Chavez v. Dole Food — civil — reversal — Fuentes

The en banc Third Circuit today unanimously reversed a district court order dismissing a suit by Central American farmworkers over alleged pesticide exposure. The prior panel opinion had come out the other way, with Nygaard joined by Greenaway in the majority and Fuentes dissenting.

Needless to say, it is unusual to see a unanimous en banc ruling that reaches a different outcome than the panel majority did. So what happened? Two things, both interesting.

First, Greenaway switched sides. He joined Nygaard’s panel opinion in favor of Dole, but today he joins the en banc court ruling against Dole. He did not write separately to explain his switch.

Second, Nygaard did not participate. He wrote the panel opinion, and the order granting en banc rehearing stated he would participate, but the docket shows he did not participate in oral argument and he was not a member of the en banc panel today. Also, Hardiman was listed as participating in the en banc vote but was not on the en banc panel for argument or decision.

So, why did Nygaard and Hardiman not participate? Answer: I don’t know. Neither today’s opinion nor the docket entries say.

This is a case with a lot of blue-chip-corporation parties like Dow Chemical and Shell Oil, and it would not be surprising if some of the judges owned stock in one of them and thus had to recuse. Now, it would be surprising to me if such a conflict went unrecognized until after the en banc ruling. (But as I mentioned recently, during now-Justice Alito’s Scotus confirmation proceedings, then-Chief Judge Scirica said in 2005 that CA3 judges had been listed by mistake on en banc corams many times. That could explain well Hardiman but not Nygaard.)

For Nygaard, no potential financial conflicts jump out at me on a quick glance at his 2012 financial disclosure, the most recent of his posted on judicialwatch. But what matters is what he owned in 2016, not 2012, and that is not publicly available. Bottom line, if he recused after writing the panel opinion, I can’t tell why. (It does not appear to be health-related since, for example, his is sitting on argument panels next week.) In any event, his withdrawal is unusual.

As to Hardiman, he disclosed dividend income from Dow Chemical in his 2012 disclosure, also the most recent disclosure up on Judicialwatch, although that does not necessarily mean he still did at the time of this en banc case.

Anyway, I’ve gotten all sidetracked on the composition of the court here and haven’t said a thing about the substance of the opinion. From the introduction (footnote omitted):

Our resolution of this appeal is therefore threefold. First, we conclude that the Delaware District Court abused its discretion under the first-filed rule by dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice. Second, we conclude that the Delaware District Court erred by refusing to transfer the plaintiffs’ claims against Chiquita Brands International to another forum. And third, we conclude that the timeliness dismissals entered by the Louisiana District Court do not create a res judicata bar to the plaintiffs’ Delaware suits. As these cases come to us today, there is a serious possibility that no court will ever reach the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims. More than twenty years after this litigation began, we think that outcome is untenable—both as a matter of basic fairness and pursuant to the legal principles that govern this procedurally complex appeal.

Joining Fuentes were McKee, Ambro, Smith, Fisher, Chagares, Greenaway, Vanaskie, Shwartz, Krause, and Restrepo. Arguing counsel were Jonathan Massey of Massey & Gail for the appellants and Andrea Neuman of Gibson Dunn and Steven Caponi (formerly) of Blank Rome for the appellees.