Clogging the Federal Courts:
Comments by Chief Justice Rehnquist and the Implications of Proposed Class Action Legislation
Legislation now under consideration in the House and Senate (H.R. 1875/S. 353) would make almost every state class action case removable to federal court. Currently most class action cases are heard in state courts by judges who are familiar with the complex state laws that govern these cases. These two bills would allow defendants to remove cases from state court to federal court whenever a single "primary defendant" is incorporated or has its principal place of business in other states.
Such a far-reaching change in court jurisdiction will surely lead to greater delay of justice for plaintiffs and even more backlog in the federal courts. Consider that as of September 30, 1999 the federal courts were plagued by:
- 17,126 civil cases pending for more than three years.
- 3,251 pending class action cases -- an increase of 23% since September, 1997.
- 62 judicial vacancies; 29 vacancies classified as judicial emergencies, meaning that the seats have been vacant for more than 18 months.
(Judicial Business of the United States Courts, Annual Report of the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, 1999)
These class action bills will greatly exacerbate this backlog and other problems that Chief Justice of the United States, William Rehnquist, has said should be avoided.
"In my annual report for last year, I criticized the Senate for moving too slowly in the filling of vacancies on the federal bench. This criticism received considerable public attention. I also criticized Congress and the president for their propensity to enact more and more legislation which brings more and more cases into the federal court system. This criticism received virtually no public attention. And yet the two are closely related: we need vacancies filled to deal with the cases arising under existing laws, but if Congress enacts, and the President signs, new laws allowing more cases to be brought into the federal courts, just filing the vacancies will not be enough." Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, Address to the American Law Institute Annual Meeting, May 1998.
Chief Justice Rehnquist's advice becomes increasingly important as the Senate and House consider bills that would increase the number of class action cases in the federal court system. These bills violate federalism and signal much more trouble for an already crippled federal Judiciary. Despite the overburdened, understaffed court system, Congress has continued to relegate more and more cases, appropriate for state court adjudication, to federal jurisdiction.
"'Congress should commit itself to conserving the federal courts as a distinctive judicial forum of limited jurisdiction in our system of federalism. Civil and criminal jurisdiction should be assigned to the federal courts only to further clearly defined national interests, leaving to the state courts the responsibility for adjudicating all other matters.'This Long Range Plan [for federal courts] is based not simply on the preferences of federal judges, but on the traditional principle of federalism that has guided this country throughout its existence." Chief Justice Rehnquist, citing the Judicial Conference's report on the Long Range Plan for the Federal Courts, The 1998 Year-End Report of the Federal Judiciary
The proposed class action bills will make Congress and the federal courts the interpreters and enforcers of state law. These bills permit defendants to remove most state class actions to federal courts, thereby foreclosing state class actions, despite the absence of any justifiable national interest in doing so. Such a system is contrary to historic principles of federalism embodied in the Constitution.
"The pressure in Congress to appear responsive to every highly publicized societal ill or sensational crime needs to be balanced with an inquiry into whether states are doing an adequate job in these particular areas and, ultimately, whether we want most of our legal relationships decided at the national rather than local level." Chief Justice Rehnquist, 1998 Year-End Report of the Federal Judiciary
To date, no such inquiry has been made regarding the proposed class action bills. Before proceeding with this legislation it would be critical to determine whether there is truly a problem as proponents of the legislation maintain; if a problem exists, whether it would be more appropriately solved by the federal judiciary or the state courts; how many state class action cases are likely to be removed to federal court; how much the federal case backlog would grow; how other federal criminal and civil cases would be affected; and whether federal judges feel they have sufficient state case law experience to adjudicate such cases more effectively than their state judge counterparts. Until Congress has answers to these questions, relegating an entire body of state law cases to the federal court system would be premature and problematic.
"The congressional desire to federalize stems from the sense that the federal courts, by and large, render a brand of justice that is both more dependable and more efficient than that rendered by some of the state systems. But no small part of that success . . . is because of the federal courts have traditionally been courts of limited jurisdiction. If the federal system ends up with the same potpourri of cases that state courts must necessarily decide, it may lose the special competence that now sets it apart from many state systems." Chief Justice Rehnquist, 1997 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary (emphasis added)
Chief Justice Rehnquist's warning suggests what will happen if H.R.1875 and S. 353 are allowed to add a new, complex and time consuming body of cases before the federal courts and promises to further erode their strained resources of time and judges.
For more information, contact Jackson Williams,
Legislative Representative,
at (202) 454-5135 or
by email: Jwilliams@citizen.org