Culbreath v. Dukakis
| Decision Date | 08 September 1980 |
| Docket Number | 79-1503,Nos. 79-1502,79-1505 and 79-1506,AFL-CI,A,s. 79-1502 |
| Citation | 630 F.2d 15 |
| Parties | 23 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. 1588, 24 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 31,235 Barbara CULBREATH et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Michael DUKAKIS et al., Defendants-Appellees, Locals 285 and 509, Service Employees International Union,ppellants. Barbara CULBREATH et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Michael DUKAKIS et al., Defendants-Appellees, Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists, Appellant. Barbara CULBREATH et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Michael DUKAKIS et al., Defendants-Appellees, Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, Appellant. Barbara CULBREATH et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Michael DUKAKIS et al., Defendants-Appellees, National Association of Government Employees, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
Jonathan P. Hiatt, Boston, Mass., with whom Angoff, Goldman, Manning, Pyle & Wanger, Boston, Mass., was on brief, for appellants, Locals 285 and 509, Service Employees Intern. Union, AFL-CIO.
Nathan S. Paven, Boston, Mass., with whom Flamm, Kaplan, Paven & Feinberg, Boston, Mass., was on brief, for appellant, Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists.
Mark J. Dalton, Dover, Mass., with whom Neil F. Colleran, Boston, Mass., was on brief, for appellants, National Ass'n of Government Employees and Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council.
Alan K. Posner, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boston, Mass., with whom Betty E. Waxman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Boston, Mass., was on brief, for defendants-appellees, Michael Dukakis et al.
James H. Wexler, Boston, Mass., with whom Ruth Diaz, Winthrop, Mass., and Robert A. James, Boston, Mass., were on brief, for plaintiffs-appellees, Barbara Culbreath, et al.
Before ALDRICH and BOWNES, Circuit Judges, and PETTINE, District Judge. *
The issue in this case is whether the district court abused its discretion in ruling that intervention petitions 1 did not satisfy the timeliness requirement of Fed.R.Civ.P. 24. The petitions were filed by four state employee labor unions more than four years after initiation of a suit alleging racial discrimination in the hiring and promotion practices of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and within two months of the submission of a consent decree settling the suit. After reviewing prior decisions in this case, the consent decree and the decision below, we affirm the district court's denial of the petitions to intervene.
The "timeliness" criterion of Fed.R.Civ.P. 24, 2 left undefined by the rule, has been interpreted to require consideration of all of the circumstances surrounding the intervention:
Whether intervention be claimed of right or as permissive, it is at once apparent, from the initial words of both Rule 24(a) and Rule 24(b), that the application must be "timely." If it is untimely, intervention must be denied. Thus, the court where the action is pending must first be satisfied as to timeliness. Although the point to which the suit has progressed is one factor in the determination of timeliness, it is not solely dispositive. Timeliness is to be determined from all the circumstances. And it is to be determined by the court in the exercise of its sound discretion; unless that discretion is abused, the court's ruling will not be disturbed on review.
NAACP v. New York, 413 U.S. 345, 365-66, 93 S.Ct. 2591, 2602-03, 37 L.Ed.2d 648 (1973). Accord, United Airlines, Inc. v. McDonald, 432 U.S. 385, 395-96, 97 S.Ct. 2464, 2470-71, 53 L.Ed.2d 423 (1977). The circumstances of this case, as found by the district court and as presented in the documents filed with the district court are as follows:
On July 1, 1974, Warren B. Jackson, Barbara Culbreath and Santiago Parra filed a class action suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 3 seeking declaratory and injunctive relief in redress of allegedly racially discriminatory hiring and promotional practices by various Massachusetts state agencies employing persons within the City of Boston. Jackson v. Sargent, 394 F.Supp. 162 (D.Mass.1974). The complaint alleged that state employment statistics showed a significant underrepresentation of minority persons in certain state agencies as the result of racially discriminatory hiring practices and other racially neutral practices which perpetuated the effect of past discrimination. The complaint specifically attacked job advertisement practices, the extensive use of provisional appointments, the use of racially and culturally biased job application forms and examinations, excessive reliance on examination results, the practice of hiring and promoting on the basis of patronage, the tailoring of job qualifications to the characteristics of current employees and the failure to establish effective affirmative action programs. The filing of the suit received prominent and extensive news coverage in the Boston metropolitan area. 4
On September 10, 1974, the original defendants 5 moved to dismiss the suit on five grounds, including the plaintiff's alleged lack of standing and the failure to join as necessary parties under Fed.R.Civ.P. 19 6 nonminority state employees who would be affected by any relief given under the suit. The district court ruled that plaintiff Jackson lacked standing, but denied all other motions. Jackson v. Sargent, 394 F.Supp. 162 (D.Mass.1975). In denying the motion to dismiss for failure to join necessary parties, the district court implicitly found that nonminority state employees were not necessary parties, but it also found that some such employees might, in appropriate circumstances, be interested parties:
While the Court can see in this case an arguable interest on the part of white applicants for state jobs and promotions, it is not disposed to dismissing the case under Rule 19 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In an appropriate situation, the Court would entertain motions to intervene from interested parties. See Castro v. Beecher, 459 F.2d 725, 729, n.2 (1st Cir., 1972).
Id. at 173. 7 No appeal was taken from this determination. We affirmed the finding that Jackson lacked standing. 8 Jackson v. Dukakis, 526 F.2d 64 (1st Cir. 1975).
Shortly before our decision in Jackson v. Dukakis, supra, the two remaining plaintiffs moved to amend the complaint to add a back pay claim for plaintiff Culbreath pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. The amendment was allowed on January 1, 1976. On March 11, 1976, the plaintiffs moved to certify their class pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 23. The district court certified the class on September 22, 1976, as all racial minority residents of Boston who sought jobs or promotions with several named state agencies in Boston at civil service grade 20 or below. In December of 1976, the defendant state agencies indicated a willingness to settle the case. The parties immediately initiated settlement negotiations which lasted nearly two years.
Appellant Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists (MOSES) filed a motion to intervene as a party defendant as of right, Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(a), in November of 1978. MOSES, formed in 1977, stated in support of its motion that it should be allowed to intervene to protect the interests of members who might be affected by the relief sought by the plaintiffs. Less than one month later, on December 18, 1978, the parties submitted a stipulation of facts and a proposed consent decree to the district court.
The stipulation adopted the basic facts alleged in plaintiffs' complaint, and more: a significant underrepresentation of minorities in several state agencies in the Boston Standard Metropolitan Service Area (SMSA) and the existence of a variety of state employment practices and policies which were either racially biased or racially neutral, but tended to perpetuate the effects of practices disproportionately affecting minorities. The consent decree proposed to remedy this circumstance by requiring the defendants to conduct a vigorous affirmative action program under the continuing supervision of the district court. The decree obligated the defendants to reform the civil service examination system by reducing examination entrance requirements, by conducting examinations more frequently and in ethnic neighborhoods and by validating their results. Under the validation system, any examination having a disproportionate adverse impact on minority applicants must be justified to the district court, which may accept or reject the results. By this procedure, and by changes in the manner, place and style of recruitment, the defendants would maintain a sufficiently large pool of minority applicants to allow appointing authorities to meet their annual minority employment goals.
The minority employment goals are the heart of the consent decree. Each defendant state agency is obligated to achieve specific minority employment objectives within job categories below grade 20. The objectives are to be met by the use of a second eligibility list, along with the list normally required to be used by Massachusetts law. Appointing authorities requesting a list of eligible applicants will receive the usual civil service list containing the names of eligible applicants in the order of their competitive performance. They will also receive a list containing an equal number of names of eligible minority applicants ranked in order of competitive performance. Appointing authorities will appoint from the minority list until the annual objective is reached. The district court's supervisory role will cease when the objectives are reached, and will be revived only if the minority employment objectives are not sustained. The consent decree encompasses hiring within the Boston SMSA, rather than within the City of Boston, as proposed by the original suit. The Boston SMSA includes one hundred fifty-one municipalities in the Boston area.
Notice to the class was accomplished by publication in late December of 1978. On February...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Jones v. Caddo Parish School Bd.
..."would plainly have prejudiced the existing parties, since it would have nullified these negotiations ..."); Culbreath v. Dukakis, 630 F.2d 15, 22 (1st Cir.1980) ("... prevent last minute disruption of painstaking work by the parties and the court"); Garrity v. Gallen, 697 F.2d at 458 (same......
-
Stewart v. Rubin
...the various aspects of the settlement and that intervention would further delay that process. Id. at 536 (citing Culbreath v. Dukakis, 630 F.2d 15 (1st Cir.1980)). 125. Furthermore, the Court finds that the Putative Intervenors are not prejudiced by the denial of the motion to intervene. In......
-
Public Citizen v. Liggett Group, Inc.
...all the circumstances." NAACP v. New York, 413 U.S. 345, 366, 93 S.Ct. 2591, 2603, 37 L.Ed.2d 648 (1973); see also Culbreath v. Dukakis, 630 F.2d 15, 20 (1st Cir.1980). Second, timeliness determinations under Rule 24 are vested in the sound discretion of the district court. NAACP, 413 U.S. ......
-
Stotts v. Memphis Fire Dept.
...Flight Attendants v. Airline Stewards and Stewardesses Assoc., 439 U.S. 876, 99 S.Ct. 214, 58 L.Ed.2d 190 (1978); Culbreath v. Dukakis, 630 F.2d 15, 23 (1st Cir. 1980); Cotton v. Hinton, 559 F.2d 1326, 1330 (5th Cir. 1977); Miami, 614 F.2d at 1331-1334. This reasonableness determination is ......