## Facts

- The United States sued the City of Miami, city officials, and police unions (FOP and PBA) alleging discrimination against Black, Spanish-surnamed, and female applicants and employees in violation of Title VII, the Fourteenth Amendment, and 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983.
- The United States and the City negotiated a consent decree providing remedial measures, including hiring and promotion goals and structural reforms.
- The unions objected, asserting that certain provisions conflicted with collective-bargaining agreements and unlawfully burdened the unions and their members.
- The district court initially entered the decree over the FOP’s objection, then vacated it as improvidently entered after concluding some provisions conflicted with the labor contract.
- After further proceedings, the district court entered a modified consent decree over continuing union objections, finding it constitutional and not in conflict with the union contract.
- A Fifth Circuit panel affirmed; the en banc court reheard the case and issued a fractured decision, with a mandate reflecting the reasoning of Judge Rubin’s opinion.

## Issues

1. Whether a federal court may enter a consent decree in a multiparty Title VII case based on the consent of fewer than all parties.
2. What standards govern decree provisions that affect the rights or contractual interests of a nonconsenting party.
3. Whether promotion-related provisions imposed over a union’s objection may be sustained without a trial or equivalent evidentiary basis.

## Decision

- The en banc court affirmed in part and vacated and remanded in part.
- The court held that a consent decree may validly resolve issues between consenting parties based on their consent.
- The court further held that, to the extent decree provisions affect nonconsenting parties or other contested issues, those provisions must satisfy the same substantive and procedural standards required in an adversary adjudication.
- Most of the modified decree was upheld.
- Portions of the decree that, without trial, affected the objecting union’s promotion-related rights were limited as to that union and remanded for trial on the requested remedy against the union.

## Legal Principles

- A consent decree has both contractual and judicial-order characteristics; consent supports relief only as to parties and issues actually resolved by the consenting litigants.
- In multiparty litigation, decree provisions that materially affect a nonconsenting party cannot rest on other parties’ consent; they require an evidentiary and legal basis equivalent to that required for contested injunctive relief.
- Title VII permits broad remedial measures to address discrimination, but relief that overrides or substantially alters a nonconsenting union’s collectively bargained interests requires proof and findings sufficient to justify that relief.
- When an objecting party’s rights are burdened by decree provisions entered without trial, due process requires adversarial proceedings on the remedy sought against that party.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit allowed the United States and the City to implement most agreed-upon Title VII remedies through a consent decree, but required that any decree provisions imposing contested, promotion-related burdens on nonconsenting police unions be supported through ordinary adjudication rather than other parties’ consent.


United States v. City of Miami, 664 F.2d 435 (5th Cir. 1981) (en banc)