Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/543

 502us2$26D 01-22-99 08:32:58 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 502 U. S. 367 (1992)

385

Opinion of the Court

759–761 (CA7 1985) (modification allowed to avoid pretrial release of accused violent felons). Respondents urge that modification should be allowed only when a change in facts is both “unforeseen and unforeseeable.” Brief for Respondents 35. Such a standard would provide even less flexibility than the exacting Swift test; we decline to adopt it. Litigants are not required to anticipate every exigency that could conceivably arise during the life of a consent decree. Ordinarily, however, modification should not be granted where a party relies upon events that actually were anticipated at the time it entered into a decree. See Twelve John Does v. District of Columbia, 274 U. S. App. D. C. 62, 65–66, 861 F. 2d 295, 298–299 (1988); Ruiz v. Lynaugh, 811 F. 2d 856, 862–863 (CA5 1987). If it is clear that a party anticipated changing conditions that would make performance of the decree more onerous but nevertheless agreed to the decree, that party would have to satisfy a heavy burden to convince a court that it agreed to the decree in good faith, made a reasonable effort to comply with the decree, and should be relieved of the undertaking under Rule 60(b). Accordingly, on remand the District Court should consider whether the upsurge in the Suffolk County inmate population was foreseen by petitioners. The District Court touched on this issue in April 1990, when, in the course of denying the modification requested in this litigation, the court stated that “the overcrowding problem faced by the Sheriff is neither new nor unforeseen. It has been an ongoing problem during the course of this litigation, before and after entry of the consent decree.” 734 F. Supp., at 564. However, the architectural program incorporated in the decree in 1979 specifically set forth projections that the jail