UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

DOYLE RAY HAM, JR., Plaintiff,

v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant. Civil Action No. 16-1720 (RDM)

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Plaintiff Doyle Ray Ham, Jr., proceeding pro se , challenges his 2015 no n-selection for a position as a police officer with t he Metropolitan Police Depar tment (“MPD”) in Washington, D.C. Ham asserts that the MPD ’s decision not to hire him was t he product of both racial discrimination and unlawful retali ation for protected activity he took after the MPD rejected his previous employment application in 2007. In addition, Ham “ask s th[e] [C]ourt to reopen case No. 13-[cv]-01527”—a Title VII act ion Ham brought against the D istrict of Columbia in 2013 challenging his 2007 non-selecti on. Dkt. 1 at 3 (Compl. ¶ 14). According to Ham, the Court should reopen that case and permit him to renew his challenge t o his 2007 non-selection because the 2013 case “is connected to th is case” and because he was al legedly “denied due process in” the 2013 case. Id. The District, in turn, has moved t o dismiss Ham’s complaint to the extent it challenges his 2007 non-selection on the ground that that chall enge was previously rejected by the Court for failure to timely exhaust administrative remedies and is now “barred by the doctrine of res judicata .” Dkt. 8 at 1.2 For the reasons explained below, the Court agrees that Ham may not relitigate his 2007 non-selection claims and will, accordingly, grant the District’ s motion to dismiss that portion of his complaint.
I. BACKGROUND For purposes of the pending motion t o dismiss, the following fa cts, which are taken from Ham’s complaint and the documents attached to it, are accepted as true. See Am. Nat’l Ins. Co.
v. FDIC , 642 F.3d 1137, 1139 (D.C. Cir. 2011); see also EEOC v. St. Francis Xavier Parochial
Sch. , 117 F.3d 621, 624 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (“In determining whether a complaint fails to state a claim, [the Court] may consider only the facts al leged in the c omplaint, any documents either attached to or incorporated in t he complaint and matters of whi ch [it] may take judicial notice.”). Over a decade ago, Ham applied for a position as an officer wit h the MPD, but his application was rejected on the ground that he had been arreste d (although not convicted) for assault in 1984. 1 See Dkt. 1-1 at 8, 50, 54. After a serie s of unsuccessful internal appeals challenging his non-selection, Ham filed a complaint with the E EOC in January of 2010, id. at 2–5, and then a Title VII acti on in this Court in 2013, see Ham v. Metro. Police Dep’t , 13-cv1527 (ESH), Dkt. 1 at 1. 2 This Court (Huvelle, J.) concluded that Ham’s “Title VII clai m fail[ed] for failure to [timely] exhaust [his] administrative r emedies,” granted summary judgment

1 It is difficult to determine when Ham first applied for a pos ition with the MPD—he refers to an application filed as early as 2002, see Dkt. 10 at 13, 21—but the recor d reflects that the nonselection which led to Ham’s first Title VII complaint was ulti mately made in 2007, see Dkt. 1-1 at 54 (letter from the MPD Office of Human Resource Management describing the “December 21, 2007, decision of Capt. Ricky Mitchell . . . which denied [ Ham’s] application for the position of police office with the [MPD]”).

2 Although Ham first named the MPD as a defendant in his 2013 c omplaint, the Court “substituted the District of Colu mbia” as the proper defendant. See Ham v. Metro. Police Dep’t , 2014 WL 98641, at *1 (D.D.C. Jan. 10, 2014).3 in favor of the District, and dismissed the case. Ham , 2014 WL 98641, at *1; see also Ham , 13- cv-1527 (ESH), Dkt. 12 at 1. Ham app ealed, and the Court of Ap peals affirmed, holding that the district court “properly determi ned that [Ham’s] [EEOC] complai nt was filed outside . . . the limitations period.” Ham v. Metro. Police Dep’t , No. 14-7032, 2014 WL 4628886, at *1 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 5, 2014). The Supreme Court denied Ham’s petition fo r a writ of certiorari. See Ham v. Metro. Police Dep’t , 135 S. Ct. 729 (2014). While pursuing his administrative appeals with the MPD, Ham suc cessfully moved in D.C. Superior Court to seal any pub licly available records rela ted to his 1984 assault arrest. See Dkt. 1-1 at 8–11. Armed with that sealing order, Ham again beg an the application process to join the MPD in 2015. Dkt. 1 at 2 ( Compl. ¶ 3). Despite passi ng his written test and receiving an invitation from the MPD to s chedule a physical evaluation an d a polygraph examination, id. (Compl. ¶¶ 6–7, 9), Ham received a n email from the MPD on Augus t 17, 2015, informing him that, “[b]ased upon information obt ained during” a background c heck, the MPD had “determined that [he was] ineligible for the [police officer] position due to criminal activity,” Dkt. 1-1 at 39. Ham filed an administrative appeal of that decision, and on Sep tember 18, 2015, he received a “[f]inal” decision from the MPD “d etermin[ing] that [he] remain [ed] not best qualified for the position.” Id. at 41. Ham filed an EEOC comp laint on May 27, 2016, asserting that the MPD “unfairly denied [his] application” because he was not convicte d of the assault chan ge it cited to justify his non-selection, and because the MPD “has hired other races with convictions on [their] record[s].” Id. at 45. The EEOC dismissed his complaint on June 10, 2016, id. at 1, and Ham commenced this action on August 24, 2016, Dkt. 1.4 II. ANALYSIS Ham’s complaint, liberally c onstrued, challenges his 2015 non-s election and also seeks to reopen his earlier case cha llenging his 2007 non-selection. Th e present motion does not seek dismissal of Ham’s complaint t o the extent it challenges his 20 15 non-selection. It does, however, seek dismissal of the com plaint to the extent it seeks to reopen the 2013 litigation. In particular, the District argues that Ham’s “attempt to relitiga te” the Court’s earlier ruling is “preclude[d]” by the doctrine of res judicata . Dkt. 8 at 5–6. As explained below, the Court
agrees. The doctrine of res judicata “protect[s] against the e xpense and vexation attending multiple lawsuits” by “preclud[ing] parties from contesting mat ters that they have had a full and fair opportunity to litigate.” Taylor v. Sturgell , 553 U.S. 880, 892 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted) (second alteration in original). More specifica lly, “[u]nder the doctrine of claim preclusion, a final judgment for ecloses successive litigation o f the very same claim.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted) . A “subsequent lawsuit” is thus precluded “if there has been prior litigation (1) involving the same claims or cause of acti on, (2) between the same parties or their privies, and (3) there ha s been a final, valid judgment o n the merits, (4) by a court of competent jurisdiction.” Smalls v. United States , 471 F.3d 186, 192 (D.C. Cir. 2006). Each of these conditions is satisfied here. First, Ham admits on the face of his complaint that the claims he asserts re garding his 2007 no n-selection are “exactly identical in nature” to those he raised in “case No. 13-[c v]-1527”—that is, the case in which the Court held that Ham failed to timely exhaust administ rative remedies relating to hi s challenges to the MPD’s 2007 decision not to hire him. Dkt . 1 at 1 (Compl. ¶ 1). Second, t he parties in both suits are the same—Ham and the District. Thir d, the Court entered a final ju dgment dismissing his case in5 2014. See Ham , 13-cv-1527 (ESH), Dkt. 12 at 1. A nd, finally, there is no do ubt that the Court was a court of “competent juri sdiction” to consider Ham’s 2013 case. Ham contests only one prong of the res judicata test, asserting tha t “there was never a valid judgment on [the] merits” b ecause, “without valid clarity [,] [he] was denied fair due process” by the Court’s prio r decision. Dkt. 10 at 2. Althoug h Ham’s argument is difficult to parse, it appears that he simpl y disagrees with the Court’s exh austion holding and contends that the time to file his complaint with the EEOC did not start to r un until a later date than the date relied upon by the Court. See id. But preventing this type of r elitigation of previously adjudicated claims is precisel y the purpose of the claim preclu sion doctrine. Ham had a full and fair opportunity to litigate hi s 2007 non-selection claims befo re the Court in 2013, and after those efforts proved unsuccessful, he was afforded opportunities to c hallenge the Court’s decision by appealing to the Court of Appeals and seeking review before the Supreme Court. Those efforts, too, proved unsuccessful. For good reason, unsuccessful litiga nts are not allowed a do-over; once they have litigated a claim to final judgment before a cou rt of competent jurisdiction, the claim is resolved and that is the end of the matter. Accordingly, the Cour t will grant the Dist rict’s motion to dism iss Ham’s complaint to the extent it challenges his 2007 non-selection.6 CONCLUSION Defendant’s motion to dismiss th e complaint in part, Dkt. 8, is GRANTED . The District shall answer the remaining porti ons of Ham’s complaint on or be fore May 15, 2017.
SO ORDERED

. /s/ Randolph D. Moss RANDOLPH D. MOSS United States District Judge

Date: May 1, 2017