Graves v. Walton County Bd. of Educ.
| Decision Date | 27 September 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-7663,80-7663 |
| Citation | 686 F.2d 1135 |
| Parties | 6 Ed. Law Rep. 336 Anson GRAVES, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. WALTON COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, et al., Defendants-Appellants, Cross-Appellants, v. Veda J. BAKER, et al., Intervenors-Appellants, Cross-Appellees. . Unit B * |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Nation, Maddox & Starnes, Sidney L. Nation, Convers, Ga., for intervenors-appellants, cross-appellees.
Thomas S. Bentley, Atlanta, Ga., for Social Circle Bd. of Educ.
Napoleon B. Williams, New York City, for Graves, et al.
W. Warren Plowden, Jr., Macon, Ga., William L. Preston, Monroe, Ga., for Walton Cty. Bd. of Educ.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.
Before HILL, FAY and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
The appellants-intervenors, a group of predominantly white parents from Walton County, Georgia, originally appealed the district court's decree of August 26, 1980. The decree ordered the enforcement of the district court's 1968 order as subsequently modified, requiring the desegregation of public schools in Walton County, Georgia and in the City of Social Circle, Georgia. On March 31, 1981 this court, in an unpublished opinion, remanded the case to the district court so that it could enter appropriate findings of fact and conclusions of law relative to the various motions pending in the case. On July 27, 1981, in response to our remand order, the district court entered its "Order Disposing of All Pending Motions". The district court permitted the substitution of additional plaintiffs for the original named plaintiffs whose claims had become moot. The district court also vacated its previous decisions allowing the Walton County parents to intervene. The proposed intervenors filed their notice of appeal on July 31, 1981. On November 6, 1981, the district court denied the appellant Walton County Board of Education's motion to modify its original desegregation decree. The appellant county board filed its notice of appeal on November 30, 1981. For purposes of efficiency we have consolidated these two appeals. After reviewing the record, we hereby affirm that portion of the district court's July 27, 1981 order adding additional party plaintiffs. Although no formal order of certification was entered by the district court, this case was in fact a class action, and members of the class may be substituted as named plaintiffs in order to preserve the action after the claims of the original named plaintiffs have become moot. However, we reverse that portion of the order in which the district court vacated its previous orders allowing the county parents to intervene. This court further affirms the district court's March 16, 1981 order refusing to amend its original 1968 desegregation order and return county children residing in zone five to Walton County schools.
Suit was filed originally in 1968 as a class action on behalf of all black school children in Walton County, Georgia, to force the desegregation of public schools in the Walton County school system and the Social Circle school system. The district judge hearing the case at that time treated the case as a class action, although there is nothing in the record that would indicate the case was ever certified as such. On July 30, 1968, the district court entered a judgment desegregating the two school systems. The provisions of the judgment relevant to this appeal pertain to an order of the court establishing attendance zone five in Walton County. County children residing in zone five were to attend school in the adjacent, independent school district in the city of Social Circle.
On August 8, 1971, appellant Walton County Board of Education moved the district court to amend its 1968 decree and to return county students residing in zone five to Walton County schools. The district court denied this request. Apparently, the attendance zone system operated effectively for many years, until the last few years when it was alleged that approximately one-hundred county children residing in zone five were attending Walton County schools. In November 1979, the appellee Social Circle Board of Education moved the district court for an order enforcing the court's original 1968 decree. At that point, a group of predominantly white parents, known as the Concerned Citizens of Walton County, moved the district court for permission to intervene in the case. That motion was granted. The appellants-intervenors immediately filed a motion to vacate the 1968 decree and dismiss the action for mootness, asserting that the graduation, or departure, from school of the original named plaintiffs and the failure of the district court to certify the case as a class action mooted the action. In order to quell the mootness claim, a motion was filed to add two black children enrolled at Social Circle High School as plaintiffs in the case.
On August 26, 1980, the district court entered an order amending its original 1968 decree by establishing new guidelines for the transfer of students; but, the order retained the provision requiring county children living in zone five to attend school in Social Circle. The intervenors-appellants appealed.
This court on March 13, 1981, in an unpublished opinion, remanded the case to the district court. We found the record inadequate for appellate review inasmuch as the district court had before it several motions, based upon many of the same issues raised on appeal, upon which it had not ruled. On July 27, 1981, the district court entered its "Order Disposing of All Pending Motions" adding additional plaintiffs and vacating its previous decision allowing the Walton County Parents to intervene. The county parents appealed.
Pursuant to Fed.Rule Civ.Proc. 59, appellant Walton County Board of Education moved the district court for an express determination of its request to modify the original 1968 decree and to return zone five county students to Walton County schools. On March 16, 1981, the district court denied the appellant county board's motion for relief. The appellant county board appealed.
The appellants-intervenors contend 1) that the lack of class certification of the action and the change in status of the original plaintiffs since the commencement of the suit rendered the action moot, thus depriving the district court of power to add additional plaintiffs under Fed.R.Civ.P. 21; and 2) that the district court in its order of July 27, 1981, improperly vacated its previous orders permitting Walton County parents to intervene in the case. Appellant Walton County Board of Education asserts on appeal that the district court erred in refusing to amend its original desegregation decree, since changed circumstances justified the elimination of mandatory attendance zones.
The appellants-intervenors seek to set aside the July 27, 1981 order of the district court granting the appellee school board's motion to add plaintiffs under Fed.R.Civ.P. 21. 1 The appellants-intervenors assert that the lack of class certification of the action and the graduation, or departure, of the original plaintiffs from the Social Circle school system rendered the action moot, thus depriving the district court of power to grant the subsequent motion to add the proposed party plaintiffs.
The parties agree that the original plaintiffs in this action no longer have a live stake in its continued litigation; their claims are moot. Article III of the Constitution imposes a threshold requirement that those who seek to invoke the power of federal courts must allege an actual case or controversy. As noted by the Supreme Court in its per curiam opinion in DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312, 316, 94 S.Ct. 1704, 1705-1706, 40 L.Ed.2d 164 (1974) (citations omitted):
The starting point for analysis is the familiar proposition that 'federal courts are without power to decide questions that cannot affect the rights of litigants in the case before them' ... The inability of the federal judiciary 'to review moot cases derives from the requirement of Art. III of the Constitution under which the exercise of judicial power depends upon the existence of a case or controversy....'
The Article III "case or controversy" jurisdictional requirement is further explicated by the Court in Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 402, 95 S.Ct. 553, 558, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975) (footnotes omitted):
There must not only be a named plaintiff who has such a case or controversy at the time the complaint is filed, and at the time the class action is certified by the District Court pursuant to Rule 23, but there must be a live controversy at the time this Court reviews the case. SEC v. Medical Committee for Human Rights (404 U.S. 403, 92 S.Ct. 577, 30 L.Ed.2d 560 (1972) ), supra. The controversy may exist, however, between a named defendant and a member of the class represented by the named plaintiff, even though the claim of the above plaintiff has become moot.
Although appellants-intervenors admit that the proposed plaintiffs have a live and concrete interest in the continuance of this litigation, they argue that the mootness of the claims of the original plaintiffs ends the case. Appellants rely primarily on Indianapolis School Commissioners v. Jacobs, 420 U.S. 128, 95 S.Ct. 848, 43 L.Ed.2d 74 (1974) and its progeny. In Jacobs the plaintiff prevailed both in the district court and in the court of appeals as if on a class action, although no order was officially entered certifying it as such. During oral argument in the Supreme Court, it was revealed that the action was moot as to the individual plaintiff. The Supreme Court determined that the mootness of the individual claim rendered the suit subject to dismissal, since in the absence of actual certification as a class action, the action remained, in the opinion of the Court,...
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Doe v. Bush, Nos. 99-14590
...relief, and was conducted for years as a de facto class action, it should and may be recognized as such"); Graves v. Walton County Bd. of Educ., 686 F.2d 1135, 1139-40 (5th Cir.1982) ("[I]t is clear that despite the lack of a formal order certifying this case as a class suit, this case was ......
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...of boards of education and the district courts to prevent the reestablishment of such school systems." Graves v. Walton County Bd. of Educ., 686 F.2d 1135, 1143 (5th Cir.1982). We are also satisfied based on our review of the record that modification of the Finger Plan is achievable without......
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