Opinion ID: 784274
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Chipman's substantive due process claim

Text: 12 Chipman argues that our resolution of the custody issue in his favor in Stemler should have had preclusive effect on the Kentucky state courts. He argues that our opinion's holdings constituted the law of the case and the district court erred in applying the doctrine of issue preclusion based on the state court proceedings. The officers argue that the district court was correct in deciding that issue preclusion barred the relitigation of the issue of custody. Alternatively, they argue that Chipman's substantive due process claim is barred from further litigation under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, or under the doctrine of claim preclusion. 13 We review de novo a district court's decision with regard to issue preclusion or claim preclusion. Heyliger v. State Univ. and Cmty. Coll. Sys. of Tenn., 126 F.3d 849, 851 (6th Cir.1997); Kane v. Magna Mixer Co., 71 F.3d 555, 560 (6th Cir.1995), cert. denied, 116 S.Ct. 1848 (1996). When deciding whether to afford preclusive effect to a state court judgment, the Full Faith and Credit Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, requires the federal court to give the prior adjudication the same preclusive effect it would have under the law of the state whose court issued the judgment. See Migra v. Warren City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 81, 104 S.Ct. 892, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984); Heyliger, 126 F.3d at 851-52. 14 Under Kentucky law, [c]laim preclusion bars a party from re-litigating a previously adjudicated cause of action and entirely bars a new lawsuit on the same cause of action. Yeoman v. Kentucky Health Policy Bd., 983 S.W.2d 459, 465 (Ky.1998). Issue preclusion bars the parties from relitigating any issue actually litigated and finally decided in an earlier action. Ibid.
15 In order for issue preclusion to apply in Kentucky, (1) the issue in the second case must be the same as the issue in the first case, (2) the issue must have been actually litigated, (3) the issue must have been actually decided, and (4) the decision on the issue in the prior action must have been necessary to the court's judgment. Ibid. The district court found that all four factors were met when the Kentucky Supreme Court resolved Chipman's state claims. 16 In order for Chipman to prevail in the Kentucky state courts, the Kentucky Supreme Court stated that he had to show the existence of a duty and unless a special relationship was present, there is no duty owing from any of the police officers.... Chipman, 38 S.W.3d at 392. The court went on, stating that [i]n order for the special relationship to exist, two conditions are required: 1) the victim must have been in state custody or otherwise restrained by the state at the time the injury producing act occurred, and 2) the violence or other offensive conduct must have been committed by a state actor. Ibid. The court held that [t]here is no evidence from which it can be ascertained that Black was in state custody or otherwise restrained by the police at the time the pickup truck struck the guardrail with the fatal result. In addition, there is no evidence to support a claim that the conduct which caused the pickup truck to leave the roadway and strike the guardrail was the result of the actions of the police officers. Ibid. 17 The Kentucky Supreme Court also stated that Black was never in custody. Id. at 393. This is precisely the issue that is relevant in a § 1983 action. In order to prevail on the § 1983 claim, Chipman needs to show that the defendant officers violated substantive due process by placing [Black] at risk of harm from a third party.... Stemler, 126 F.3d at 867. The court must first determine whether the plaintiff and the state actors had a sufficiently direct relationship such that the defendants owed [Black] a duty not to subject her to danger, and then the court must also conclude that the officers were sufficiently culpable to be liable under a substantive due process theory. Ibid. As to the first part, the relevant inquiry is whether Black was in custody at the time the officers allegedly forced her into Kritis's truck. 18 First, the Kentucky Supreme Court stated that there was no evidence in the record to support a finding that Black was ever in custody, the same issue that is necessary to Chipman's federal claim. Second, the custody issue was actually litigated in the state courts: in the Boone County Circuit Court, the Kentucky Court of Appeals and the Kentucky Supreme Court. The Kentucky Supreme Court found that there was no evidence to support a finding that Black was ever in custody in the context of deciding the appeal of a summary judgment motion. A summary judgment order is a decision on the merits. Ohio Nat'l Life Ins. Co. v. United States, 922 F.2d 320, 325 (6th Cir.1990). Third, the issue was actually decided by the Kentucky Supreme Court. The court made an explicit statement that there was insufficient evidence to support a finding that Black was in custody. 19 However, the Kentucky Supreme Court's statement that she was never in custody was not necessary to its judgment. The Boone County Circuit Court held that there was no genuine issue of material fact regarding whether Black was in custody at the time the pickup struck the guardrail—the point at which the injury-producing act occurred. Specifically, it stated she was not in custody at this point. This was the only holding necessary for the affirmance of the Boone County Circuit Court's judgment. As we noted in discussing this lower court decision in Stemler, the holdings of the state court on this issue are entitled to preclusive effect. Nonetheless, this precise issue is irrelevant to the substantive due process claim. 20 As the Kentucky Court of Appeals (now the Kentucky Supreme Court) stated in Sedley v. City of West Buechel, 461 S.W.2d 556, 558 (Ky.1971): 21 The general rule is that a judgment in a former action operates as an estoppel only as to matters which were necessarily involved and determined in the former action, and is not conclusive as to matters which were immaterial or unessential to the determination of the prior action or which were not necessary to uphold the judgment. 22 (Emphasis added). 23 As the Kentucky Supreme Court correctly stated, our statements in Stemler regarding whether Black was in custody were dicta, as the only issue before us at that point was the sufficiency of the allegations in the complaint. Similarly, the statements of the Kentucky Supreme Court regarding whether Black was ever in custody are dicta, as they are not necessary to the state courts' disposition of the case. The actual holding of the Kentucky Supreme Court reads: 24 In order for a claim to be actionable in negligence, there must be the existence of a duty and unless a special relationship was present, there is no duty owing from any of the police officers to Black to protect her from crime or accident. In order for the special relationship to exist, two conditions are required: 1) the victim must have been in state custody or otherwise restrained by the state at the time the injury producing act occurred, and 2) the violence or other offensive conduct must have been committed by a state actor. Neither of these factors can be found from the undisputed material facts in this case. There is no evidence from which it can be ascertained that Black was in state custody or otherwise restrained by the police at the time the pickup truck struck the guardrail with the fatal result. In addition, there is no evidence to support a claim that the conduct which caused the pickup truck to leave the roadway and strike the guardrail was the result of the actions of the police officers. 25 City of Florence v. Chipman, 38 S.W.3d 387, 392 (Ky.2001) (emphasis added and citations omitted). 26 The Kentucky Supreme Court would have reached the same result if it had found that Black was in custody at the time she entered Kritis's truck, so long as it found she was not in custody at the time the truck hit the guardrail. 27 The district court erred in finding that issue preclusion barred Chipman's substantive due process claim.
28 The defendant officers also argue that claim preclusion should bar Chipman's claim against them. Claim preclusion bars further litigation under Kentucky law when: (1) there is identity of the parties; (2) there is identity of the causes of action; and (3) the action has been resolved on the merits. Yeoman, 983 S.W.2d at 465. Yeoman also stated that [f]or claim preclusion to apply, the subject matter of the subsequent suit must be identical. Ibid. 29 In Barnes v. McDowell, 848 F.2d 725 (6th Cir.1988), we stated that Kentucky courts do not apply the doctrine of claim preclusion in a subsequent suit involving facts already at issue in another action when the causes of action in the two proceedings are not the same. Id. at 730. A district court, interpreting Kentucky law, stated: 30 [W]here the second action between the same parties is upon a different claim or demand, the judgment in the prior action operates as an estoppel only as to those matters in issue or points controverted, upon the determination of which the finding or verdict was rendered. In all cases, therefore, where it is sought to apply the estoppel of a judgment rendered upon one cause of action to matters arising in a suit upon a different cause of action, the inquiry must always be as to the point or question actually litigated and determined in the original action, not what might have been thus litigated and determined. Only upon such matters is the judgment conclusive in another action. 31 Presbyterian Child Welfare Agency of Buckhorn v. Nelson County Bd. of Adjustment, 185 F.Supp.2d 716, 720 (W.D.Ky. 2001) (quoting Louisville v. Louisville Professional Firefighters Ass'n, 813 S.W.2d 804, 807 (Ky. 1991)). 32 While there is identity of the parties, and the action was resolved on the merits, Chipman's claim is not barred, as it is not the same claim as in state court. His claim in the state courts was for wrongful death, which is a negligence claim. This is not the same cause of action as the one he brought in the federal court, a claim of violation of Black's substantive due process rights. It is indeed true that this claim could have been brought in state courts. However, under the Kentucky law of claim preclusion, this does not matter, as there is no identity of the causes of action. Yeoman, 983 S.W.2d at 465. Chipman's federal claim is not barred by claim preclusion.
33 The defendant officers also argue that the federal district court lacked jurisdiction to consider Chipman's claim under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. They argue that Chipman's federal suit is an attempt to appeal a state court decision to the federal courts. 34 The doctrine gets its name from two Supreme Court cases. Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923), held that the power to hear appeals from state court judgments is exclusively held by the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court held in District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983), that federal district courts do not have jurisdiction to hear challenges to certain state-court decisions. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine states that lower federal courts lack subject matter jurisdiction to engage in appellate review of state court proceedings or to adjudicate claims `inextricably intertwined' with issues decided in state court proceedings. Peterson Novelties, Inc. v. Berkley, 305 F.3d 386, 390 (6th Cir.2002). In defining inextricably intertwined, we have adopted the reasoning that: 35 [t]he federal claim is inextricably intertwined with the state-court judgment if the federal claim succeeds only to the extent that the state court wrongly decided the issues before it. Where federal relief can only be predicated upon a conviction that the state court was wrong, it is difficult to conceive the federal proceeding as, in substance, anything other than a prohibited appeal of the state-court judgment. 36 Id. at 391 (quoting Catz v. Chalker, 142 F.3d 279, 293 (6th Cir.1998)). In Peterson Novelties, we held that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine was inapplicable to claims that the state court did not address or rule upon even though the federal claims arose out of the same nucleus of facts. Id. at 391-93. Therefore, the question is whether this court could hold that the officers violated Black's constitutional rights without implicitly holding that the state court wrongly decided the issues before it. Id. at 393. 37 This court discussed the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and its frequent conflation with claim and issue preclusion in Hutcherson v. Lauderdale County, 326 F.3d 747 (6th Cir.2003). This court stated that Seventh Circuit case law provided a useful way to determine which doctrine to apply: 38 In order to determine the applicability of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the fundamental and appropriate question to ask is whether the injury alleged by the federal plaintiff resulted from the state court judgment itself or is distinct from that judgment. If the injury alleged resulted from the state court judgment itself, Rooker-Feldman directs that the lower federal courts lack jurisdiction. If the injury alleged is distinct from that judgment, i.e., the party maintains an injury apart from the loss in state court and not inextricably intertwined with the state judgment, ... res judicata may apply, but Rooker-Feldman does not.... 39 Id. at 755 (quoting Garry v. Geils, 82 F.3d 1362, 1365-66 (7th Cir.1996)). 40 As Chipman is not directly challenging the state court's judgments in federal court, the doctrines of claim and issue preclusion are more properly applied to this case. However, in any case, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not apply. The Kentucky Supreme Court's discussion of whether Black was ever in custody was dicta, and therefore any finding by the federal court that Black was in custody at some point during the encounter would not implicitly hold that the state court improperly decided the issues before it. The issue of Black's custody before the truck hit the guardrail was not an issue that was salient before the Kentucky court. 41 The district court does have jurisdiction to hear Chipman's substantive due process claim.