R.C. v. Walley, No. 07-10667 (11th Cir. 3/27/2008), 07-10667.

• Decision Date: 27 March 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07-10667.,07-10667.
• Parties: R.C., by his next friend the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Project, and on behalf of those similarly situated, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PAGE WALLEY, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Human Resources, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

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R.C., by his next friend the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Project, and on behalf of those similarly situated, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PAGE WALLEY, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Human Resources, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 07-10667.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

March 27, 2008.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama; D.C. Docket No. 88-01170-CV-D-N-2.

Before TJOFLAT, ANDERSON and HILL, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

This appeal arises from the termination of a consent decree in a class action institutional reform case brought in the late 1980s on behalf of a class of children in Alabama's child welfare system ("the Class"). The consent decree at issue was entered into between the Class and the Alabama Department of Human Resources ("DHR") in 1991, and later revised in 1999. In 2004, the State sought termination of the decree but was unsuccessful. In January of 2007, the district court, after a lengthy discovery period but without holding an evidentiary hearing, granted DHR's renewed motion for termination. The Class now appeals (1) the court's failure to grant the Class an evidentiary hearing prior to termination and (2) the court's termination of the consent decree. We find no abuse of discretion in the district court's rulings below.

The parties are familiar with the facts, and this case has also been the subject of two recent published district court opinions, see R.C. v. Walley, 475 F. Supp. 2d 1118 (M.D. Ala. 2007) [hereinafter R.C. II], and R.C. v. Walley, 390 F. Supp. 2d 1030 (M.D. Ala. 2005). The Middle District of Alabama has nurtured this institutional reform case for the better part of two decades, first under Judge Hobbs and since the mid-nineties under Judge DeMent. The significant improvement of Alabama's child welfare system over the last twenty years is as much a testament to the exemplary judicial oversight of these judges as it is to the collaborative efforts of the parties.

Besides challenging the termination of the consent decree, the Class's central argument on appeal is that the district court should have permitted the Class an evidentiary hearing prior to ordering termination of the decree. We review the district court's denial of the evidentiary hearing for abuse of discretion. Loyd v. Ala. Dep't of Corrs., 176 F.3d 1336, 1339 (11th Cir. 1999). This Court does not require a court to order an evidentiary hearing when there is sufficient evidence before the court to render a just and equitable determination on the written record. See, e.g., FDIC v. Morley, 915 F.2d 1517, 1522 (11th Cir. 1990) ("Parties entitled to such process cannot, however choose the precise process they desire. . . . Procedures providing less than a full evidentiary hearing have often satisfied due process."); United States v. Diaz, 811 F.2d 1412, 1414 (11th Cir. 1987) (finding no abuse of discretion when the court denied an evidentiary hearing in bond remission case because "judge ha[d] all the necessary facts to make a just and equitable determination of the case").¹

The State filed its second motion to terminate the consent decree in August of 2005, to which the plaintiffs responded with a brief and evidentiary support. The court formally reopened discovery following the motion to terminate, during which time the defendants produced more than 50,000 documents, the plaintiffs took three depositions,² and there were two court monitor reports submitted to the court. Further, the consent decree itself required that the Class have access to any and all data and records it might need to represent the Class in the litigation. The district court had conferred with the parties, permitted introduction of evidence, and issued a published opinion on the very same issues that were before the court in the State's second motion to terminate. This case does not present a situation where the plaintiff was denied, in any real sense, a meaningful opportunity to introduce evidence before the court or to be heard. The district court's exhaustive, detailed, and thorough opinion emphasizes that it reached the decision to terminate after a review of all evidence submitted to it for consideration.

Moreover, on May 8, 2006, after the introduction of the foregoing evidence the district court ordered that the Class, if desired, may file a brief on or before May 18, 2006, that the State may file a reply thereto on or before May 25, 2006, after which the district court would take the matter under consideration, and further argument and evidence would not be permitted. In that May 8, 2006, order, the court expressly indicated that its ruling on the motion to terminate would not require a status conference or oral presentation. The class did file a brief on May 18, 2006, and did make a further evidentiary submission. However, although it was clear that the district court intended to resolve the matter without an evidentiary hearing,³ the Class failed to object thereto, failed to otherwise object to the procedures employed by the district court, and failed to seek further depositions or opportunities to adduce evidence before the district court ruled.⁴ Finally, at oral argument before this court, counsel was unable to point to any particular evidence or argument that the Class was denied an opportunity to present to the district court in the seventeen months between the determination motion and the court's ruling.

Because the Class was given ample and multiple opportunities to present evidence and make arguments to the court, had the right to conduct extensive investigations and discovery under the court's order and by the terms of the consent decree, had notice of the court's intent to rule without a hearing but failed to raise a specific objection to this procedure, and fails now to point clearly to material factual disputes in the record that could have made a hearing valuable,⁵ we find no abuse of discretion in the court's rendering its decision on the extensive paper record before it, especially in light of the court's longstanding relationship with the parties and this case.

We also review the decision to terminate a consent decree for abuse of discretion. Johnson v. Florida, 348 F.3d 1334, 1341 (11th Cir. 2003). In Judge DeMent's meticulous 148-page order, he exhaustively reviewed factors counseling for...