Justia U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Hrivnak filed a purported class action under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. 1692–1692p, and Ohio consumer-protection law, Ohio Rev. Code §§ 1345.01–.99, 4165.01–04, seeking statutory, compensatory, and punitive damages exceeding $25,000, and injunctive and declaratory relief. The suit was based on the conduct of debt management companies and a law firm in dunning hi on credit card debts. The defendants made an offer of judgment of $7,000 plus costs and attorney’s fees, under Civil Rule 68. Hrivnak rejected the offer. The district court rejected the defendants’ claim that the offer rendered the suit moot. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, characterizing defendants’ argument as asserting that claims with little to no chance of success should be dismissed as moot whenever they are mixed in with promising claims that a defendant offers to compensate in full. View "Hrivnak v. NCO Portfolio Mgmt., Inc." on Justia Law

Davis sued Cintas, individually and on behalf of a class of female job applicants denied employment as entry-level sales representatives, alleging that Cintas’s hiring practices led to gender discrimination, in violation of Title VII, and caused Cintas to reject her application for employment twice. The district court denied Davis’s motion for class certification and granted summary judgment for Cintas. The Sixth Circuit affirmed both denial of class certification and the entry of summary judgment on her individual disparate-treatment claim arising in 2004 and her disparate-impact claim. The court reversed with respect to a disparate-treatment claim arising in 2003, noting that she was at least as qualified as the male candidates at that time. View "Davis v. Cintas Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs receive subsidies from Michigan’s Child Development and Care Program for providing home childcare services for low-income families. Following creation of the Home Based Child Care Council, a union was established and authorized to bargain on their behalf, based on submission of 22,180 valid provider-signed authorization cards out of a possible 40,532 eligible providers. The union and the Council entered into a collective bargaining agreement and the state began deducting union dues and fees from the subsidy payments. Plaintiffs sought to file a class-action lawsuit for the return of the money, collected allegedly in violation of their First Amendment rights. The district court denied certification of plaintiffs’ proposed class (all home childcare providers in Michigan) based on conflict of interest: some members voted for union representation and others voted against representation. Plaintiffs attempted to cure by proposing a subclass of only providers who did not participate in any election related to union representation. The district court rejected the proposal, finding that it could not assume that all members of the subclass opposed representation and that, even if all members of the proposed subclass did oppose representation, their reasons for opposition were different enough to create conflict within the class. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. View "Schlaud v. Snyder" on Justia Law

The parents and the grandmother of two black children sued the Nashville Board of Public Education on behalf of their children and all black students in the District whose school assignments were adversely affected by the elimination of the mandatory noncontiguous transfer zones. They allege that the Rezoning Plan eliminated the desirable practice of being bused to a good, racially diverse school and replaced it with two inferior choices: staying in a bad, racially isolated neighborhood school or being bused to a bad, racially diverse school. They claim that has led to resegregation in violation of the students’ rights under the Equal Protection Clause. The district court ruled in favor of the Board. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that the change serves legitimate state interests in school under-utilization. The Plan actually solved the problem that many schools were operating at levels below what their resources and infrastructure would permit, while other schools were overflowing. The court stopped short of endorsing the Plan, noting that certain students in poor neighborhoods had to share textbooks; that the racial achievement gap apparently exists much as before; and that Nashville public-school students as a whole continue to do poorly after the Plan. View "Spurlock v. Fox" on Justia Law

Former employees of AK Steel filed a class action under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), including claims for a “whipsaw” calculation of their benefits from a pension plan in which they participated before terminating their employment. The employees were originally involved in a related class action that included identical claims against the same defendants, but were excluded from that litigation due to their execution of a severance agreement and release that each of them signed during the that litigation. The district court ruled in favor of the employees. The Sixth Circuit reversed an award of prejudgment interest for failure to consider case-specific factors, but otherwise affirmed denial of a motion to dismiss; class certification; and partial summary judgment on liability. The employees’s future pension claims were not released as a matter of law because the whipsaw claims had not accrued at the time of the execution of the severance agreements and because the scope of the contracts did not relate to future ERISA claims. View "Schumacher v. AK Steel Corp." on Justia Law

Tennessee participates in Medicaid through “TennCare,” Tenn. Code 71-5-102. The Medicaid Act requires that TennCare administer an Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment program for all enrollees under age 21, 42 U.S.C. 1396a(a)(43), 1396d(r) and must provide outreach to educate its enrollees about these services. In 1998 plaintiffs filed a putative class action under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that TennCare had failed to fulfill these obligations. The district court entered a consent decree that explained in detail the requirements that TennCare had to meet to “achieve and maintain compliance” with the Medicaid Act, based on the assumption that the Act created rights enforceable under section 1983. Eight years later, the Sixth Circuit held that one part of the Medicaid Act was unenforceable under section 1983. Following a remand, the district court vacated paragraphs of the decree that were based on parts of the Act that are not privately enforceable. After a thorough review of TennCare’s efforts, the court then vacated the entire decree, finding that TennCare had fulfilled the terms of the decree’s sunset clause by reaching a screening percentage greater than 80% and by achieving current, substantial compliance with the rest of the decree. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. View "John B. v.Emkes" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs and defendants obtained class certification and settlement approval for a nationwide class action involving three related lawsuits, alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. 1692-1692p and state law, based on the practice of “robo-signing” affidavits in debt collections. Eight individuals objected. The Sixth Circuit reversed, holding that the disparity in the relief afforded under the settlement to the named plaintiffs (exoneration of debts, $2000, and prospective injunctive relief) and the unnamed class members ($17 and prospective injunctive relief) made the settlement unfair. The class notice was inadequate and, although the class satisfies four of the six certification requirements (numerosity, commonality, typicality and predominance), the representation is not adequate under Rule 23(a) nor is the class action vehicle superior. View "Vassalle v. Midland Funding LLC" on Justia Law

Eleven plaintiffs who obtained home loans from Countrywide Bank, sought to challenge alleged racial disparities dating back to 2002 and resulting from Countrywide’s loan-pricing policy for home mortgages. The district court denied class certification, finding that the proposed class failed to satisfy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)’s commonality requirement. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Plaintiffs challenged policies that grant broad discretion to local agents; they do not claim that a uniform policy or practice guides how local actors exercise their discretion, such that the corporate guidance caused or contributed to the alleged disparate impacts. To justify certification, class members must unite acts of discretion under a single policy or practice, or through a single mode of exercising discretion; the mere presence of a range within which acts of discretion take place will not suffice to establish commonality. View "Miller v. Countrywide Fin. Corp." on Justia Law

In 1992 Navistar attempted to reduce its costs for retired employee health and life insurance benefits. Navistar’s retirement benefit plan is a registered employee health benefit plan under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 29 U.S.C. § 1001 and Navistar is both plan administrator and fiduciary. In 1993, the district court entered judgment in a class action challenging the change, adopting an agreement between the parties and retaining jurisdiction. The Agreement established the Retiree Health Benefit and Life Insurance Plan. The Plan established the Health Benefit Program Summary Plan Description, which contains a description of the health benefits and is furnished to all beneficiaries. The Agreement divides health benefits into two plans: Plan 2 for those eligible for Medicare and Plan 1 for those who are not eligible. A prescription drug benefit was provided under the Agreement, identical for both Plan 1 and Plan 2. When Navistar moved to substitute Medicare Part D into the Plan, class members claimed violation of the Agreement. The district court ordered Navistar to reinstate, retroactively, the prescription drug benefit that was in effect before Navistar made the unilateral substitution. The Sixth Circuit affirmed,View "Shy v. Navistar Int'l Corp." on Justia Law

Cintas’s SSRs drive trucks to deliver products and act as sales representatives, providing customer service, pitching sales, and collecting payments. Serrano, a female, unsuccessfully applied for a position as an SSR and filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC in 2000. In 2002, after investigating Serrano’s claims and expanding the investigation to include Cintas’s female hiring practices throughout Michigan, the EEOC issued a reasonable-cause determination and sent a proposed conciliation agreement to Cintas suggesting that relief be provided to Serrano, 111 other specified women, and an unspecified number of “other similarly situated females.” Cintas did not respond. In 2005, the EEOC notified Cintas that it was terminating conciliation efforts. In 2004, Serrano filed a Title VII class-action complaint, in which the EEOC intervened. In 2008, the district court denied nationwide class certification. By April 2010, all individual plaintiffs, save Serrano, had their cases resolved. In 2009 the EEOC filed an amended complaint, limiting its allegations to “a class of women in the State of Michigan” The district court granted Cintas’s judgment on 13 individual and “pattern or practice” claims, denying the EEOC’s discovery motions, and awarding costs and fees. The Sixth Circuit vacated and remanded View "Serrano v. Cintas Corp." on Justia Law