M.R. v. Board of School Commissioners

286 F.R.D. 510, 83 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1433, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154500, 2012 WL 5292986
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Alabama
DecidedOctober 29, 2012
DocketCivil Action No. 11-0245-WS-C
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 286 F.R.D. 510 (M.R. v. Board of School Commissioners) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
M.R. v. Board of School Commissioners, 286 F.R.D. 510, 83 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1433, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154500, 2012 WL 5292986 (S.D. Ala. 2012).

Opinion

ORDER

WILLIAM H. STEELE, Chief Judge.

This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiffs’ Motion for Class Certification (doe. 84). The Motion has been briefed, and the parties have been afforded a full opportunity to present evidence and argument in support of their respective positions on the class certification issue. The Motion is now ripe for disposition.

I. Background.

This putative class action is brought by seven Mobile County Public School System (“MCPS”) students against the Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County (the “Board”) alleging certain constitutional deprivations. All of the named plaintiffs have been long-term suspended (meaning that they were suspended for a period exceeding 10 consecutive school days) from the MCPS schools they attend. The well-pleaded factual allegations of the Amended Complaint state that these students were not given proper notice or a hearing by the Board before such suspensions were imposed. In plaintiffs’ view, the Fourteenth Amendment requires that “school administrators must provide students with notice and a fair hearing before punishing them with long-term suspensions” (doc. 91, ¶ 1), yet plaintiffs received no such procedural safeguards. Plaintiffs maintain that there is a “custom and practice of many school administrators in the MCPSS of long-term suspending students without first providing notice of proposed suspensions and hearings so that students and parents can challenge those suspensions.” (Id., ¶2.) The Amended Complaint alleges that this purported custom and practice violates students’ procedural due process rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Significantly, the Amended Complaint specifies with crystalline clarity that plaintiffs do not seek an award of monetary damages. Rather, their “Prayer for Relief’ is confined to declaratory and injunctive relief, including a declaration that the Board’s custom and practice of imposing long-term suspensions without notice and a hearing violate the procedural due process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as an injunction requiring the Board to provide written notice and a hearing before the imposition of long-term suspensions. (Doc. 91, at 38.) In other words, the seven named plaintiffs in this case are not asking for money, but are instead seeking an order from this Court obligating the Board to require schools to provide notice and a hearing before long-term suspensions are imposed in the MCPS system from this moment forward.1

The named plaintiffs do not proceed solely in their own names; rather, their pleadings make clear that they also purport to be bringing this action against the Board on [513]*513behalf of a class of similarly situated students. In the “Class Allegations” section of the Amended Complaint, plaintiffs propose the following class definition: “All current and future MCPSS students who have been or may be suspended for more than ten consecutive school days (1) without being provided a written notice of proposed suspension (‘notice’), (2) without being provided a due process hearing attended by both the student and his/her parent/guardian (‘hearing’), or (3) without being provided both notice and hearing.” (Doc. 91, ¶288.) Plaintiffs have now moved for certification of this proposed class under the procedure prescribed by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Defendant opposes class certification.

II. Analysis.

A. Rule 23 Standard.

Plaintiffs’ Motion for Class Certification is governed by the standards set forth in Rule 23, Fed.R.Civ.P. See Valley Drug Co. v. Geneva Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 350 F.3d 1181, 1187 (11th Cir.2003) (explaining that Rule 23 furnishes “legal roadmap” which courts follow in assessing propriety of class certification). In that regard, the Eleventh Circuit has instructed that “[a] district court must conduct a rigorous analysis of the rule -23 prerequisites before certifying a class.” Vega v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 564 F.3d 1256, 1266 (11th Cir.2009) (citations omitted). Although this inquiry is not intended to be a preliminary adjudication of the merits,2 it is also true that “[frequently that ‘rigorous analysis’ will entail some overlap with the merits of the plaintiffs underlying claim. That cannot be helped.” Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, -U.S.-, 131 S.Ct. 2541, 2551, 180 L.Ed.2d 374 (2011); see also Fisher v. Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., 238 F.R.D. 273, 296 (S.D.Ala.2006) (“this Circuit’s jurisprudence recognizes that merits and Rule 23 issues are often intertwined, such that addressing Rule 23 criteria often requires some foray into the merits”).

“For a district court to certify a class action, the named plaintiffs must have standing, and the putative class must meet each of the requirements specified in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a), as well as at least one of the requirements set forth in Rule 23(b).” Klay v. Humana, Inc., 382 F.3d 1241, 1250 (11th Cir.2004) (footnote omitted); see also Valley Drug, 350 F.3d at 1188 (“Failure to establish any one of [the Rule 23(a) ] factors and at least one of the alternative requirements of Rule 23(b) precludes class certification.”). It is well settled that “[t]he burden of proof to establish the propriety of class certification rests with the advocate of the class.” Valley Drug, 350 F.3d at 1187; see also Vega, 564 F.3d at 1267 (“a plaintiff still bears the burden of establishing every element of Rule 23”); De Leon-Granados v. Eller and Sons Trees, Inc., 497 F.3d 1214, 1220 (11th Cir.2007) (“A party seeking to maintain a class action bears the burden of demonstrating that class certification is proper.”).3 As such, it is plaintiffs’ responsibility to show that all of the prerequisites for class certification are satisfied here (i.e., that class certification is appropriate under Rule 23).

Here, the Motion for Class Certification may be resolved in its entirety by examination of the questions of standing and the Rule 23(b) factors. Accordingly, the analysis will focus on these particular issues as briefed in the parties’ class certification submissions.

B. Standing.

As a threshold matter, the Board challenges whether plaintiffs have Article III standing to pursue their claims for injunctive and declaratory relief. In this Circuit, “it is [514]*514well-settled that prior to the certification of a class, and technically speaking before undertaking any formal typicality or commonality review, the district court must determine that at least one named class representative has Article III standing to raise each class subclaim.” Prado-Steiman ex rel. Prado v. Bush, 221 F.3d 1266, 1279 (11th Cir.2000); see also Murray v. U.S. Bank Trust Nat’l Ass’n,

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286 F.R.D. 510, 83 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1433, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154500, 2012 WL 5292986, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mr-v-board-of-school-commissioners-alsd-2012.