UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

DAWUD CANAAN STURRUP 

GABRIEL, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant, 

v. 

MELTON TRUCK LINES, 

 Defendant - Appellee. 

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 

DAWUD CANAAN STURRUP 

GABRIEL, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant, 

v. 

MELTON TRUCK LINES, 

 Defendant - Appellee. 

No. 22-5008 

(D.C. No. 4:21-CV-00529-GKF-JFJ) 

(N.D. Okla.) 

No. 22-5009 

(D.C. No. 4:22-CV-00021-GKF-JFJ) 

(N.D. Okla.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before HARTZ, BALDOCK, and McHUGH, Circuit Judges. 

* After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously to honor the party’s request for a decision on the brief without oral 

argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). These cases are therefore 

submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, 

except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It 

may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 

and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals 

Tenth Circuit 

April 29, 2022

Christopher M. Wolpert 

Clerk of Court

Appellate Case: 22-5008 Document: 010110677604 Date Filed: 04/29/2022 Page: 1
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_________________________________ 

Plaintiff Dawud C.S. Gabriel, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s 

orders dismissing two of his disability-discrimination cases as duplicative of an 

earlier-filed case against the same defendant that remains pending. Exercising 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm. 

On November 16, 2021, Mr. Gabriel filed a complaint in the United States 

District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma against defendant Melton Truck 

Lines (Melton). On December 9, 2021, and January 14, 2022, he initiated two more 

suits against Melton in the same court. In each case Mr. Gabriel asserted one 

disparate-treatment claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act, claiming that in 

2020, Melton, his employer, discriminated against him because of his attention 

deficit hyperactivity disorder. 

The three complaints, each some 200 pages long, are substantially identical 

except for a few pages where Mr. Gabriel alleges different instances of 

discriminatory conduct: The original complaint alleges that in May 2020 Melton 

instructed an employee to misrepresent when Mr. Gabriel could attend new-hire 

training, thereby delaying the start of his employment; the next complaint alleges that 

on August 26, 2020, a Melton supervisor made a derogatory statement to try to cause 

Mr. Gabriel to resign; and the third complaint alleged that in July 2020 Melton failed 

to reimburse Mr. Gabriel for transportation expenses that he incurred in attending his 

new-hire training. 

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On January 19, 2022, the district court issued orders directing Mr. Gabriel to 

show cause why his later-filed cases should not be dismissed as duplicative. After he 

filed responses, the district court dismissed the cases, reasoning that “all three 

complaints assert the same claim—disability discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. 

§ 12112(a)—against the same defendant based on the same disability in the course of 

the same employment relationship.” R. (22-5008), Vol. I at 208; R. (22-5009), Vol. I 

at 329. The dismissals were without prejudice to allow Mr. Gabriel the opportunity to 

amend the complaint in his first-filed case. Mr. Gabriel appeals both dismissals, 

arguing that the cases were not duplicative and that the district judge should have 

recused. 

The district court dismissed Mr. Gabriel’s later-filed cases by applying the rule 

against claim-splitting, which “requires a plaintiff to assert all of its causes of action 

arising from a common set of facts in one lawsuit.” Katz v. Gerardi, 655 F.3d 1212, 

1217 (10th Cir. 2011). “[T]he test for claim splitting is . . . whether the first suit, 

assuming it were final, would preclude the second suit.” Id. at 1218. We review a 

district court’s dismissal for claim-splitting for abuse of discretion. See id. at 1217. 

A second suit is precluded by a prior final judgment on the merits if two 

conditions are satisfied: “identity of parties or privies in the two suits” and “identity 

of the cause of action in both suits.” Lenox MacLaren Surgical Corp. v. Medtronic, 

Inc., 847 F.3d 1221, 1239 (10th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, 

there is no dispute that the parties are the same in each suit. And we conclude that the 

causes of action are identical as well. “Suits involve the same claim (or cause of 

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action) when they arise from the same transaction or involve a common nucleus of 

operative facts.” Lucky Brand Dungarees, Inc. v. Marcel Fashion Grp., Inc., 140 S. 

Ct. 1589, 1595 (2020) (brackets, citations, and internal quotation marks omitted). We 

have held that “all claims arising from the same employment relationship constitute 

the same transaction or series of transactions for claim preclusion purposes,” Wilkes 

v. Wyo. Dep’t of Emp. Div. of Lab. Standards, 314 F.3d 501, 504 (10th Cir. 2002) 

(internal quotation marks omitted), at least when all the facts underlying the laterfiled suits “were in existence at the time the first suit was filed,” Mitchell v. City of 

Moore, 218 F.3d 1190, 1202 (10th Cir. 2000). That is the situation here since the 

three complaints all alleged discriminatory acts arising from Mr. Gabriel’s 

employment relationship with Melton in 2020, before all three complaints were filed. 

The district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the later suits as 

duplicative. 

We also reject the argument that the district judge lacked impartiality and 

should have recused himself. Mr. Gabriel bases his argument on rulings by the 

district judge. But “adverse rulings cannot in themselves form the appropriate 

grounds for disqualification.” United States v. Wells, 873 F.3d 1241, 1252 (10th Cir. 

2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

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The judgments of the district court are AFFIRMED. All pending motions are 

DENIED as moot. 

Entered for the Court 

Harris L Hartz 

Circuit Judge 

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