Opinion ID: 2974743
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Yinger decision

Text: The district court relied on this court’s unpublished decision in Yinger v. City of Dearborn, No. 96-2394, 1997 WL 735323 (6th Cir. Nov. 18, 1997), in concluding that res judicata barred Young’s complaint. In Yinger, this court held that res judicata barred a former police officer’s successive lawsuit for breach of contract and civil-rights violations. Id. at -5. At the outset, we must determine whether the district court’s reliance on Yinger was appropriate. Brian Yinger was a Dearborn, Michigan police officer who was placed on indefinite medical leave without pay after two psychologists diagnosed him with paranoid personality disorder and deemed him psychologically unfit to serve as a police officer. Id. Yinger then filed a complaint in federal court against the City, its pension board, and various City employees, alleging state and No. 05-2633 Young v. Green Oak Township Page 5 federal constitutional violations as well as wrongful discharge. His complaint was dismissed. A third psychologist later found Yinger fit for service based in part on Yinger’s self-report of his distinguished, but entirely fictitious, military service record. The City declined, after investigation, to return him to duty. Id. Yinger then filed a second lawsuit in Michigan state court, alleging breach of contract and various constitutional violations. This complaint was also dismissed, and the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed because Yinger had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. While his appeal was pending, Yinger filed an administrative charge against his union, which was denied by an administrative law judge (ALJ). The Michigan Employment Relations Commission affirmed the ALJ’s decision. Id. Finally, Yinger applied for a duty disability pension. After hearing argument from Yinger, the Pension Board granted him a non-duty disability pension, determining that his paranoid personality disorder was not work related. Yinger then sued the City in federal court, alleging violations of the ADA and the MHCRA, failure to accommodate, breach of contract, and several constitutional violations. The district court dismissed the ADA, MHCRA, breach-of-contract, and due process claims on the basis of res judicata and the applicable statutes of limitations, and the equal protection claim for failure to state a cause of action. Id. This court affirmed, finding that the heart of Yinger’s claims in each lawsuit was his disagreement with the defendants’ determination that he was unfit to serve as a police officer because of his psychological condition. Id. at . Yinger introduced no new evidence to establish that he was fit for duty, and the City and other defendants responded to each lawsuit by stating that they had not changed their position regarding his return to work. Id. The Yinger court noted that Yinger failed to recognize that “a discrimination claim accrues when the operative decision is made, not when [a plaintiff] experiences the consequences of that decision.” Id. at  (citing Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U.S. 6, 8-9 (1981)). Further, the court concluded that Michigan law regarding res judicata “bars [the parties] from relitigating claims that they could have raised in an earlier action.” Id. at  (citations omitted). Young contends that Yinger can be distinguished on its facts because Yinger suffered from a condition (paranoid personality disorder) that rendered him unfit to serve as a police officer. In contrast, Young argues that he is fit to serve as a police officer with certain reasonable accommodations. But this is a difference in degree only, and one that we find insufficient to distinguish Yinger. Young’s situation is factually very similar to Yinger—both involve plaintiffs who had filed previous lawsuits raising substantially the same claims arising out of the same events against their respective police departments. Even though Yinger was an unpublished decision of this court, we conclude that the district court nevertheless appropriately considered Yinger for its persuasive value. Young next suggests that we should follow the Tenth Circuit case of Morgan v. City of Rawlins, 792 F.2d 975 (10th Cir. 1986), which decided a res judicata issue arising from an action brought in Wyoming. The Wyoming Supreme Court had circumscribed that state’s res judicata doctrine in the case of Cook v. Elmore, 192 P. 824 (Wyo. 1920), holding that the doctrine does not bar a second suit “unless the second suit is not only between the same parties, but between them in the same right or capacity.” Id. at 827. Accordingly, the Morgan court applied Wyoming law to determine that res judicata did not bar a second case between the plaintiff and his former employer where the first case alleged procedural issues and the second case alleged substantive issues. Morgan, 792 F.2d at 979 (finding that “Wyoming common law recognizes equitable considerations in the application of res judicata and will not preclude litigation for highly technical reasons that would prevent litigants from presenting their claims against others for determination on their merits.”) (quotation marks omitted). Michigan, in contrast, has adopted the broad doctrine of res No. 05-2633 Young v. Green Oak Township Page 6 judicata, barring “every claim arising from the same transaction that the parties, exercising reasonable diligence, could have raised but did not.” Adair v. Michigan, 680 N.W.2d 386, 397 (Mich. 2004), rev’d on other grounds, 712 N.W.2d 702 (Mich. 2006). We thus find Morgan distinguishable and of no benefit to Young.