Ramirez v. Webb

102 F.R.D. 968, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24366
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Michigan
DecidedAugust 14, 1984
DocketNo. K 81-344
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 102 F.R.D. 968 (Ramirez v. Webb) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ramirez v. Webb, 102 F.R.D. 968, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24366 (W.D. Mich. 1984).

Opinion

OPINION

ENSLEN, District Judge.

This lawsuit was brought by more than 30 named Plaintiffs against officials and individuals associated with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the United States Border Patrol (USBP). The Plaintiffs are citizens, legal residents, or otherwise legally present individuals of Mexican and Hispanic appearance, who allegedly were subjected to illegal searches, seizures, stops, interrogations, or imprisonments during their presence in western Michigan. The specific acts from which the Plaintiffs infer a class wide harm include automobile stops, warrantless nighttime household searches characterized by Plaintiffs as “raids”, applications of handcuffs and chokeholds on United States citizens who do not carry identification papers, and various other unreasonable acts. The Plaintiffs claim these specific past actions were part of a continuing policy implemented by the INS and USBP in violation of the Plaintiffs’ rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. .Primarily, the Plaintiffs seek injunctive and declaratory relief against further violations directed at the entire class of Mexican and Hispanic appearing' individuals in western Michigan. Additionally, Plaintiffs seek money damages for the specific past acts by the INS and USBP against the named Plaintiffs.

By their present motion, Plaintiffs seek to have certified a class consisting of all persons of Mexican or Hispanic origin or appearance who have been, are, or will be living, working, traveling or visiting within the Western Federal Judicial District of Michigan.

In applying for class certification, the moving party bears the burden of proof. Senter v. General Motors Corporation, 532 F.2d 511 (CA 6 1976), cert. den., 429 U.S. 870, 97 S.Ct. 182, 50 L.Ed.2d 150. The movant must illustrate the applicability of the threshhold requirements of Rule 23(a), specify the type of class under 23(b)(1), (2) or (3), and address the notice issue, if applicable, under Rule 23(c). Shipp v. Memphis Area Office, Tennessee Department of Employment, 581 F.2d 1167 [970]*970(CA 6 1978), cert. den., 440 U.S. 980, 99 S.Ct. 1788, 60 L.Ed.2d 240.

Additionally, there are the obvious, non-codified requirements that the movant must show that he or she is part of the class and possesses the same interest and suffers the same injury as the other class members. General Telephone Company of Southwest v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 102 S.Ct. 2364, 2373, 72 L.Ed.2d 740, 749 (1982), quoting East Texas Motor Freight System, Inc. v. Rodriguez, 431 U.S. 395, 97 S.Ct. 1891, 52 L.Ed.2d 453. Finally, numerous prior judicial rulings instruct the Court to consider intangible aspects of proposed class actions and determine whether the class action form is the most economical and appropriate. E.g., General Telephone, supra.

Clearly, Plaintiffs satisfy the threshold requirements of Rule 23(a): numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representative capability.

In regard to the numerosity prerequisite, the class is, if it is anything, large enough to necessitate class formation. Ignoring seasonal variations and normal demographic fluidity, the class in this case contains approximately 50,000 members, including many thousands of migrant farm workers. There have been much larger classes, Johnson v. City of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 50 F.R.D. 295 (ED La.1970), and much smaller classes, Swanson v. American Consumer Industries, 415 F.2d 1326 (CA 7 1969). Where the relief sought is declaratory in nature, and a reasonably large number has been set, the numerosity prerequisite is satisfied, even if a specific enumer ation is not possible. Northcross v. Board of Education of City of Memphis, 302 F.2d 818 (CA 6 1962), cert. den., 370 U.S. 944, 82 S.Ct. 1586, 8 L.Ed.2d 810; Advisory Committee Note to the 1966 Amendment of Rule 23, 39 F.R.D. 98, 102.

In regard to the commonality prerequisite of Rule 23(a), the proposed class members appear to have suitably common factual and legal interests. Class-wide injunctive or declaratory relief from unconstitutional search and seizure is sought. The alleged Fourth Amendment violations were committed at the behest of two common Defendants and their agents, who were allegedly carrying out a single common policy in cooperation with each other. The policy extends to different settings—work, home, and travel—in which all the class members find themselves at various times.

Defendants assert without case citation or statistical support that the class lacks suitable homegeneity because “the vast majority of the members of the putative class have never been the subject of an INS investigation and do not view the possibility as a matter of paramount concern” (Defendants’ brief at page 4). Regardless of whether Defendants have reliable knowledge of the paramount concerns of the Mexican and Hispanic appearing population in this district, denial of class certification will not necessarily follow from the lack of exposure of each member of the class to the threatened injury. Nor is the Plaintiffs’ class description overly broad, or too vague to suffice. Class certification was granted to a class described as “all persons of Mexican descent and all Spanish surnamed persons in Illinois” in Illinois Migrant Council v. Pilliod, 540 F.2d 1062, 1072 (CA 7 1976). The Pilliod plaintiffs, like the Plaintiffs in this case, sought injunctive relief from INS search and seizure practices.

In general, the Sixth Circuit has held that there need not be a perfect identity of fact and law in each class members’ case; there merely must be a common element of fact and law. Senter, supra, at 525. In this case, Plaintiffs allege generally, and illustrate by specific example that many or all class members suffer actual or threatened harm caused by a single policy implemented by a finite group of agents under INS and USBP central control. That allegation falls well within the parameters of Senter and other authoritative case law.

The “commonality” requirement often merges with the “typicality” requirement. General Telephone Company of Southwest v. Falcon, supra, 102 S.Ct. at 2371 n. [971]*97113. The typicality prerequisite of Rule 23(a) has been construed to require that the relief sought will benefit all class members and that no individual claim within the class be so unique as to impair the necessary alignment of interests.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
102 F.R.D. 968, 1984 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24366, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ramirez-v-webb-miwd-1984.