Berkley v. United States

45 Fed. Cl. 224, 1999 U.S. Claims LEXIS 266, 1999 WL 1007247
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedNovember 5, 1999
DocketNo. 98-943C
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 45 Fed. Cl. 224 (Berkley v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Berkley v. United States, 45 Fed. Cl. 224, 1999 U.S. Claims LEXIS 266, 1999 WL 1007247 (uscfc 1999).

Opinion

OPINION

HORN, Judge.

FACTS

Plaintiffs, Ronald F. Berkley, Michael C. Hall, Forrest Joe Lykins, Jr., Leonard H. Mattingly, Jr., Thomas William Stanley, Mark Stephen Welte, Mark E. LaFlamme, David Paul Wilson, Michael H. Deal, Douglas Clayton Kinneard and James B. Freeman, Jr., brought this action on behalf of them[226]*226selves and approximately 1,595 other similarly situated former commissioned officers of the United States Air Force. The plaintiffs were considered and selected for involuntary separation from the United States Air Force by the Fiscal Year 1993 Reduction-In-Force Board (FY93 RIF Board). Plaintiffs allege that the FY93 RIF Board violated their Fifth Amendment right to equal protection of the law under the United States Constitution Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that, based on a Memorandum of Instruction issued by the Secretary of the Air Force, the FY93 RIF Board unfairly took into account racial and gender characteristics when it considered which Air Force officers would be selected for involuntary separation.

The Air Force established the FY93 RIF Board to screen candidates for involuntary separation. According to the plaintiffs, the Secretary of the Air Force issued a written “Memorandum of Instruction,” the purpose of which was to provide guidance to the FY93 RIF Board. The plaintiffs allege that the Secretary directed the FY93 RIF Board to consider the racial, ethnic, and gender classification of each commissioned officer when considering candidates for separation. Plaintiffs maintain that as a result of the Secretary’s guidance, evidenced by the Secretary’s Memorandum, they were unjustly chosen for early separation. The plaintiffs assert that there is a common legal issue which has equal application to the group of commissioned officers who were involuntarily separated by the FY93 RIF Board. Plaintiffs further contend that all members of the potential class can be readily identified from Air Force records. The plaintiffs maintain that whether the constitutional rights of the 1,595 potential class members were violated and how such violations apply to those commissioned officers are questions of law which predominate over any separate factual issues. Therefore, according to the plaintiffs, the case is suitable for class certification. The plaintiffs move this court to certify as a class all commissioned officers of the United States Air Force who were considered by and selected for involuntary separation from the United States Air Force by the FY93 RIF Board. The plaintiffs rely on Quinault Allottee Ass’n v. United States, 197 Ct.Cl. 134, 453 F.2d 1272 (1972), as support for their request to certify a class and argue that the eight criteria identified in that case for determining whether class certification is appropriate have been met.

The defendant claims that the proposed class is insufficient in number because it actually consists of multiple sub-groups, and 130 members of the proposed 1,595 member class are barred from asserting their claims by the statute of limitations. Defendant also argues that class certification is inapplicable because of the difficulty in fashioning an appropriate remedy. The defendant claims that the multiple sub-groups consist of dissimilar groups of men and women, including male members of identifiable minority groups, female members of minority groups, and some of both genders who were awaiting disciplinary or separation proceedings at the time of the FY93 RIF Board’s review. The defendant, therefore, argues that the proposed class actually is splintered into numerous separate groups and that the individual segments are not large enough for certification. The defendant also submits that certification is inappropriate because in order to resolve the lawsuit, different case specific, factual findings on employment status and damages will be required regarding each of the 1,595 potential plaintiffs.

DISCUSSION

Class actions provide courts with the opportunity to promote good litigation management by balancing among a variety of competing interests, including time, efficiency, cost, and the right of individual plaintiffs to file complaints to redress perceived wrongs, preventing a multiplicity of suits based on a common wrong to all. Green v. Wolf Corp., 406 F.2d 291, 300 (2nd Cir.1968), cert. denied, 395 U.S. 977, 89 S.Ct. 2131, 23 L.Ed.2d 766 (1969). The courts also long have recognized the need for an avenue to redress wrongs, which otherwise would be unremediable, because the individual claims involved are too small, or the claimants are too widely dispersed. Id. at 297. Consequently, the class action procedure was created to allow a few representatives to sue on behalf of others similarly situated in order to obtain a judg[227]*227ment which would bind all. Id.; see, e.g. Smith v. Swormstedt, 57 U.S. 288, 302, 16 How. 288, 14 L.Ed. 942 (1853).

The United States Supreme Court recently discussed the historical use of the class action by noting the following:

Although representative suits have been recognized in various forms since the earliest days of English law, class actions as we recognize them today developed as an exception to the formal rigidity of the necessary parties rule in equity, as well as from the bill of peace, an equitable device for combining multiple suits. The necessary parties rule in equity mandated that “all persons materially interested, either as plaintiffs or defendants in the subject matter of the bill ought to be made parties to the suit, however numerous they may be.” But because that rule would at times unfairly deny recovery to the party before the court, equity developed exceptions, among them one to cover situations “where the parties are very numerous, and the court perceives, that it will be impossible to bring them all before the court; or where the question is of general interest, and a few may sue for the benefit of the whole; or where the parties form a part of a voluntary association for public or private purposes, and may be fairly supposed to represent the rights and interest of the whole____’’From these roots, the modern class action practice emerged____

Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U.S. 815, 119 S.Ct. 2295, 2308, 144 L.Ed.2d 715 (1999) (citations omitted).

Rule 23 of the Rules of the United States Court of Federal Claims (RCFC) allows the court broad discretion to determine under what terms and conditions to certify a class.1 RCFC 23 provides:

A motion to certify a class action shall be filed with the complaint and comply with Rule 3(c), with service to be made as provided in Rule 4. The court shall determine in each case whether a class action may be maintained and under what terms and conditions.

RCFC 23.

Although RCFC 23 does not offer specific criteria for determining when class certification is appropriate, the defendant argues that the United States Court of Federal Claims and its predecessor courts have “generally disfavored” class action suits, reserving them only for extraordinary cases, citing an opinion issued earlier by this court, Hannon v. United States, 31 Fed.Cl. 98, 102 (1994).2

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Bluebook (online)
45 Fed. Cl. 224, 1999 U.S. Claims LEXIS 266, 1999 WL 1007247, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/berkley-v-united-states-uscfc-1999.