Hopewell v. University of Pittsburgh

79 F.R.D. 689, 22 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1371, 26 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 951, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15492
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedSeptember 18, 1978
DocketCiv. A. No. 76-1055
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 79 F.R.D. 689 (Hopewell v. University of Pittsburgh) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hopewell v. University of Pittsburgh, 79 F.R.D. 689, 22 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1371, 26 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 951, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15492 (W.D. Pa. 1978).

Opinion

OPINION

McCUNE, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, Rebecca Hopewell, Eunice G. Stewart, Gloria Proctor and Carol E. Wise have brought this action against defendants, the University of Pittsburgh (University) and the Board of Trustees of the University, asserting individual and class claims arising out of alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. They now move for certification of this suit as a class action pursuant to Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (Rule 23), subsequent to extensive discovery on class issues. The class asserted includes a wide range of non-faculty, black employees employed at the main campus of the University, located in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who have allegedly suffered a wide range of discriminatory employment practices. After consideration of the arguments of the parties and the already voluminous record at this juncture, it is apparent that plaintiffs have not shown that common questions of law or fact predominate among the class members of a University-wide class, as required by Rule 23. Further, the named plaintiffs do not present claims typical of all class members asserted, due to the wide divergence of jobs held by the class which plaintiffs seek to represent. Because the claims they assert relate to violations directed largely at named plaintiffs, individually there is no evidence that these violations result from a general policy, custom, or practice of the University, or a failure to discourage individual acts of discrimination by the University, plaintiffs’ motion to certify a University-wide class is denied.

I

The Class Asserted

The Class which plaintiffs presently1 assert is composed of black persons who have been employed in three basic groups of job categories at the University: professional non-faculty jobs, technical or paraprofessional jobs, and secretarial or clerical jobs. These three categories contain 42 separate job descriptions as categorized in the Uni[692]*692versity employment records. Each of these 42 job descriptions call for a separate pay schedule. In excess of 300 people are involved. The jobs range from computer programmers being paid an average base monthly salary over the period in question of $902.65, to assistant coaches being paid a base monthly salary of $1302.24 over the period in question, to clerical aides being paid a base monthly salary of $406.71 over the period in question. There is no indication of which offices or divisions (hiring units) of the University employ class members. It can be assumed, however, that persons holding secretarial or clerical positions would be employed in almost every office or division of the University. The wide dispersion of class members creates unique class difficulties due to the manner in which the University is organized.

The University of Pittsburgh is a large metropolitan University with branch campuses in several regional communities. The University educates approximately 35,000 students each year in its various schools. Administration of the University, due to its size and diversity, is decentralized. Each of 125 Departments, Divisions, Projects, and Special Centers constitutes an administrative unit of the University for purposes of day to day governance. Within these large units are approximately 300 sub-units referred to as budget units. A budget unit may be as small as one faculty member working on a limited project funded by an institutional grant. Hiring and personnel decisions and policies arise from these administrative and budget units. Insofar as individual employees are concerned, employment practices (including hiring, assignment of work, promotion, transfer into the department, merit salary increases, discipline, discharge and layoffs) emanate from these small units and effect only persons employed by these units.

The University maintains a personnel office which deals with personnel practices on a broader scale than the budget units. The personnel office is responsible for the preliminary recruitment and interviewing of job applicants. A pool of applicants is created from which the hiring unit selects the applicants it wishes to hire. The supervisor of a potential employee approves the applicant and directs the personnel office to extend a formal offer of employment. As a result, employment is a two level process. General University-wide employment practices are limited to the manner in which the applicant pool is created in the first step of the process. The second step, the actual hiring and general employment decisions, is directed by numerous autonomous administrative units. The class plaintiffs assert is employed by many, if not all, of these small units. As a result, the practices plaintiffs complain of are instituted by as many as a hundred or more unit administrators.

Plaintiffs assert that the members of the class as now defined have suffered a wide range of salary and hiring deprivations due to employment discrimination by these administrators. Plaintiffs allege that the administrators have restricted the hiring, classification and assignment of blacks to “low-paying, low-opportunity” jobs. They argue that in promotion, transfer, training and seniority policies, the University administrators impermissably discriminate on the basis of race. Finally, they allege generally that the University discriminates against blacks in “other terms and conditions of employment.” None of these practices complained of by plaintiffs arise from the personnel office in that plaintiffs do not challenge the manner in which the pool of applicants is created. All decisions relating to the practices plaintiffs question as discriminatory emanate from administrative units.

All of the factual allegations of discrimination made by plaintiffs can be broken down into two categories for purposes of analysis: hiring complaints and salary complaints. These complaints constitute the common questions of this action. Plaintiffs have given no indication of what might constitute their general complaints. Therefore, this category cannot be analyzed. Since plaintiffs assert two disparate factual patterns of discrimination, each type must be considered in relation to the [693]*693class asserted in order that the question of whether these complaints are common to the members of the class can be answered.

II

Commonality

The four requirements of Rule 23(a) must be satisfied before an action can be certified as a class action, even in situations where certification would be otherwise salutory. East Texas Motor Freight System, Inc. v. Rodriguez, 431 U.S. 395, 97 S.Ct. 1891, 52 L.Ed.2d 453 (1977). Rule 23(a) requires, inter alia, that for an action to be certified as a class action, there must be “questions of law or fact common to the class.” In most Title VII actions this requirement of commonality is easily met, since impermissible discrimination is by its nature directed at a class of persons.

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79 F.R.D. 689, 22 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1371, 26 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 951, 1978 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15492, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hopewell-v-university-of-pittsburgh-pawd-1978.