Opinion ID: 2995207
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: e., the party maintains an injury apart

Text: from the loss in state court and not ’inextricably intertwined’ with the state judgment . . . res judicata may apply, but Rooker-Feldman does not. Garry, 82 F.3d at 1365-66. Thus, the pivotal inquiry is whether the federal plaintiff seeks to set aside a state court judgment or whether [she] is, in fact, presenting an independent claim. Long v. Shorebank Dev. Corp., 182 F.3d 548, 554 (7th Cir. 1999) (quotation omitted). Rizzo contends that she was terminated in retaliation for having filed a complaint of sexual harassment againstMahon. The decision to terminate Rizzo was made by the Cook County Merit Board. Rizzo appealed this decision and both the Illinois Circuit Court and Appellate Court affirmed the Board’s ruling. Although Rizzo was certainly displeased with the conclusion reached by the Illinois courts, the injury she alleges before this court did not result from the state court judgment. Instead, Rizzo filed this claim because she did not receive the relief she sought from the Illinois courts--a determination that she should not have been terminated. Our cases contemplating the applicability of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine have recognized the difference between a federal claim alleging injury caused by a state court judgment (necessarily raising the Rooker-Feldman doctrine) and a federal claim alleging a prior injury that a state court failed to remedy (raising a potential res judicata problem but not Rooker-Feldman). Garry, 82 F.3d at 1366. Thus, because the injury Rizzo alleges in this court was incurred before she sought relief in state court, we find that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not apply to her claim of retaliation. Rizzo’s claim does, however, raise a potential res judicata problem. Also known as claim preclusion, res judicata is an affirmative defense designed to prevent the relitigation of claims that were or could have been asserted in an earlier proceeding. D & K Props. Crystal Lake v. Mut. Life Ins. Co. of N.Y., 122 F.3d 257, 259 (7th Cir. 1997). By asking us to find that she was terminated in retaliation for filing a complaint, Rizzo essentially asks us to ignore the fact that the Illinois courts affirmed the Merit Board’s decision to terminate her. See Garry, 82 F.3d at 1367. (A plaintiff who loses and tries again encounters the law of preclusion. The second complaint shows that the plaintiff wants to ignore rather than upset the judgment of the state tribunal.) However, because Sheahan did not raise this affirmative defense before the district court, it has been waived, and therefore, we need not further consider its applicability to Rizzo’s claim. See Marcus v. Sullivan, 926 F.2d 604, 615 (7th Cir. 1991) Thus, we proceed to the merits of Rizzo’s retaliation claim. To prevail on her claim of retaliation, Rizzo must either present direct evidence of retaliation or use a burden-shifting approach. See Hoffman-Dombrowski v. Arlington Int’l Racecourse, Inc., 254 F.3d 644, 653 (7th Cir. 2001). Although Rizzo alleges that Mahon and Chief Dioguardi threatened to have her terminated if she continued with her complaint against Mahon, these allegations do not constitute direct evidence of her claim that the Merit Board’s decision to terminate her was an act of retaliation that violated Title