Vuyanich v. Republic National Bank of Dallas

82 F.R.D. 420, 28 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 272, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12816, 21 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1380
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Texas
DecidedApril 25, 1979
DocketCiv. A. Nos. CA-3-6982-G, CA-3-74-7949-G
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 82 F.R.D. 420 (Vuyanich v. Republic National Bank of Dallas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vuyanich v. Republic National Bank of Dallas, 82 F.R.D. 420, 28 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 272, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12816, 21 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1380 (N.D. Tex. 1979).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER I.

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, District Judge.

Plaintiff Joan Ranee Vuyanich filed this suit on March 22, 1973, alleging Republic [426]*426National Bank discriminated against her on the basis of race and sex. On November 7, 1974, Judge Mahon certified a broad class of women and blacks. Ellen Johnson filed her suit against the defendant on December 3, 1973. After a two-day evidentiary hearing, this court consolidated the Vuyanich and Johnson cases and on March 15, 1978, redefined the class as follows: all females of all races and all blacks of either sex (1) who are or have been employed by the Republic National Bank on or after February 16, 1969, or (2) who applied for employment but were not hired at the Republic National Bank on or after February 16, 1969, to date. The court then set a program for further pretrial events that contemplated further review of the class certification after substantial discovery.

At the anticipated time, the Bank moved to decertify the class or, alternatively, to redefine it more narrowly. Plaintiffs oppose the decertification or redefinition and have proposed the intervention of six additional class members.1 This opinion and order will address both the Bank’s motion and the proposed interventions.

II. STANDING

The Bank contends that Article III of the United States Constitution mandates a redefinition of this class. It argues that a class representative only has standing to raise those class claims that she would be able to assert individually. In other words, it submits that the class device cannot extend the court’s jurisdiction to claims of class members unless the named plaintiff has standing to assert those very claims. Defendant’s contention is unsound for it is too broad. The Bank’s premises are bottomed on a confusion of the requirements of Article III with those of Rule 23.

Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution, both grants and limits judicial power. It provides:

The Judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution [and] the Laws of the United States . . . ; to Controversies .

Inhering in “cases” and “controversies” are dual and complementary limitations which go to the very heart of our constitutional form of government. Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 94, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968). Those words limit the judiciary to consideration of questions “presented in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of resolution through the judicial process.” They also ensure that the courts will not trespass into areas reserved for the legislative and executive branches of government. Id. at 95, 88 S.Ct. at 1950.

Standing, one of several aspects of justiciability,2 focuses on the party bringing the suit. Id. Under Article III, that party must “allegef ] such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues . . . .” Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 703, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962). Absent that injury in fact, the court lacks the power to entertain the suit.

At least one entity before the court must satisfy this injury in fact requirement. The only entity before the court at the inception of a class action is the class representative. Thus the court’s threshold inquiry must be whether the named plaintiff alleges a sufficiently personal stake in the litigation’s outcome to permit his invocation of the court’s power. If he does not assert that he as an individual suffered a concrete injury, then the court’s inquiry must cease. In O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 94 S.Ct. 669, 38 L.Ed.2d 674 (1974), the class representative complained that the defendants engaged in a continuing course of conduct [427]*427under color of state law consisting of illegal bond setting, sentencing and jury fee practices which allegedly violated the constitutional rights of the class members. Because none of the named plaintiffs alleged that he had suffered any injury from these practices, however, the court found that the representatives lacked standing. “[I]f none of the named plaintiffs purporting to represent a class establishes the requisite of a case or controversy with the defendants, none may seek relief on behalf of himself or any other member of the class.” Id. at 494, 94 S.Ct. at 675. See Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U.S. 31, 32-33, 82 S.Ct. 549, 7 L.Ed.2d 512 (1962).

Only after the court has undertaken a Rule 23 analysis and has certified the class does the class become a jural entity, independent of the representative. See Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 95 S.Ct. 553, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975). Once certified, the class too must assert a concrete injury. Requiring injury to the class is a direct byproduct of the class’ jural independence. For example, if after the class has been certified it is determined that in fact the class representative lacked standing, the certified class itself has standing to maintain the appeal. Thus in Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 96 S.Ct. 598, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1976), the Supreme Court found that the class representatives lacked Article III standing to sue. Rather than stopping its analysis at this point, the court noted that the case was not before it on the pleadings — the class had been certified. It then proceeded to examine the merits of the case. Similarly, in Sosna v. Iowa, supra, the court recognized that a class, once certified, gains an independent stature which the mootness of the representative’s claim could not affect.

The Fifth Circuit in its decisions, has also looked both to the class representative and to the class in its inquiry into standing. In Payne v. Travenol Laboratories, Inc., 565 F.2d 895 (5th Cir. 1978), the class representatives who met the employer’s requirement of a tenth grade education at the time suit was filed were found to lack standing to attack that rule. Significantly, when the circuit considered the case, the class had already been certified. The court looked to both the named plaintiff and the certified class to determine standing. The class was explicitly defined so as to exclude those people who lacked tenth grade education. There were thus no circumstances under which that requirement could have caused either the plaintiffs or any member of the class the “distinct and palpable injury” that Article III requires. Finding that neither could possibly have suffered the claimed injury, the court held that Article Ill’s requirements were not satisfied.

For meaningful analysis, this question of whether the entities before the court satisfy Article Ill’s requirement of an injury in fact ought to be separate from and should not be confused with the inquiry into the relationship between the class representative and the putative class. Although courts sometimes mistakenly analyze the link between the representative and the putative class in Article III terms, that relationship is defined by Rule 23.

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Bluebook (online)
82 F.R.D. 420, 28 Fed. R. Serv. 2d 272, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12816, 21 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1380, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vuyanich-v-republic-national-bank-of-dallas-txnd-1979.