23-765

Stensrud v. Rochester Genesee Reg’l Transp. Auth.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION 

TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS 

GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S 

LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH 

THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN 

ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY 

CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT 

REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 

held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the 

City of New York, on the 10th day of May, two thousand twenty-four. 

PRESENT: 

DENNIS JACOBS, 

ROBERT D. SACK, 

RICHARD J. SULLIVAN, 

 Circuit Judges. 

____________________________________

JOHN R. STENSRUD, MARIA B. STENSRUD, 

 Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v. No. 23-765 

ROCHESTER GENESEE REGIONAL

TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY, 

 Defendant-Appellee. 

_______________________________________________
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For Plaintiffs-Appellants: JOHN T. REFERMAT, Refermat & Daniel

PLLC, Rochester, NY. 

For Defendant-Appellee: TIMOTHY N. MCMAHON (Suzanne M. 

Messer, on the brief), Bond, Schoeneck & 

King, PLLC, Syracuse, NY. 

Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Western

District of New York (Elizabeth A. Wolford, Chief Judge). 

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, 

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the April 17, 2023 judgment of the district 

court is AFFIRMED. 

John and Maria Stensrud appeal from the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment in favor of Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority

(“RGRTA”) on their claims brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and New York law 

alleging that RGRTA took their property without just compensation, in violation 

of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, and the 

constitution and laws of New York. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the 

underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal, to which we refer only 

as necessary to resolve this case. 

In August 2015, RGRTA used its eminent-domain authority to take a 

multifamily residential property (the “Property”) from the Stensruds to make way 
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for a planned expansion of RGRTA’s office campus in Rochester, New York. 

After this taking, the Stensruds brought a claim in state court seeking damages in 

the amount of $1,386,257 in addition to other “consequential damages.” J. App’x 

at 996. While the Stensruds’ state-court claim was pending, the Supreme Court 

decided Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, 588 U.S. 180, 182 (2019), which 

overruled its prior holding in Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. 

Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985), that “a property owner whose 

property has been taken by a local government has not suffered a violation of his 

Fifth Amendment rights – and thus cannot bring a federal takings claim in federal 

court – until a state court has denied his claim for just compensation under state 

law.” Knick, 588 U.S. at 184 (describing holding in Williamson County). With 

Williamson County no longer a bar, the Stensruds brought this action in federal 

court, asserting claims similar to the ones they had brought in state court. The 

Stensruds did not discontinue the state-court action, purportedly because they 

were unable to do so unilaterally and because RGRTA would not agree to a 

“mutual discontinuance.” Stensrud Br. at 16.

While the federal case was pending, the state court held a bench trial and 

entered judgment awarding the Stensruds $509,000 plus accrued interest of nine 
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percent for the taking of the Property. In light of the state court’s judgment, the 

district court granted summary judgment to RGRTA on the ground that all of the 

Stensruds’ claims in their federal action were barred by res judicata. This appeal 

followed. 

We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment, including

its “application of the principles of res judicata.” Legnani v. Alitalia Linee Aeree 

Italiane, S.p.A., 400 F.3d 139, 141 (2d Cir. 2005). “Federal courts are required to 

give preclusive effect to state-court judgments whenever the courts of the state 

from which the judgments emerged would do so.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Healey, 

28 F.4th 383, 398 (2d Cir. 2022) (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted); 

see 28 U.S.C. § 1738 (Full Faith and Credit Act). This requirement applies equally

in takings actions brought under section 1983 like the Stensruds’. See San Remo 

Hotel, L.P. v. City & County of San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323, 343–44, 347–48 (2005); 

Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 96–105 (1980). Accordingly, we apply New York 

law to determine the preclusive effect of the state-court judgment in the Stensruds’ 

prior action. 

Under New York law, res judicata (also known as claim preclusion) “bars 

successive litigation based upon the same transaction or series of connected 
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transactions” if (1) “there is a judgment on the merits rendered by a court of 

competent jurisdiction,” and (2) “the party against whom the doctrine is invoked 

was a party to the previous action.” People ex rel. Spitzer v. Applied Card Sys., Inc., 

11 N.Y.3d 105, 122 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). “New York 

employs a transactional approach to claim preclusion, under which the claim 

preclusion rule extends beyond attempts to relitigate identical claims to all other 

claims arising out of the same transaction or series of transactions.” Simmons v. Trans 

Express Inc., 16 F.4th 357, 360 (2d Cir. 2021) (alterations and internal quotation 

marks omitted). Under this approach, “once a claim is brought to a final 

conclusion, all other claims arising out of the same transaction or series of 

transactions are barred, even if based upon different theories or if seeking a 

different remedy.” Josey v. Goord, 9 N.Y.3d 386, 389–90 (2007) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Applying these principles, the district court concluded that the 

Stensruds’ federal-court claims were barred by res judicata, since there was “no 

dispute that the claims asserted in the [federal] action ar[o]se out of the same

transaction or series of transactions as the claim resolved by the state trial court’s 

decision and judgment – namely, the taking of the Property by RGRTA in August 

of 2015.” Sp. App’x at 7. 
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On appeal, the Stensruds argue that the district court erred for two principal 

reasons. First, they contend that res judicata does not apply because the state court 

“did not have the power to award the full measure of relief sought in the later 

litigation” due to a New York regulation that apparently precluded use of the 

Stensruds’ preferred real-estate-valuation methodology. Stensrud Br. at 22 

(quoting Burgos v. Hopkins, 14 F.3d 787, 790 (2d Cir. 1994)); see id. at 14, 23. 

Second, the Stensruds argue that res judicata does not – or should not – apply 

because, after the Supreme Court’s holding in Knick v. Township of Scott, they were 

not required to bring their claim in state court at all. We are not persuaded by 

either argument. 

For starters, Burgos is inapposite. In that case, we held that a previously 

litigated state habeas action did not bar a subsequent damages action under 

section 1983, since “a New York State court determining a petition for habeas relief 

does not have the authority to award damages.” Burgos, 14 F.3d at 791. Here, 

by contrast, the New York court clearly had authority to award damages to the

Stensruds on their takings claim – and it did. To the extent the Stensruds think 

the state court’s damages award was erroneous, their remedy lies in direct appeal 

to a higher state court and, eventually, petition for review to the United States
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Supreme Court. Nothing in Burgos gives state-court litigants who are dissatisfied 

with their damages awards the right to a do-over in federal district court.

The Stensruds’ second argument, that the Supreme Court’s decision in Knick 

allows their federal-court action to proceed, is equally unavailing. In Knick, the 

Supreme Court overruled the state-court exhaustion requirement that Williamson 

County had effectively established, holding instead that a property owner

asserting a Takings Clause claim need not seek just compensation in state court 

before bringing his claim in federal court. Knick, 588 U.S. at 185. But as we have 

previously explained, when a plaintiff has in fact brought his claims in state court

and litigated those claims to a judgment, the district court is “required by federal 

law to apply collateral estoppel” – and res judicata – “to issues decided in those 

proceedings,” notwithstanding Knick. Morabito v. New York, 803 F. App’x 463, 468

(2d Cir. 2020); see San Remo Hotel, 545 U.S. at 336; 28 U.S.C. § 1738. We are not 

alone in reaching this conclusion. See Tejas Motel, L.L.C. v. City of Mesquite ex rel. 

Bd. of Adjustment, 63 F.4th 323, 334 (5th Cir. 2023) (“[N]othing in Knick nullifies 

long-settled principles of res judicata.”); Ocean Palm Golf Club P’ship v. City of Flagler 

Beach, 861 F. App’x 368, 371 (11th Cir. 2021) (“The Knick Court did not overrule or 
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otherwise modify its precedent in San Remo.”). The Stensruds’ attempts to 

distinguish these cases are unpersuasive.

“One can sympathize with [the Stensruds’] procedural plight,” Tejas Motel, 

L.L.C., 63 F.4th at 335, but once the state court’s judgment issued, their claims in 

this case were barred by res judicata as defined under New York law. See San 

Remo Hotel, 545 U.S. at 336. The district court therefore did not err in granting 

summary judgment to the defendants. 

We have considered Plaintiffs’ remaining arguments and find them to be 

without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

FOR THE COURT: 

Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court