Forehand v. Florida State Hosp. at Chattahoochee

Citation89 F.3d 1562
Decision Date06 August 1996
Docket NumberNo. 94-3080,94-3080
Parties71 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 905, 65 USLW 2159, 35 Fed.R.Serv.3d 911 Franceslon FOREHAND, Naomi Berry, Vivian Johnson, Virginia Jackson, Ethel Germany, Sadie Bouie, Myles Brown, Jeanette Wynn, Hollis McClendon, all individually and on behalf of all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. FLORIDA STATE HOSPITAL AT CHATTAHOOCHEE, Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, State of Florida, Defendants-Appellees.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Kent Spriggs, Spriggs & Johnson, Thomas A. Warren, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellants.

Harry F. Chiles, Louis F. Hubener, Charles Collette, Tallahassee, FL, for Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida.

Before ANDERSON and BLACK, Circuit Judges, and FAY, Senior Circuit Judge.

ANDERSON, Circuit Judge:

Franceslon Forehand (individually and on behalf of putative class members), Naomi Berry, Sadie Bouie, Myles Brown, Ethel Germany, Vivian Johnson, Virginia Jackson, Hollis McClendon, and Jeanette Wynn (collectively "appellants") appeal the post-trial entry of judgment against them by the district court. Their appeal raises the following issues: (1) whether the district court erred in decertifying the class ten years after the case was filed; (2) whether appellants Berry, Bouie, Jackson, Germany, Brown and McClendon failed to exhaust the EEOC administrative process because they received their right-to-sue letters after the commencement of their Title VII action, prior to the expiration of the statutory 180-day period, and upon counsel's request; and (3) whether the special master erred in rejecting appellants' statistical evidence of a pattern and practice of promotion discrimination in favor of appellees' statistical evidence. 1 We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for further proceedings.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Forehand applied for and was denied promotion to Ward Supervisor by the Florida State Hospital at Chattahoochee ("the Hospital") in 1981. After responding to a vacancy announcement for the Ward Supervisor position, Forehand was interviewed by a screening committee. Of the nine applicants for the position, Forehand received the second highest rating by the screening committee. A white woman was given a somewhat higher rating and was awarded the position. Forehand, who is black, alleges that the Hospital discriminated against her in this promotion decision.

Three days after she was denied the promotion, Forehand filed an administrative complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") in which she alleged discrimination in the hospital's promotion decision (hereinafter "the individual claim"). Seven months later, Forehand amended her EEOC complaint to state that the discrimination against her was part of a pattern and practice of racially discriminatory recruitment, hiring, job assignments, promotions demotions, terminations, lay-offs, reprimands, seniority and affirmative action programs at the Hospital (hereinafter "the pattern and practice claim"). The EEOC investigated Forehand's individual claim and concluded that the Hospital's decision to promote the candidate selected was based on non-discriminatory criteria including the fact that she: (1) received the highest interview score; 2 (2) possessed more supervisory experience; and (3) had received slightly better performance evaluations.

On April 6, 1983, Forehand filed the present action alleging Title VII employment discrimination. In her final complaint, she was joined by twelve additional plaintiffs: the eight other appellants, Berry, Bouie, Brown, Germany, Johnson, Jackson, McClendon, and Wynn, and four other plaintiffs. 3 On July 26, 1985, the district court certified a plaintiff class which included:

All past, present and future black employees of Florida State Hospital, Chattahoochee, Florida, who, after 24 March 1972 have been adversely affected on account of their race by the defendants' use of their subjective decision-making processes regarding promotions, demotions, reassignments, job performance evaluations, and disciplinary actions.

With the exception of Forehand, none of the appellants received notice of a right to sue from the EEOC within ninety days preceding the commencement of this action. 4 Neither Wynn nor Johnson ever possessed a right-to-sue letter during the pendency of this action. Appellants Berry, Bouie, Jackson, Germany, Brown and McClendon filed charges with the EEOC slightly before or after this action commenced. 5 They were issued right-to-sue letters by the EEOC after the present action had commenced and before the expiration of the statutory 180-day conciliation period. 6 Berry's charge was dismissed by the EEOC for failure to cooperate with its investigation. The other letters were apparently issued in response to counsel's request for expedited treatment.

In October 1986, a fifty-five-day bench trial was held before a special master. Almost four years after trial, the special master recommended that the district court enter judgment in favor of appellees. As to the nine appellants, the special master ruled as follows. First, he held that Wynn, Johnson, and Berry 7 failed to exhaust their administrative remedies because they failed to receive a right-to-sue letter from the EEOC. Thus, he held that these three appellants failed to satisfy the conditions precedent to suit in federal court. He concluded that these appellants could, however, bypass the conditions precedent under the "single-filing rule" 8 whereby they could rely on Forehand's properly exhausted claims (both the individual claim and the pattern and practice claim). The special master held that because Forehand's claims failed on the merits, so did the claims of these three appellants. Second, the special master held that the other six appellants, Forehand, Bouie, Jackson, Germany, Brown, and McClendon, had satisfied the conditions precedent to suit by receiving right to sue letters, but that their individual claims failed on the merits, i.e., they failed to prove discrimination at trial. Third, the special master held that appellants failed to prove a pattern and practice of discrimination.

Over two years later, the district court entered judgment in favor of appellees. See Forehand, 839 F.Supp. at 812. First, the district court held that the class had been improvidently certified and, therefore, decertified the class. Id. at 811-12. Second, it held that only Forehand had satisfied all conditions precedent to suit, but that the other appellants could potentially rely on Forehand's exhausted claims (both Forehand's individual claim and her pattern and practice claim) under the single-filing rule. Id. at 818. It then found, however, that the non-filing plaintiffs' claims were so different from Forehand's promotion claim that they should not be permitted to rely on Forehand's charge of discrimination. 9 Id. at 820-21. Next, it held that appellants had failed to prove a pattern and practice of discrimination. Id. at 819. These rulings left only Forehand's individual claim intact. The district court permitted Forehand to supplement the record before deciding her individual claim of disparate treatment. Id. at 821. The court later adopted the special master's conclusion that Forehand had failed to show that she was discriminatorily denied promotion to the Ward Supervisor position.

II. DISCUSSION
A. Class Decertification

First, appellants challenge the district court's decision to decertify the class ten years after the case was filed. See Forehand, 839 F.Supp. at 811-12. The district court held that it had improperly certified an "across-the-board" class which included putative plaintiffs who allegedly suffered a variety of discriminatory acts--a class which included all black employees who suffered discrimination at the Hospital. The district court determined that, based on the evidence presented at trial, its previous class definition failed to comply with Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. It determined, for example, that its prior Rule 23 numerosity determination "was based on a rough estimate of total black employees and not upon a careful estimate of black employees having specific grievances similar to those of the plaintiffs." Id. at 811.

Appellants argue that the district court erred in decertifying the class. They contend that the district court was required to revisit class certification to conform the class definition to the evidence presented at trial. They urge that the district court's decertification decision was especially inappropriate because the case was filed ten years earlier and had already gone to trial.

A district court may alter or amend its certification order anytime before its decision on the merits. Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(c)(1).

Questions concerning class certification are left to the sound discretion of the district court. Freeman v. Motor Convoy, Inc., 700 F.2d 1339, 1347 (11th Cir.1983). Even after a certification order is entered, the judge remains free to modify it in the light of subsequent developments in the litigation. [General Telephone Co. of Southwest v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 160, 102 S.Ct. 2364, 2372 (1982)].

Cox v. American Cast Iron Pipe Co., 784 F.2d 1546, 1553 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 883, 107 S.Ct. 274, 93 L.Ed.2d 250 (1986). Although a class decertification order entered ten years after commencement of the action is unusual and perhaps disfavored, we find no abuse of discretion in this case. The district court's conclusion that the class failed to conform to the requirements set forth in Falcon, 457 U.S. at 161, 102 S.Ct at 2372, is correct and supported by the record. 10 See Forehand, 839 F.Supp. at 811-12. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's order decertifying the class for the reasons stated therein. See Id.

B. Exhaustion and Equitable...

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