United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit · Civil Procedure
Civil ProcedureInterventionMootnessTimeliness under Rule 24Rule 24interventiontimelinesspiecemeal litigation
Facts
A private ADEA suit was filed by Houghton against McDonnell Douglas after Houghton, a 52-year-old test pilot, was removed from flight status and later discharged. The Secretary of Labor later filed a separate suit alleging age discrimination against Houghton and other test pilot employees, seeking only prospective relief, and sought consolidation with the private action. Consolidation was denied as untimely, the Secretary's separate suit was dismissed as duplicative of the private action, and the Secretary then sought to intervene in the private suit. The district court denied intervention as not timely under Rule 24.
Issue
Whether the Secretary of Labor's motion to intervene in the pending private suit was untimely under Rule 24, and, if intervention should be allowed, whether the appeal from dismissal of the Secretary's separate government suit became moot. The court expressly declined to decide whether the Secretary could independently sue once a private ADEA action had begun.
Rule
Under Rule 24, intervention should be assessed with attention to the rule's broad purpose of discouraging piecemeal litigation. Where dismissal of a separate related suit was predicated on the assumption that intervention would be available in the existing private action, intervention should not be denied as untimely on these facts.
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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.
In St. Louis, Nora Patel sued Gateway Aerotech, Inc. for age discrimination under a federal statute. Months later, the Labor Department filed a separate enforcement action in the same district seeking only prospective relief for Nora and several other older mechanics; the court dismissed that separate action as duplicative after stating that the Department could participate by intervening in Nora's pending case. The Department then moved to intervene, and the judge denied the motion as untimely because trial was approaching.
How should an appellate court most likely rule on the denial of intervention?
Explanation. The majority treated intervention as not untimely where a related government suit had been dismissed on the assumption that intervention in the private case would still be available. Rule 24 should be applied with its broad purpose of discouraging piecemeal litigation in mind. The opinion did not hold that intervention is always timely, that a separate action is required, or that the intervenor is entitled to control the entire case. (Derived from Brennan v. McDonnell Douglas Corp. (n.d.).)