Croker v. Boeing Co. (Vertol Division)

Status

44 later cases cite Croker v. Boeing Co. (Vertol Division); 44 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Treatments

Overruled in part

• The Supreme Court held that an unresolved attorney’s fee award does not prevent a merits judgment from being final and appealable, displacing Croker’s contrary rule.

  White v. New Hampshire Department of Employment Security · Supreme Court of the United States · filed March 2, 1982

  If a merits judgment is final and appealable prior to the entry of a fee award, then the remaining fee issue must be “collateral” to the decision on the merits. Conversely, the collateral character of the fee issue establishes that an outstanding fee question does not bar recognition of a merits judgment as “final” and “appealable.”

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Declined to follow

• The Eighth Circuit chose to decide classwide discrimination without the McDonnell Douglas–Burdine proof sequence that Croker had used for class liability.

  Craik v. Minnesota State University Board · Eighth Circuit · filed March 23, 1984

  Accordingly, many courts, including this one, have used the McDonnell Douglas-Burdine model to analyze the evidence in the liability phase of class actions. E.g., Paxton v. Union Nat’l Bank, 688 F.2d 552, 567-68 (8th Cir.1982), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 103 S.Ct. 1772, 76 L.Ed.2d 345 (1983); Croker v. Boeing Co. (Vertol Div.), 662 F.2d 975, 990-91 (3d Cir.1981) (en banc). We agree, however, with Judge Higginbotham, then on the District Court, that "[i]n a complex class action, utilizing statistical proof and counterproof, the value of the Burdine sequence — to highlight the issues in contest — is about as relevant as a minuet is to a thermonuclear battle.” Vuyanich v. Republic National Bank, 521 F.Supp. 656, 661 (N.D.Tex. 1981), vacated and remanded, 723 F.2d 1195 (5th Cir.1984); accord, Perryman v. Johnson Prod. Co., 698 F.2d 1138, 1143 (11th Cir.1983). Therefore, in considering the merits of the class claims, we shall focus on whether the plaintiffs proved that the defendants engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination, thereby establishing a prima facie case with regard to the claims of individual class members, without attempting to fit the evidence into the McDonnell Douglas-Burdine framework.

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