Jaroslaw WASKOWSKI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 13-1706
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
June 26, 2014
569 Fed. Appx. 485
MEMORANDUM OPINION
PER CURIAM.
Plaintiff Jaroslaw Waskowski was involved in a car accident, and sued State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company in Michigan state court after State Farm terminated his benefits. State Farm removed the action to federal court where, after a five-day trial, the jury returned a verdict that Waskowski was in fact injured in the car accident, but that State Farm owed no additional benefits beyond the amount it had already paid. Waskowski appeals the district court‘s denial of his motion to amend the judgment to add damages or, in the alternative, his motion for a new trial on damages.
The panel has had the opportunity to consider the arguments advanced by the parties and to conduct our own independent review of the record on appeal. In this case, the district court issued an Opinion and Order which explains in detail the analysis behind the court‘s denial of plaintiff‘s motions. Waskowski v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., No. 11-CV-13036, 2013 WL 1774696 (E.D.Mich. Apr.25, 2013) (Page ID 1636). We agree with the reasoning of the district court and affirm on that basis.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
SOUTHFIELD EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTHFIELD BOARD OF EDUCATION, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 13-1600
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit
June 26, 2014
570 Fed. Appx. 485
CLAY, Circuit Judge.
Plaintiff Southfield Education Association filed two lawsuits, one in state court, and then a second in federal court pursuant to
BACKGROUND
On January 31, 2012, Plaintiff filed a complaint in state court alleging that, after a teacher layoff, Defendant violated its own recall standards when it hired new applicants rather than recall the laid off teachers. The complaint alleged that Defendant violated the Public Employees Relations Act (“PERA“),
Plaintiff filed an amended complaint in state court on April 5, 2012. The only changes contained in the amended complaint were the replacement of the PERA claim with a breach of contract claim, the addition of the names of the twenty-three individual Plaintiffs, and the allegation that, as a result of Defendant‘s conduct, some of the teachers were separated from
On June 13, 2012, Plaintiff filed a second amended complaint that no longer included the claim that Defendant violated the due process rights of the tenured teachers pursuant to the Michigan Constitution. According to Plaintiff, the only difference between the due process claim dismissed in state court and the due process claim filed in district court is that the state court claim was based on the Michigan Constitution whereas the claim before the district court is based on the United States Constitution.
Following the dismissal of the Michigan Constitution due process claim in state court, Defendant filed, inter alia, a motion to dismiss the complaint in district court based on res judicata. On April 9, 2013, the district court granted Defendant‘s motion to dismiss Plaintiff‘s federal due process claim based on res judicata. Defendant appeals, arguing that since the state court claim was based on the Michigan Constitution whereas the federal claim is based on the United States Constitution, the district court erred in dismissing the federal due process claim. Plaintiff also claims the district court erred by not permitting discovery on the merits of the federal due process claim prior to its dismissal.
DISCUSSION
Standard of Review
This Court reviews de novo a district court‘s grant of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim pursuant to
To properly state a claim, a complaint must contain a “short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.”
Although the complaint must be liberally construed in favor of the party opposing the motion to dismiss, the Court should not accept conclusions of law or unwarranted inferences of fact cast in the form of factual allegations. Id. at 555. “The factual allegations, assumed to be true, must do more than create speculation or suspicion of a legally cognizable cause of action; they must show entitle-
We also review de novo a district court‘s application of the doctrine of res judicata. Bragg v. Flint Bd. of Educ., 570 F.3d 775, 776 (6th Cir.2009). The burden of establishing the applicability of res judicata is on the party asserting the doctrine. In re Piper Aircraft Corp., Inc., 244 F.3d 1289, 1296 (6th Cir.2001). When reviewing a motion to dismiss, we construe the record in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and accept as true all allegations pleaded in the complaint. Robert N. Clemens Trust v. Morgan Stanley DW, Inc., 485 F.3d 840, 845 (6th Cir.2007).
Analysis
The Full Faith and Credit Act mandates that “judicial proceedings ... shall have the same full faith and credit in every court within the United States ... as they have by law or usage in the courts of such State ... from which they are taken.”
Under Michigan law, issue preclusion, known as collateral estoppel, “precludes relitigation of an issue in a subsequent, different cause of action between the same parties where the prior proceeding culminated in a valid, final judgment and the issue was ... actually litigated, and ... necessarily determined.” People v. Gates, 434 Mich. 146, 155, 452 N.W.2d 627 (1990). “[T]he party asserting preclusion bears the burden of proof.” United States v. Dominguez, 359 F.3d 839, 842 (6th Cir.2004). Therefore, to prove preclusion, Defendant must demonstrate that: “(1) the subject matter of the second action [is] the same; (2) the parties or their privies [are] the same; and (3) the prior judgment [was] on the merits.” RADS, P.C. v. Mercy Mem‘l Hosp., 3 F.Supp.2d 772, 774 (E.D.Mich. 1998).
In the instant case, the subject matter of the federal claim is the same as that in the state court action. In the state court action Plaintiff claimed that Defendant violated the due process clause of the Michigan Constitution by depriving the teachers of their property interest in their former positions without due process. The alleged deprivation occurred when Defendant hired outside applicants for teaching positions as opposed to recalling the teachers. Plaintiff‘s claim before the district court was based on the same underlying facts of the state court action. The only difference is that the present action is based on the United States Constitution as opposed to the Michigan Constitution.
The parties in this action are the same as in the state court action. While the individual teachers are not named plaintiffs in this action, Plaintiff is acting as the teachers’ representative in both actions, which assures that the teachers are duly represented. The final requirement, however, has not been met. “A decision is final when all appeals have been exhausted
Federal law also requires the application of state res judicata law to determine the preclusive effect of the state court judgment on the federal case. See Hapgood v. City of Warren, 127 F.3d 490, 493-94 (6th Cir.1997) (applying Ohio res judicata law to determine whether an Ohio court‘s prior judgment precluded a federal action). Under Michigan law, res judicata applies when the following elements are present: (1) a final decision on the merits; (2) an issue in the subsequent action which was litigated or which should have been litigated in the prior action; and (3) a subsequent action between the same parties or their privies. Dart v. Dart, 460 Mich. 573, 586, 597 N.W.2d 82 (1999). With regard to the second element, Michigan courts have adopted a broad approach to res judicata, which means that all claims arising from the same transaction that could have been raised in state court, but were not, are barred. Id.
The state court, on June 6, 2012, entered an order granting Defendant‘s motion for summary disposition on Plaintiff‘s due process claim. Unlike collateral estoppel, which is deemed final only when all appeals have been exhausted, in Michigan, a grant of summary judgment is considered a final determination on the merits for res judicata purposes. Franklin v. City of Pontiac, 887 F.Supp. 978, 983 (E.D.Mich. 1995). Thus, even if Plaintiff appealed the state court ruling, the decision is still considered final and therefore satisfies the first element.
Plaintiff‘s present claim, that Defendant violated the due process clause of the United States Constitution, clearly could have been resolved in the state court action. The operative allegations of the present claim, that Defendant fired the teachers without due process, are identical to those of the state court action. The federal due process clause claim is essentially the same as the Michigan claim. Furthermore, the parties to both actions are the same. Plaintiff clearly had a full opportunity to litigate the federal due process clause claim in the state court action, but failed to do so.
Plaintiff argues that since the federal court action only involved a federal constitutional claim, that the state court was not an appropriate venue to adjudicate its federal claim. The district court held that this type of reasoning was rejected in Migra, which ruled that the plaintiff‘s § 1983 claim in that case was precluded by an earlier state court action where the plaintiff could have raised the claim but failed to do so. Migra, 465 U.S. at 84. Plaintiff replies that the district court erroneously interpreted Migra.
In Migra, the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff‘s argument that the state court was not an appropriate venue to adjudicate its federal claim. Migra, 465 U.S. at 84. After her state court action was dismissed, the plaintiff filed a § 1983 claim in federal court. Id. at 77-80. She argued that, since she did not litigate her § 1983 claim in state court, the “state-court judgment should not preclude her suit in federal court simply because her federal claim could have been litigated in the state-court proceeding.” Id. at 83. The Supreme Court disagreed, rejecting the view that § 1983 “prevents the judgment in petitioners’ state-court proceeding
Thus, the district court was correct when it concluded that if state court decisions have preclusive effect on § 1983 claims that were not raised in a previous state court action, then Plaintiff‘s federal due process claim is likewise precluded by the state court decision finding that Defendant was entitled to judgment as a matter of law on Plaintiff‘s state due process claim. For this reason, the district court did not err in concluding that Plaintiff‘s federal due process claim is barred by res judicata.
Plaintiff also argues that the district court‘s dismissal of the federal due process claim was premature because discovery on the merits had not begun. The district court concluded that this argument was “moot since Plaintiff‘s claims are barred by res judicata.” The district court correctly concluded that the issue of discovery on Plaintiff‘s due process claim is moot because the claim is barred by res judicata. The district court did not err in dismissing the case before discovery because res judicata motions only present questions of law which require no discovery. This Court held that “[t]he purpose of res judicata is to eliminate the relitigation of claims—not just to avoid inconsistent results, but also to avoid the expense of a trial, which includes discovery. Because [Plaintiff] could have brought its current claims in the first trial [in state court], but did not, the claims are barred. No amount of discovery will change the preclusive effect of the [state court] case on the current case, so the [district court] did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to extend discovery.” Quality Measurement Co. v. IPSOS S.A., 56 Fed. Appx. 639, 650 (6th Cir.2003) (citation omitted). Accordingly, the district court did not err in its conclusion that Plaintiff‘s discovery argument is “moot” because Plaintiff‘s federal due process claim is barred by res judicata.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court‘s decision to grant Defendant‘s motion to dismiss.
ERIC L. CLAY
UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE