Dillard v. Chilton County Com'n

• Decision Date: 20 August 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-15354.,No. 06-14950.,06-14950.,06-15354.
• Citation: 495 F.3d 1324
• Parties: John DILLARD, Damascus Crittenden, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, Robert R. Binion, John Wright, Intervenor-Plaintiffs-Appellants, Gilbert Green, et al., Intervenor-Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CHILTON COUNTY COMMISSION, Robert B. Martin, Probate Judge, Defendants-Appellees. Gilbert Green, Calvin Jones, Jr., Intervenor-Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Chilton County Commission, Robert B. Martin, Probate Judge, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

495 F.3d 1324

John DILLARD, Damascus Crittenden, Jr., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, Robert R. Binion, John Wright, Intervenor-Plaintiffs-Appellants, Gilbert Green, et al., Intervenor-Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CHILTON COUNTY COMMISSION, Robert B. Martin, Probate Judge, Defendants-Appellees.

Gilbert Green, Calvin Jones, Jr., Intervenor-Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Chilton County Commission, Robert B. Martin, Probate Judge, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 06-14950.

No. 06-15354.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

August 20, 2007.

Edward Still, Edward Still Law Firm & Mediation Center, James U. Blacksher, Birmingham, AL, for John Dillard, Damascus

Crittenden, Jr., Earwen Ferrell, Clarence J. Jarrells, Ullysses McBride, Louis Hall, Jr., Robert R. Binion, John Wright, Chilton County Com'n and Robert B. Martin.

Kelly Fitzgerald Pate, Balch & Bingham LLP, Algert Swanson Agricola, Jr., Slaten & O'Conner, P.C., Dorman Walker, Montgomery, AL, John Hollis Jackson, Jr., Clanton, AL, for Chilton County Com'n, Robert B. Martin, Gilbert Green and Calvin Jones, Jr.

Albert L. Jordan, Wallace, Jordan, Ratliff & Brandt, LLC, Birmingham, AL, for Gilbert Green and Calvin Jones, Jr.

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

Before TJOFLAT, BLACK and EBEL,^* Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

In these appeals, this court is confronted again by a third-party attempt to intervene in a long-pending case to vacate injunctive relief entered below. Here, the challenged consent decree was obtained by a class of African-American plaintiffs as part of the landmark Dillard litigation that restructured much of Alabama's county-level governance in accordance with the then-prevailing understanding of the Voting Rights Act. We recognize that the intervenors raise significant questions about the ongoing vitality of the remedy approved by the district court nearly twenty years ago. However, we determine that, in light of recent Supreme Court precedent, they lack the standing necessary to challenge that remedy. Accordingly, we must VACATE the district court's orders and REMAND to the district court with instructions to DISMISS the intervenors' complaint without prejudice.

BACKGROUND

We need not provide yet another extensive recapitulation of the Dillard litigation's lengthy history. See Dillard v. Baldwin County Comm'rs (Baldwin V), 376 F.3d 1260, 1262-63 (11th Cir.2004). Suffice it to say that in 1988 the Chilton County Commission, by consent decree, settled claims raised by the class of African-American voters in Chilton County represented by John Dillard (collectively, "Dillard") under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Dillard v. Chilton County Bd. of Educ., 699 F.Supp. 870, 872 (M.D.Ala. 1988). The parties agreed, inter alia, to increase the number of commissioners from four to seven, to abolish the numbered-post system of electing commissioners and replace it with a cumulative voting system, and to institute a system by which the rotating Commission chairmanship would occasionally be offered to an African-American commissioner, if one had been elected. (Rec. Doc. 5 at ¶¶ 1, 4.) Subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court and this circuit cast this remedy into some doubt. See Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 114 S.Ct. 2581, 129 L.Ed.2d 687 (1994); Nipper v. Smith, 39 F.3d 1494 (11th Cir.1994) (en banc); Dillard v. Baldwin County Comm'rs (Baldwin III), 225 F.3d 1271 (11th Cir.2000).¹ In 2003, Gilbert Green and Calvin Jones, Jr., ("the Intervenors") moved to intervene in the instant case seeking to vacate the district court's order approving the 1988 settlement. (Motion for Post-Judgment Intervention filed Feb. 21, 2003.)

In response to this Motion to Intervene, the County Commission filed a "Motion for Status Conference" in the district court. (Motion for Status Conference filed Feb. 28, 2003.) In its motion, the Commission observed that "[r]ecent case law indicates that the seven-member, cumulative-voting remedy was not appropriate" and requested the district court "set this case for a status conference, and at that time . . . discuss with the parties whether and to what extent the settlement agreement remains viable. . . ." (Id. ¶¶ 2-3.) The district court denied the motion, explaining that it would decide whether a status conference was appropriate after resolving the pending motion for post-judgment intervention. (Order filed Mar. 7, 2003.)

Dillard filed a response on March 6, 2003, opposing both the proposed intervention and the request for a status conference. (Plaintiff's Response to Green Motion to Intervene and to Defendant's Motion for Status Conference filed Mar. 6, 2003.) Citing Baldwin III and conceding that the district court was "bound by Eleventh Circuit precedent to allow Green and Jones to intervene,"² Dillard argued that the motion to intervene should be denied because the proposed intervenors sought to intervene as plaintiffs. (Id. ¶ 3.) Intervention was granted by the district court in a brief order that did not give explicit consideration to either the Intervenors' standing to intervene nor the propriety of intervention under the standards of Fed.R.Civ.P. 24. (Order filed Mar. 20, 2003.)

Upon the district court's granting of the motion to intervene, the Intervenors' complaint-in-intervention was filed in the district court on the same day. (See Rec. Doc. 7 (Complaint-in-Intervention).) In five counts, the complaint argued that continued enforcement of the consent decree, both in specific respects and in toto, was unlawful. Specifically, Counts I and II contended (1) that, by altering the size of the Commission and by replacing the probate judge as its ex officio chair, the district court had exceeded its authority under the Voting Rights Act and violated the Tenth and Eleventh Amendments; (2) that the "parties' consent to the entry of the relief provided in the Consent Decree does not provide a sufficient basis for a court to require structural alterations in the form of government for Chilton County"; and (3) that conducting elections pursuant to the consent decree's terms "violates the Green Intervenors' constitutional rights." (Id. at 8-9 (¶¶ 16-17, 19-20).) Counts III and IV, denominated as seeking relief under Fed.R.Civ.P. 60(b)(5), stated that further prospective application of the consent decree was inequitable based on a change in law disavowing cumulative voting as a Voting Rights Act remedy and on an alleged lack of standing by Dillard, as well as arguing that conducting elections pursuant to the consent decree "violates the Green Intervenors' voting rights." (Id. at 10-11 (¶¶ 22-23, 25-26).) Count V, finally, argued (1) that, by instituting the rotating Commission chairmanship system and "direct[ing] the Commission members to engage in conduct which violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," the district court had exceeded its authority under the Voting Rights Act and violated the Fifth Amendment; and (2) that conducting elections pursuant to the consent decree's terms "violates the Green Intervenors' constitutional and voting rights." (Id. at 11 (¶¶ 28-29).)

The Commission, acting under the threat of a motion for entry of default, answered the Intervenors' complaint by admitting virtually all allegations that the consent decree exceeded the district court's authority and violated federal law, though it denied all allegations that elections conducted pursuant to the decree's terms violated the Intervenors' constitutional or voting rights. (Rec. Doc. 8 (Answer) at 3-5.) The answer, however, did not join in the Intervenors' request for relief, nor did it pray independently for relief from continued application of the consent decree. (See id.) So far as the record reveals, the Commission took no action on its own behalf to invalidate the consent decree. Importantly, the Commission never filed any claim, cross-claim, or counterclaim asserting its own rights and seeking to vacate the consent decree, nor did it file any claims of any nature against Dillard which would have revived the prior adversarial conflict between the original parties. Dillard subsequently filed briefs in opposition to the Intervenors, but filed no pleading responsive to the complaint-in-intervention, apparently because the complaint-in-intervention sought relief only against the Commission and codefendant Probate Judge Martin.

Following oral argument, the district court, believing itself bound by this court's decisions in Baldwin III and Baldwin V, agreed with the Intervenors' arguments and vacated the consent decree. Dillard v. Chilton County Comm'n, 447 F.Supp.2d 1273, 1276-79 (M.D.Ala. Aug.14, 2006). In a later order, it rejected the Intervenors' call for a prompt special election or, alternatively, prompt gubernatorial appointment of new commissioners. Dillard v. Chilton County Comm'n, 452 F.Supp.2d 1193, 1202 (M.D.Ala. Sept.21, 2006). It instead ordered the Commission to formulate via public hearings an election system to be used at the next regularly scheduled election and to present the plan to the Alabama Legislature for its approval. Id. at 1197, 1202.

After entry of the order vacating the consent decree, Dillard, as the original plaintiff, appealed, challenging the vacatur and further alleging that the Intervenors lacked standing to intervene in the first instance. In a separate appeal consolidated with Dillard's, the Intervenors appealed the order setting forth the court's proposed mechanism and timeframe for unwinding the effects of the vacated consent decree. The Commission filed a brief only in the second of these appeals, omitting any consideration of the merits of Dillard's appeal. Instead, it limited its arguments to defending the district court's September 21, 2006, order that gave the Commission until the next regularly scheduled election to design and receive approval for a...