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Board of Education v. Bullock

United States District Court for the District of Maryland · 2002 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawClass ActionsEducation LawHomeless StudentsRule 23numerositycommonalitytypicality

Facts

Plaintiffs alleged that defendants' policies and practices denied homeless children and their parents rights under the McKinney-Vento Act, including failure to identify homeless students, failure to provide a best-interest school-selection process, failure to allow students to remain in their school of origin, and failure to provide transportation and remove enrollment barriers. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief on behalf of homeless school-age children in Montgomery County and the adults responsible for them. Plaintiffs submitted statistics showing several hundred homeless children in Montgomery County, including over one thousand children served by the shelter system in a one-year period and hundreds identified as homeless by state education data. Defendants argued that class treatment was improper because the claims were too individualized and because two proposed representatives living in SSIHC transitional housing were not homeless under the Act.

Issue

Whether the proposed classes of homeless children and their parents or guardians satisfied Rule 23(a) and Rule 23(b)(2) for certification in a suit challenging defendants' policies and practices under the McKinney-Vento Act. The court also considered whether plaintiffs living in SSIHC transitional housing were members of the proposed classes because they qualified as homeless under the Act.

Rule

Under Rule 23, a class may be certified when plaintiffs prove numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy, plus a Rule 23(b) ground. Numerosity turns on practical judgment and looks to the nature of the claims and the number of persons who could have been injured; plaintiffs need not show that every class member actually suffered a violation. Commonality requires only the existence of a single common legal or factual issue, and factual differences do not defeat certification when claims arise from the same policies or practices and rest on the same legal theory. Typicality is satisfied when the named plaintiffs' claims arise from the same event, practice, or course of conduct as the class claims and are based on the same legal theory. Under the McKinney-Vento Act, persons living in emergency or transitional shelters fall within the definition of homeless children and youths.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In Columbus, Ohio, several families sue the Franklin City School District, alleging districtwide practices that fail to identify homeless students and deny them transportation to their school of origin. The proposed class is supported by state and shelter data showing about 480 school-age children who were homeless during the last school year, although only 95 families have documented specific denials of transportation.

If the district argues numerosity is lacking because plaintiffs have not proved that all 480 children actually suffered a statutory violation, how should the court rule?

Explanation. The majority opinion held that numerosity is a practical judgment and, in a policy-and-practice case, plaintiffs need not prove each class member actually suffered a violation. It is enough to show a large number of persons could have been injured by the allegedly unlawful policies. Here, evidence of hundreds of homeless children potentially affected supports numerosity.