PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-6568

LEWIS DUCKETT,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

MARCIA FULLER, SCDC Dietician in their individual or personal 

capacities; MRS. BALL, First Name Unknown Kershaw Cafeteria 

Supervisor in their individual or personal capacities; 

MICHAEL L. FAIR, Legislative Audit Counsel in their 

individual or personal capacities; SC DISTRICT 6, Greenville 

County State Senate in their individual or personal 

capacities; BOYD H. PARR, Director of Poultry Products and 

Inspection in their individual or personal capacities,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Greenville. J. Michelle Childs, District 

Judge. (6:13-cv-03205-JMC)

Argued: March 22, 2016 Decided: April 25, 2016

Before NIEMEYER and MOTZ, Circuit Judges, and Max O. COGBURN, 

Jr., United States District Judge for the District of North 

Carolina, sitting by designation.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Niemeyer 

wrote the opinion in which Judge Motz and Judge Cogburn joined.
2

ARGUED: Ricardo Camposanto, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF 

LAW, Charlottesville, Virginia, for Appellant. Sheila M. Bias, 

RICHARDSON PLOWDEN & ROBINSON, P.A., Columbia, South Carolina, 

for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Stephen L. Braga, Counsel of Record, 

Kaitlyn Tongalson, Third Year Law Student, Appellate Litigation 

Clinic, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA SCHOOL OF LAW, Charlottesville, 

Virginia, for Appellant. Caleb M. Riser, RICHARDSON PLOWDEN & 

ROBINSON, P.A., Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees.
3

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

Lewis Duckett commenced this action against employees of 

the South Carolina Department of Corrections (“SCDC”) and 

others, alleging that the food served to him at the Kershaw 

Correctional Institution, a prison managed by the SCDC, was so 

deficient as to violate his Eighth Amendment rights. The form 

of Duckett’s complaint and the claims made are virtually the 

same as a complaint filed against SCDC employees by a fellow 

inmate in 2010, which the district court dismissed on the 

merits.

On the state defendants’ motion in this case, the district 

court dismissed Duckett’s complaint under Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 12(b)(6), concluding that, because Duckett would have 

benefited if his fellow inmate’s 2010 suit had been successful, 

he is barred by the doctrine of res judicata from pursuing the 

present action. As the court explained:

The claims are at their core identical, and thus 

qualify as the same cause of action. To allow this 

claim to go forward would mean relitigating the same 

issues this court litigated in [the earlier suit]. 

This goes against the principles behind res judicata.

We reverse. As a nonparty to the earlier suit, Duckett is 

not precluded from pursuing the same claims on his own behalf in 

the instant action unless the state defendants are able to 

demonstrate that at least one of the six exceptions to the 

general rule against nonparty preclusion applies. See Taylor v. 
4

Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880, 892-95 (2008). We conclude that the 

state defendants have not demonstrated that any of the 

exceptions applies and accordingly reverse the district court’s 

dismissal of Duckett’s complaint and remand for further 

proceedings.

I

On April 4, 2013, Duckett and 15 other inmates at Kershaw,

all proceeding pro se, filed a complaint against two SCDC 

employees and other state officials, challenging, under the 

Eighth Amendment, the quality of the food served at Kershaw. In 

the complaint, which is labeled “Class Action Complaint,” the 

inmates alleged that the prison authorities failed to serve food 

satisfying recommended minimum daily amounts of vitamins and 

nutrients; that they served insufficient portions; and that they 

misrepresented food as beef when it was actually made from 

ground poultry offal and organs, thereby violating the inmates’ 

Eighth Amendment rights. The inmates sought declaratory and 

injunctive relief, as well as damages. The parties agree that 

the complaint was drafted by Duckett’s fellow inmate, Bernard 

McFadden, who was also one of the 16 plaintiffs in the action.

On review of the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915, the 

district court ruled that the complaint “should not be allowed 

to proceed under one joint action,” explaining, among other 
5

things, that the “Plaintiffs have alleged a wide array of 

illnesses resulting from malnutrition that would require 

individualized findings.” The court accordingly severed the 

case “into sixteen separate actions, individualized for each 

Plaintiff,” and directed the clerk to file copies of the 

complaint under new case numbers, a different one for each 

plaintiff.

Following severance of the action, Duckett paid the 

required $350 filing fee out of his prison account and 

supplemented the allegations of his complaint with further 

allegations of his specific injury, claiming “Bleeding gums, 

weight loss, High Cholesterol, teeth damage, [and] Heart burn,” 

among other things.

The state defendants filed a motion under Rule 12(b)(6) to 

dismiss Duckett’s complaint, asserting that “[t]he subject 

matter of this action ha[d] already been litigated by 

Plaintiff’s privies and a full and final decision on the merits 

[had been] rendered by this court.” They specifically referred 

to a similar complaint, which the district court had dismissed 

on the merits, filed by inmate McFadden in 2010 against SCDC 

employees while McFadden was housed in the Kirkland Correctional 

Institution, another prison managed by the SCDC.

While the magistrate judge recommended concluding “that 

neither res judicata nor collateral estoppel bar[s] the 
6

plaintiff’s complaint,” the district court granted the state 

defendants’ motion to dismiss on res judicata grounds by order 

dated March 19, 2015.1 In its supporting opinion, the court 

concluded that Duckett “[was] in privity with Plaintiff McFadden 

in the prior case,” providing the following explanation:

Had McFadden I been a successful suit for Plaintiff, 

Plaintiff in this case would have benefitted. In 

McFadden I, the Complaint sought “an Order directing 

the Defendants to serve nutritious and balanced meals 

according to the daily recommended food charts.” 

Plaintiff here similarly seeks an Order requiring “a 

gradual change to daily recommended foods that are 

balanced and nutritious.” Further, as far as any 

damages Plaintiff seeks, had McFadden I been 

successful, Plaintiff could have argued collateral 

estoppel barred Defendants from denying the facts that 

were litigated and thus would benefit from a favorable 

decision. Thus, Plaintiff has the same legal right as 

Plaintiff McFadden, and is in privity.

From the final judgment dismissing Duckett’s claims with 

prejudice, Duckett filed this appeal. By order dated October 

27, 2015, we appointed counsel to represent him on appeal.2

II

Duckett contends that he is not bound by the judgment in 

McFadden’s 2010 suit because he was not a party to it; he never 

had his day in court on the issues presented in it; and he had 

 1 In the same order, the district court dismissed, without 

prejudice, the claims against defendants Michael Fair, SC 

District 6, and Boyd Parr, a ruling that Duckett does not 

challenge on appeal.

2 We are grateful for appointed counsel’s able service.
7

“no meaningful way of participating” in it. In short, he argues 

that he cannot be bound by the judgment in that action unless 

his circumstances fit into one of the exceptions to the rule 

against nonparty preclusion recognized in Taylor. He asserts 

that, because none of the exceptions applies to his 

circumstances, we should reverse the district court’s order 

dismissing his complaint.

The state defendants contend that Duckett is bound by the 

judgment in McFadden’s 2010 suit because Duckett’s interests in 

this action are “aligned with and even identical to” McFadden’s 

interests in McFadden’s 2010 suit and, therefore, Duckett is “in 

privity” with McFadden. They assert that “‘privity’ between 

parties exists, as a matter of law, when the interests of one 

party are so identified with the interests of another that 

representation by one party is representation of the other’s 

legal right.” The state defendants maintain that the 

applicability of Taylor to this case is, “at best, minimal,” 

because Taylor rejected a preclusion doctrine based on what is 

known as “virtual representation” and “did not discuss the 

concept of privity,” on which the district court relied in this 

case. But even if Taylor were to control, they reason, at least 

one exception identified in Taylor would apply because Duckett 

“desires to create a substantive legal relationship with Inmate 
8

McFadden” and is, in this case, “acting as an agent or proxy for 

Inmate McFadden to re-litigate his claims.”

The district court agreed with the state defendants and 

dismissed Duckett’s suit as precluded by the doctrine of res 

judicata.

The general rule is well established that once a person has 

had a full and fair opportunity to litigate a claim, the person 

is precluded, under the doctrine of res judicata, from 

relitigating it. See New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U.S. 742, 748-

49 (2001). Sound considerations justify the doctrine. 

“[P]reclud[ing] parties from contesting matters that they have 

had a full and fair opportunity to litigate protects their 

adversaries from the expense and vexation attending multiple 

lawsuits, conserves judicial resources, and fosters reliance on 

judicial action by minimizing the possibility of inconsistent 

decisions.” Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153-54 

(1979). The doctrine of res judicata, or claim preclusion, is 

applied to bar a suit in light of a prior judgment when three 

elements are demonstrated: (1) that “the prior judgment was 

final and on the merits, and rendered by a court of competent 

jurisdiction in accordance with the requirements of due 

process”; (2) that “the parties are identical, or in privity, in 

the two actions”; and (3) that “the claims in the second matter 

are based upon the same cause of action involved in the earlier 
9

proceeding” -- i.e., the claims “arise out of the same 

transaction or series of transactions, or the same core of 

operative facts.” In re Varat Enterprises, Inc., 81 F.3d 1310, 

1315-16 (4th Cir. 1996) (citations omitted).

Thus, in this case, it cannot be disputed that inmate 

McFadden is precluded from relitigating the claims he asserted 

and lost in his 2010 suit. The question presented here, 

however, is whether Duckett’s present action, raising the same 

claims that McFadden made in the 2010 suit, is barred by the 

doctrine of claim preclusion even though Duckett was not a party 

to McFadden’s 2010 suit and did not participate in it. The 

answer is provided definitively by Taylor.

In Taylor, the Supreme Court noted that under the “deeprooted historic tradition that everyone should have his own day 

in court” with a “full and fair opportunity to litigate the 

claims and issues,” a person not designated a party to an action 

nor served with process in it “is [generally] not bound by a 

judgment in personam” entered in the action. 553 U.S. at 892-93 

(internal quotations marks omitted) (quoting Richards v. 

Jefferson Cnty., 517 U.S. 793, 798 (1996)). But the general 

rule has exceptions such that the nonparty may nonetheless be 

bound by a judgment entered in the action. The Taylor Court 

identified six such exceptions.
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First, a nonparty who agrees to be bound by a judgment in 

an action “‘is bound in accordance with the terms of his 

agreement.’” Taylor, 553 U.S. at 893 (quoting 1 Restatement 

(Second) of Judgments § 40 (1980)). Second, a nonparty may be 

bound by a judgment “based on a variety of pre-existing 

substantive legal relationships” between the nonparty and a 

party in the action, such as “preceding and succeeding owners of 

property, bailee and bailor, and assignee and assignor.” Id. at 

894 (alteration, internal quotation marks, and citation 

omitted). Third, a nonparty may be bound by a judgment when the 

nonparty was adequately represented in the action by a party

with the same interests, such as in “properly conducted class 

actions, and suits brought by trustees, guardians, and other 

fiduciaries.” Id. (citations omitted). Fourth, a nonparty is 

bound by a judgment if the nonparty “‘assume[d] control’ over 

the litigation in which that judgment was rendered.” Id. at 895 

(alteration in original) (quoting Montana, 440 U.S. at 154). 

Fifth, “a party bound by a judgment may not avoid its preclusive 

force by relitigating through a proxy,” making preclusion 

“appropriate when a nonparty later brings suit as an agent for a 

party who is bound by a judgment.” Id. And sixth, “in certain 

circumstances a special statutory scheme may ‘expressly 

foreclos[e] successive litigation by nonlitigants . . . if the 

scheme is otherwise consistent with due process.’” Id.
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(alteration in original) (quoting Martin v. Wilks, 490 U.S. 755, 

762 n.2 (1989)).

These six exceptions to the rule against nonparty claim 

preclusion constitute an exhaustive list for cases such as this. 

As the Taylor Court stated unequivocally, “The preclusive 

effects of a judgment in a federal-question case decided by a 

federal court should . . . be determined according to the 

established grounds for nonparty preclusion described in this 

opinion.” 553 U.S. at 904 (emphasis added).

Despite the state defendants’ arguments to the contrary, 

therefore, the resolution of the issue presented in this appeal 

begins and ends with Taylor. While the state defendants 

correctly point out that the Taylor Court declined to use the 

term “privity” -- with the Court explaining that it was avoiding 

the term to prevent confusion, 553 U.S. at 894 n.8 -- no one can 

seriously dispute that the Court nonetheless sought to provide a 

comprehensive synthesis of the “discrete exceptions that apply 

in ‘limited circumstances’” to the “fundamental . . . rule that 

a litigant is not bound by a judgment to which she was not a 

party,” id. at 898 (quoting Martin, 490 U.S. at 762 n.2). 

Consequently, the question of whether the judgment in McFadden’s

2010 suit bars Duckett from pursuing his claims in this case 

must be determined according to the grounds for nonparty 

preclusion described in Taylor. See id. at 904.
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Turning to this case, the relevant facts to consider are

those alleged in Duckett’s complaint and the undisputed record 

facts from McFadden’s 2010 suit, of which the district court in 

this case took judicial notice. See Andrews v. Daw, 201 F.3d

521, 524 n.1 (4th Cir. 2000). These facts show that, in 2010, 

McFadden, while incarcerated at Kirkland, filed a complaint 

alleging that SCDC employees had served deficient food and 

thereby violated his Eighth Amendment rights. The district 

court dismissed that action on the merits. Duckett was not a 

party to that action, nor was he in any way involved in its 

process. Indeed, he was, at the time, incarcerated at Kershaw,

a different prison.

After McFadden was transferred from Kirkland to Kershaw, he 

drafted a complaint on behalf of himself and 15 other inmates, 

including Duckett, to challenge the adequacy of the food served 

at Kershaw. This complaint made the same claims that McFadden 

had made in 2010 while at Kirkland. When the district court 

severed the action, requiring each inmate to prosecute his own 

claims, Duckett did indeed pursue his own, using the McFaddendrafted complaint and adding his own allegations about the 

injuries he claimed to be suffering. The district court 

dismissed Duckett’s action because the complaint was virtually 

identical to McFadden’s 2010 complaint that had been dismissed, 

stating that “to go forward would mean relitigating the same 
13

issues this court litigated in McFadden I. This goes against 

the principles behind res judicata.” Because Duckett was not a 

party to McFadden’s 2010 suit and was not served in that action, 

however, he cannot be bound by the judgment of dismissal in that 

action unless one of the six Taylor exceptions applies.

It appears undisputed that four of the six Taylor

exceptions clearly have no applicability here. There is no 

indication that Duckett agreed to be bound by the judgment in 

McFadden’s 2010 suit (exception one); that McFadden represented 

Duckett in the 2010 suit through a class action mechanism or

other type of representational action, such that McFadden 

functioned as Duckett’s trustee, guardian, or fiduciary 

(exception three); that Duckett assumed control over McFadden’s 

2010 suit (exception four); or that Duckett’s action implicated 

a special statutory scheme limiting relitigation (exception 

six).

As to the second Taylor exception, which applies based on 

“a variety of pre-existing substantive legal relationships 

between the person to be bound [in the current action] and a 

party to the [previous] judgment,” Taylor, 553 U.S. at 894

(alteration, internal quotation marks, and citation omitted), 

the state defendants suggest, almost in passing, that this

exception applies here. But this casual assertion 

misunderstands the nature of the exception, which is reserved 
14

for a variety of legal, property-based relationships. As the 

Taylor Court explained, relationships qualifying under the 

second exception include “preceding and succeeding owners of 

property, bailee and bailor, and assignee and assignor,” noting 

further that this exception “originated ‘as much from the needs 

of property law as from the values of preclusion by judgment.’” 

Id. (quoting 18A Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward 

H. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4448 (2d ed. 2002)). 

Nothing in this record hints of any qualifying substantive legal 

relationship between Duckett and McFadden that might implicate 

the second exception.

The state defendants’ argument for nonparty preclusion 

therefore can rest only, if at all, on the fifth exception,

which would preclude Duckett from bringing his suit “as a 

representative or agent of [McFadden] who is bound by the prior 

adjudication.” Taylor, 553 U.S. at 905. But nothing in the 

record supports this exception, which, in essence, is aimed at 

precluding McFadden from relitigating his 2010 case by using 

Duckett as his foil. To be sure, McFadden apparently drafted 

the original complaint in this case for himself and 15 other 

inmates, and, indeed, Duckett has referred to McFadden as a 

“jailhouse lawyer.” But such jailhouse-lawyer assistance does 

not prove that Duckett is acting “subject to the control” of 

McFadden for the purpose of pursuing McFadden’s claim. Id. at 
15

906. To the contrary, the record indicates that Duckett used 

McFadden’s assistance to pursue his own claim. Duckett signed 

the original complaint as a plaintiff, and his joinder was 

consistent with his own earlier grievance about the 

institution’s food, which he filed in May 2012, nearly a year 

before this action was commenced. In addition, when Duckett’s 

claim was severed from the claims of the other 15 inmates, 

Duckett paid the filing fee from his own prison account and 

supplied the court with language, in his own words, describing 

the nature of his personal injuries. Nothing in the record 

suggests that Duckett was acting as an agent for McFadden to 

pursue McFadden’s claims or that McFadden was serving as some 

form of “puppeteer” controlling Duckett, as the state defendants 

argue. Taylor’s fifth exception thus does not apply to this 

case.

At bottom, we conclude that the state defendants have 

failed, at this stage, to meet their burden of demonstrating the 

applicability of any of the six Taylor exceptions to the rule 

against nonparty preclusion. Accordingly, as a nonparty to 

McFadden’s 2010 suit, Duckett is not barred by a judgment in 

that suit from pursuing his own similar claims in this action. 

The district court’s judgment dismissing Duckett’s complaint 
16

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) is thus reversed, 

and the case is remanded for further proceedings.

REVERSED AND REMANDED