## Facts

- Scott Culver, a white male, alleged the Milwaukee Police Department refused to provide him an application in 1992 because it was not accepting applications from white males until 1994.
- Culver sued the City of Milwaukee, its Fire and Police Commission, and police officials, alleging discriminatory hiring against white males.
- Culver sought to represent a broad class of white males allegedly harmed either by being denied applications or by not being hired due to purported adjustments to entrance-exam scores favoring women and minority applicants.
- The City’s hiring practices were influenced by existing federal consent-decree remedies addressing prior discrimination against minority applicants.
- The district court initially certified the class (1995), but after reassignment, a different district judge later decertified it, finding the class improper and Culver inadequate to represent any workable subclass.
- After decertification, the case proceeded only as Culver’s individual action; by then his personal claim was conceded to be moot.
- The district court dismissed the case as moot and did not order notice to putative class members regarding decertification or dismissal.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court abused its discretion in decertifying the previously certified class because Rule 23(a) requirements were not satisfied and Culver was not an adequate representative.
2. Whether the district court erred by dismissing the action as moot without ordering notice to putative class members after the class had been decertified.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit held that Culver retained standing to appeal the decertification ruling even though his individual claim was moot.
- The court affirmed decertification, concluding the district court acted within its discretion in determining that the certified class was improper and Culver was not an adequate representative.
- The court affirmed dismissal as moot once the class was decertified and Culver’s individual claim was no longer live.
- The court affirmed the refusal to order notice to putative class members, holding the district court did not abuse its discretion.

## Legal Principles

- A properly certified class action can continue despite mootness of the named representative’s individual claim, but if the class is decertified the case reverts to an individual action subject to ordinary Article III mootness rules.
- A would-be class representative may appeal certification or decertification decisions even if the representative’s individual claim becomes moot, to prevent defendants from mooting successive representatives and insulating class rulings from review.
- Under Rule 23, substantial divergence among putative members’ alleged injuries and theories can defeat commonality and typicality, and such divergence may also show the named plaintiff is not an adequate representative.
- District courts may alter or amend class certification orders before final judgment, including revoking an earlier certification upon later review; reassignment to a different judge does not bar reconsideration.
- After decertification, dismissal of the named plaintiff’s moot individual claim does not necessarily require notice to absent putative members where no certified-class rights are being released or adjudicated and putative members remain free to file their own actions.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit upheld the district court’s decertification of a broad hiring-discrimination class for failure to satisfy Rule 23 requirements and affirmed dismissal of the named plaintiff’s moot individual claim without requiring notice to putative class members, emphasizing the court’s discretion to revisit certification and the limited notice obligations once no certified class remains.


Culver v. City of Milwaukee, 277 F.3d 908 (7th Cir. 2002)