A.J. BERTULLI; JOE GRINDER; LARRY DOURIS; JOAN SANDSTROME; MARC BLACKMORE, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. INDEPENDENT ASSOCIATION OF CONTINENTAL PILOTS; CONTINENTAL AIRLINES, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 99-21170

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS, FIFTH CIRCUIT

February 13, 2001

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted] Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, WIENER, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges.

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge:

Pilots filed this class action against their pilots' association and airline claiming injury suffered as a result of seniority lost when the pilots' association and airline changed the seniority rankings of their pilots. The class was certified under Rule 23(b)(3).¹ Defendants appeal the certification order under Rule 23(f).²

The pilots' association and airline argue that the plaintiffs lack standing and that the certification of the class was an abuse of discretion. We hold that standing is reviewable in a Rule 23(f) interlocutory appeal, that the plaintiffs have standing, and that the certification of the class was not an abuse of discretion.

I

Plaintiffs are pilots for Continental Airlines. They filed suit against the defendants, Continental Airlines and the Independent Association of Continental Pilots, alleging that the Pilots' Association violated its duties under the Railway Labor Act³ and the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act.⁴ The plaintiffs claim that they were injured when they lost seniority after the Pilots' Association and Continental Airlines agreed to restore the seniority of eleven pilots who had lost their seniority when they participated in a strike in 1983-85. The plaintiff class is composed of all Continental pilots whose seniority fell as a result of the action by the Pilots' Association; the class is alleged to number more than 1,700 pilots. Each class member's seniority rank fell by between one and eleven. The loss of seniority harmed plaintiffs, they claim, because seniority determines the priority of a pilot's bid for a particular work assignment. Assignments differ in terms of pay, benefits, and choice of routes and schedules.

Plaintiffs describe two violations of statutory duties. First, they claim that the Pilots' Association violated the LMRDA when it denied the pilots their right to vote on the changes in seniority that the Pilots' Association negotiated with Continental. Second, they claim that the Pilots' Association violated its duty of fair representation under the RLA because the seniority action was arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith.⁵ Plaintiffs seek back pay and injunctive relief to undo the change in seniority.⁶

II

Defendants first argue that plaintiffs lack standing to bring this suit. We note, initially, that under Rule 23(f), a party may appeal only the issue of class certification; no other issues may be raised.⁷ Standing, however, goes to the constitutional power of a federal court to entertain an action,⁸ and this court has the duty to determine whether standing exists even if not raised by the parties.⁹ As we have held, "[t]his constitutional threshold must be met before any consideration of the typicality of claims or commonality of issues required for procedural reasons by [Rule] 23."¹⁰ Standing is an inherent prerequisite to the class certification inquiry; thus, despite the limited nature of a Rule 23(f) appeal, defendants can raise the issue of standing before this court.¹¹

In addressing the merits of this claim, we begin with Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife,¹² which describes the "irreducible constitutional minimum of standing": (1) injury-in-fact, (2) causation, and (3) redressability.¹³ Defendants argue that the named plaintiffs have not suffered any injury-in-fact.¹⁴ Defendants argue that they presented uncontroverted evidence that the challenged seniority changes did not affect the named plaintiffs' abilities to get the work assignments they desired; each plaintiff has received the assignments bid for. Thus, defendants argue, plaintiffs have demonstrated no monetary loss and lack standing.

This cramped view misunderstands standing. First, injury need not be monetary or tangible; even psychological or aesthetic injury is sufficient.¹⁵ What courts require, however, is that the injury be personal.¹⁶ Loss of seniority is an injury within a commonsense understanding of the term, and one that is suffered by the plaintiffs themselves. It carries with it the possibility of several forms of concrete injury, such as slower promotion, greater likelihood of being laid off, and lower benefits.¹⁷ This circuit has entertained RLA actions regarding seniority decisions by unions.¹⁸

Second, the statutory violations that plaintiffs claim describe two specific injuries: first, loss of "fair representation" under the RLA; second, loss of voting rights under the LMRDA. These are "procedural rights" protected by statute, the loss of which is itself an injury without any requirement of a showing of further injury.¹⁹ Defenders of Wildlife describes, as examples of procedural rights, the right to a hearing prior to deprivation or the right to an agency completing an environmental impact statement before beginning a project.²⁰ The loss is not merely the subsequent deprivation, but the right not to suffer a deprivation without proper process. In this case, the plaintiffs allege that the Pilots' Association deprived them of seniority without a vote and without the Pilots' Association fairly representing them.

Plaintiffs have standing.

III

We review the district court's certification decision for abuse of discretion.²¹ A class should be certified on a claim-by-claim basis;²² thus, we consider the RLA and LMRDA claims independently under each requirement for certification.

Composition of the Class

Defendants first argue that the class definition is underinclusive for the LMRDA claim.²³ Plaintiffs allege a denial of the pilots' right to vote on the seniority change. Since all Continental pilots have a procedural right to vote protected by the LMRDA, the district court could have defined the class to include all Continental pilots. But the district court may choose one possible class definition over another in order to ensure that the requirements of Rule 23 are best satisfied.²⁴

Although all Continental pilots have allegedly been deprived of the right to vote, not all the pilots have the same interest in rectifying that deprivation. If the district court had included all Continental pilots in the class, the class would have included pilots with interests antagonistic to each other: pilots, like the named plaintiffs, who want to vote because they lost seniority; and pilots whose seniority increased as a result of the defendants' action, and who thus benefitted from the action taken without a vote. By defining the class to include only those pilots who also suffered a loss of seniority, the district court ensured that the class maintained a degree of cohesion, a commonality of interest, that a broader class may have lacked.

Further, the interests of the members of the class and those excluded from the class definition are sufficiently distinct to justify the line drawn. While all pilots can claim a loss of procedural rights, those not in the class have no other injury. Drawing the class lines short of persons with no claim for loss of benefits was not an abuse of discretion.²⁵

Rule 23(a)(1): Numerosity

Defendants argue that both claims fail the numerosity requirement for the same reason: since only eleven pilots had their seniority restored, only eleven class members could possibly have lost work assignments because of their lower seniority. If only eleven pilots were harmed, defendants reason, the class is not sufficiently numerous to merit class treatment.

This argument fails on its own terms. Restoring a single pilot's seniority could cause many pilots to lose their preferred routes. If one pilot is forced to accept her second-choice route, she may in turn displace from that route another, less senior pilot who in turn must take his second-choice route, and so on. A loss of preferred routes could thus cascade all the way down the seniority list.

Moreover, the injury to the class members is not merely loss of a specific work assignment or an identifiable sum of money; loss of seniority is itself a harm, as we explained in finding that the plaintiffs have standing. The district court reasonably concluded that the class exceeded 1,700 members.²⁶ Defendants make no claim that this figure is not sufficiently numerous for class treatment.

Rule 23(a)(2): Commonality

"The threshold of 'commonality' is not high"²⁷ and is met in this case for both claims. Each claim describes common issues of law and fact.

Regarding the RLA claim, all the plaintiffs were harmed by a single action taken by the Pilots' Association, the decision to reinstate the seniority of eleven pilots. The RLA claim alleges that this action violated the Pilots' Association's duty of fair representation to the plaintiffs as a group. Resolution of any disputed facts surrounding the action taken by the Pilots' Association, and any factual and legal questions regarding whether the Pilots' Association violated its duty of fair representation, will affect the entire class.²⁸ The RLA claim presents common questions.²⁹

Regarding the LMRDA claim, whether the defendants were required to allow the pilots to vote on the seniority change is a legal question common to all of the class members that depends not on their individual circumstances, but on the application of the statute³⁰ to the duties of the Pilots' Association under its constitution and the actions of the Pilots' Association and Continental Airlines. The factual questions surrounding the decision of the Pilots' Association and Continental Airlines are common issues for the entire...