Griffin v. Singletary
| Decision Date | 29 March 1994 |
| Docket Number | 92-2163 and 92-2996,Nos. 92-2000,s. 92-2000 |
| Parties | 64 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 516, 64 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 42,968 Peners L. GRIFFIN, Henry L. Dejerinett, Plaintiffs, Alvin Smith, Intervenor-Appellant, v. Harry K. SINGLETARY, Jr., State of Florida Department of Corrections, State of Florida, Defendants-Appellees, Louie L. Wainwright, Raymond W. Geary, Defendants, Samuel Platt, David Baber, Romeo Cozart, Marvin Jones, Michael Oyefesobi, Movants-Appellants. Peners L. GRIFFIN, Henry L. Dejerinett, Plaintiffs-Appellants, Alvin Smith, John Butler, Intervening Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Harry K. SINGLETARY, Jr., State of Florida Department of Corrections, State of Florida, Defendants-Appellees, Louie L. Wainwright, Raymond W. Geary, Defendants. Samuel PLATT, Michael Anderson, Sandra Anderson, Gary Black, Nelson Brooks, Jr., Laurene Brown, Tommie Brown, Curtis Carter, Willie Clark, Julius Hope, Billy Givens, James Haynes, Davis Henderson, Jimmy Hodore, Mamie Jackson, Gary Jones, James McNealey, Iola Rivers, Johnnie Vance, Diann Walker, etc., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, the Florida Department of Corrections, Harry K. Singletary, Jr., etc., Defendants-Appellees. Jimmie Lee SADDLER, Tom Carter, Jr., Lillie Mae Lewis, Blake T. Moore, Sr., Sylvia Jean Forward, Anthony Brown, Robert Hallback, Henry Chandler, Walter Everitt, Jr., etc., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, the Florida Department of Corrections, Harry K. Singletary, Jr., etc., Defendants-Appellees. Brenda ASHLEY, Bernice Hizine Atkins, Louise Baker, Gary Black, Ronald J. Baker, Sr., Nelson Brooks, Jr., Brenda Brown, Yvonne Hampton Brown, Horace Calhoun, III, et al., etc., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, the Florida Department of Corrections, Harry K. Singletary, Jr., etc., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Jerry Traynham, Patterson & Traynham, Tallahassee, FL, for appellants.
Harry F. Chiles, Asst. Atty. Gen., Atty. Gen.'s Office Dept. of Legal Affairs, Bruce Minnick, Charles T. Collette, Mang, Rett & Collette, P.A., Tallahassee, FL, for appellees.
Rebecca Southwell Conlan, Tallahassee, FL, for Singletary, State of Florida, Dept. of Corrections.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
Before DUBINA and CARNES, Circuit Judges, and MORGAN, Senior Circuit Judge.
This case presents the question whether the pendency of a Title VII class action tolls the administrative charge-filing period for the class members when class certification is vacated because the representative failed to make a timely filing with the EEOC. We hold that it does toll the period for those wishing to bring individual suits but does not for those wishing to bring class action suits.
This lawsuit was filed in 1979 by Peners L. Griffin as an "across-the-board" class action, under Fifth Circuit precedent that allowed a plaintiff who alleged pervasive discrimination to raise claims, on behalf of a class, that were different from his individual claims. Griffin, whose individual claim was that the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) denied him several promotions and twice dismissed him because of his race, alleged in the class action that the defendants violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.A. Secs. 2000e to 2000e-17 (1981 & Supp.1993), as well as 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1983 (1981), by discriminating against blacks in recruiting, hiring, assigning jobs, and making promotions; by maintaining a racially biased workplace; and by requiring that applicants for correctional officer positions have a high school diploma and pass a written examination, both of which have a disparate impact on blacks.
In 1980, the district court granted Griffin leave to amend his complaint to add Henry Dejerinett as a party-plaintiff and a class representative. Dejerinett, who is black, had applied for a clerical position, for which the written exam was not required, and had not been hired. In 1981, the district court preliminarily certified a class of "all past, present, and potential black employees of the State of Florida Department of Corrections," after the parties stipulated that the allegations were common to that class.
In 1982, the defendants moved to vacate the class certification, based on the decision of the Supreme Court in General Tel. Co. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 157-61, 102 S.Ct. 2364, 2370-72, 72 L.Ed.2d 740 (1982), reversing a Fifth Circuit decision permitting an "across-the-board" class action. At that point, Alvin Smith, who had twice applied for a position as a correctional officer and twice been rejected, moved to intervene. Smith was first rejected because he did not have a high school diploma. After getting a GED in 1981, Smith reapplied, but failed the written exam. The defendants contended that Smith could not be a class representative because he had failed to file a timely complaint with the EEOC. The district court denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment and allowed Smith to intervene. The court then granted partial summary judgment for the plaintiffs, finding that the FDOC's use of the written exam had a disparate impact on black applicants and was not justified by business necessity, thereby violating Title VII. The court left pending the issue of relief. In August 1982, shortly after the court granted summary judgment, the defendants ceased using the written examination.
In 1985, the district court certified for interlocutory appeal its decision to permit Griffin, Dejerinett, and Smith to serve as representatives for a class that included applicants claiming they were discriminated against by the FDOC's use of the written test. This Court granted the defendants permission to appeal, and, in Griffin v. Dugger, 823 F.2d 1476, 1494 (11th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1005, 108 S.Ct. 1729, 100 L.Ed.2d 193 (1988), vacated the district court's order certifying the class. We held that Griffin could not represent those with testing claims, because under Falcon he had no constitutional standing to assert a testing claim (not having been injured by the test), and because he did not meet the requirements of Rule 23(a) for representing those with testing claims. Id. at 1483-84 & n. 17 (citing Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a)). Dejerinett, who applied for a clerical position, was not required to have a high school diploma or to take the written exam, and therefore also "lacked constitutional standing to assert a testing or a hiring claim arising out of the [FDOC's] correctional officer application process." Id. at 1491. Smith, on the other hand, did have constitutional standing to assert a testing claim under Title VII, because he had failed the exam and been rejected. Id. at 1492. However, because Smith had failed to file a timely charge of racial discrimination with the EEOC as required by 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. 2000e-5(e) (1981 & Supp.1993), we held that the district court erred in allowing Smith to intervene as a class representative. Id. Concluding that "[n]one of the named plaintiffs ... should have been allowed to represent the class of black correctional officer applicants with testing claims," we vacated the district court order certifying the class. Id. at 1494.
On remand, Griffin and Dejerinett moved for leave to amend their complaint in an effort to correct the defects found by the prior panel; Smith moved for leave to amend his intervenor's complaint, and five would-be intervenors (Platt, Baber, Cozart, Jones, and Oyefesobi) moved to intervene as class representatives for the vacated testing class. All moved for recertification of the class. The district court denied Platt, Baber, Cozart, Jones, and Oyefesobi's motion to intervene, and vacated its order granting partial summary judgment on the testing issue as well as its order allowing Smith to intervene. The court also dismissed the high school diploma claim. Finally, the court denied Griffin and Dejerinett's motion to amend their complaint, denied Smith's motion to amend his intervenor's complaint, and denied the motion to recertify the class.
The court then entered final judgment for the defendants. The five movant-intervenors now appeal the district court's order denying them leave to intervene. Griffin, Dejerinett, and Smith appeal the order denying leave to amend their complaints and entering judgment for the defendants. Those appeals were given numbers 92-2000 and 92-2163, respectively.
After this Court's decision in Griffin, several groups of those members of the former plaintiff class who had failed the examination filed actions challenging the use of the test for themselves and on behalf of the class that the district court had originally certified. The Platt group consisted of twenty plaintiffs who filed suit, relying, under the "single-filing rule," on the charge Platt had filed with the EEOC in March 1986. The nine plaintiffs in the Saddler case relied on a charge that plaintiff Henry Chandler had filed with the EEOC in 1987. The thirty-three plaintiffs in the Ashley case all had filed charges with the EEOC shortly after the Griffin decision in 1987.
The defendants moved to strike the class allegations from the complaints in each of the three cases. The district court denied class certification in the Platt case and granted the motions to strike the class allegations in the Saddler and Ashley cases. The court consolidated the Platt, Saddler, and Ashley cases, and then granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, on the ground that no plaintiff had filed a timely charge with the EEOC. All of the plaintiffs appealed, and their appeal was given number 92-2996. We will refer to all of the appellants in this group collectively as the Platt appellants or the Platt plaintiffs. Appeal number 92-2996 was consolidated with the two appeals from the Griffin litigation.
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Armstrong v. Martin Marietta Corp.
...expect to receive relief through the already-filed class action. See id. at 350-51, 103 S.Ct. at 2396; see also Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356, 360 (11th Cir.1994) ("Insofar as the individual claims are concerned, putative class members should be entitled to rely on a class action as lo......
-
Arctic Slope Native Association, Ltd. v. Sebelius
...members of the class who would have been parties if the suit had been permitted to continue as a class action, see Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356, 360-61 (11th Cir.1994); Andrews v. Orr, 851 F.2d 146, 149 (6th Cir.1988); Sharpe v. Am. Express Co., 689 F.Supp. 294 (S.D.N.Y.1988); see als......
-
Smith v. Texaco, Inc.
...lawsuits and not further class actions. See, e.g., Basch v. Ground Round, Inc., 139 F.3d 6, 10-11 (1st Cir.1998); Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356, 359-60 (11th Cir. 1994); Andrews v. Orr, 851 F.2d 146, 149-50 (6th Cir.1988); Korwek v. Hunt, 827 F.2d 874, 879 (2d Cir.1987); Robbin v. Fluo......
-
Barkley v. Woodbury Cnty.
...Valley Farmers Association, 765 F.2d 1334, 1351 (5th Cir.1985); Andrews v. Orr, 851 F.2d 146, 149 (6th Cir.1988); and Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356 (11th Cir.1994) (all holding that the successive suits cannot proceed as class actions), with Yang v. Odom, 392 F.3d 97, 111 (3d Cir.2004)......
-
11th Circ. Strikes Back At Untimely Piggyback' Class Actions
...decisions of the Third, Eighth and Ninth Circuits. The Eleventh Circuit based its decision on its 1994 ruling in Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356 (11th Cir. 1994), which established the generally applicable rule that a proposed class action does not toll the limitations period under the p......
-
Eleventh Circuit Reaffirms Rejection Of 'Piggybacking' In Class Actions
...issue was whether the Ewing class action was time-barred in light of the Eleventh Circuit's precedent in Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356 (11th Cir. 1994) (hereinafter, "Griffin II"). As in the Ewing case, Griffin II also involved seriatim class actions. In that lengthy action, a plaintif......
-
Too Little, Too Late: Eleventh Circuit Rejects Multiple Bites At The Apple For Class Claims
...Opinion The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the District Court's ruling. It relied heavily on a twenty-year old ruling in Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356 (11th Cir. 1994) ("Griffin II"), which established a no "piggy backing" rule to avoid class actions piggy backing "one after another in an a......
-
Former Dukes Class Members Foiled By Eleventh Circuits 'No Piggybacking' Rule
...class claims were time-barred by virtue of the Eleventh Circuit's "no piggybacking" rule, as set forth in Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356 (11th Cir. 1994). In Griffin, the Eleventh Circuit held that "the pendency of a previously filed class action does not toll the limitations period for......
-
Table of Cases
...In re , 527 F. Supp. 2d 1011 (N.D. Cal. 2007), 113 Grasby v. Merck Frost Canada Ltd., 2007 MBQB 97 (Can.), 280 Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356 (11th Cir. 1994), 94 Grimes v. Invention Submission Corp., 2005 WL 6042731 (W.D. Okla. 2005), 203 Gulfstream III Assocs. v. Gulfstream Aerospace ......
-
Deciding Whether to Opt Out of the Class Action
...one class action onto another’ and thereby engage in endless rounds of litigation” (citation omitted)), and Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356, 359 (11th Cir. 1994) (same), with Yang v. Odom, 392 F.3d 97, 111 (3d Cir. 2004) (“[W]e hold that where class certification has been denied solely o......