explaining that courts, in their “role as a fiduciary” and “guardian for the unrepresented class members,” must apply “careful scrutiny . . . to guard against settlements that may benefit the class representatives or their attorneys at the expense of absent class members”
How later courts described this case
- explaining that courts, in their “role as a fiduciary” and “guardian for the unrepresented class members,” must apply “careful scrutiny . . . to guard against settlements that may benefit the class representatives or their attorneys at the expense of absent class members”
- stating that, when approving a consent decree in a case in which the United States was the plaintiff, a court “can safely assume that the interests of all affected have been considered”
- noting that only in “certain special situations [is] the trial court ... required by statute or rule to approve a settlement to which the parties to the litigation have agreed,” which include “proposed class action settlements, proposed shareholder derivative suit settlements, and proposed compromises of claims in bankruptcy court”
- distinguishing case from “ordinary litigation” and upholding district court’s review and approval of consent decree between local and federal governments in Title VII litigation
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
Judge Goldberg’s very scholarly opinion, it seems to me, is a fair and excellent accommodation of the very difficult issues presented in this case.
I do not agree with Judge Gee’s interpretation of the opinion’s description of Mr. Justice Brennan’s dissent in Bakke, as approving racial quotas for societal discrimination, but I regard it as a part of Judge Goldberg’s extraordinarily complete analysis of this difficult and uncertain area.
The trend is towards upholding consent decrees as discussed and delineated here. Certainly, we cannot say that the decision is compelled by Supreme Court or Fifth Circuit precedents, but just as emphatically we urge neither is it prohibited by any controlling authority.
The dissent very fairly and candidly suggests that Weber may be contributing to this trend. I go further to urge that Weber emphasizes and encourages what we do here today.
If we deny approval of the consent decree involved in this case, we place upon the municipality and, more particularly, its taxpayers, the onerous burden of one of two alternatives, (1) admission of past discrimination, which must realistically leave them open to undetermined financial liability, or (2) face a full-blown trial involving time and expense which may result in untold consequences. Congress and the courts of this nation time after time strongly encouraged and emphasized necessity of conciliation and settlement of these types of controversies.
Finally, with all deference, I cannot subscribe to the suggestion contained in the dissent that the varying opinions in Bakke can in any way be interpreted as reaching such a “precise position” as to have overruled, sub silentio or otherwise, our opinion in Morrow v. Crisler, 491 F.2d 1053 (5th Cir. 1974) (en banc), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 895 , 95 S.Ct. 173 , 42 L.Ed.2d 139 (1974). Nor can I agree with the comments concerning our supposed return to the doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 , 16 S.Ct. 1138 , 41 L.Ed. 256 (1896).
I concur.