Opinion ID: 4511932
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claim Preclusion Under Colorado Law

Text: ¶14 Claim preclusion prevents parties from relitigating claims that were or that could have been litigated in a prior proceeding. Meridian Serv. Metro. Dist. v. Ground Water Comm’n, 2015 CO 64, ¶ 36, 361 P.3d 392, 398. The claim preclusion doctrine applies when four elements are met: “(1) the judgment in the prior proceeding was final; (2) the prior and current proceedings involved identical subject matter; (3) the prior and current proceedings involved identical claims for relief; and (4) the parties to the proceedings were identical or in privity with one another.” Id. ¶15 The certified question before us arises from the third element noted above, namely, the identity of claims, which requires a court to determine whether the claim at issue in a second proceeding is the same claim that was or that could have 6 been brought in the first proceeding. Foster v. Plock, 2017 CO 39, ¶ 29, 394 P.3d 1119, 1127. Specifically, we are essentially asked to decide whether our decisions in Sundheim, 926 P.2d at 548–49, and Stjernholm, 935 P.2d at 967, created an exception to the claim preclusion doctrine such that a prior state C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) action cannot preclude a section 1983 claim brought in federal court, even though the two claims could have been brought together in the earlier state action. We conclude that neither Sundheim nor Stjernholm created such an exception. ¶16 In Sundheim, 926 P.2d at 548, we recognized that C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) provides the exclusive remedy for reviewing a quasi-judicial decision made by a government entity. We thus stated that “a C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) complaint must include all causes of action, including constitutional claims, in a single C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) action.” Id. We then observed: The analysis shifts, however, when a complainant asserts a claim for money damages under § 1983 because claims under § 1983 exist as a “uniquely federal remedy” that “is to be accorded a sweep as broad as its language.” The United States Supreme Court has held that when a state places procedural barriers that deny or limit the remedy available under § 1983, those barriers must give way or risk being preempted. Id. at 548 (quoting Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131, 139 (1988); other citations omitted). ¶17 Notwithstanding Gale’s assertion to the contrary, this statement did not create an exception to the claim preclusion doctrine for section 1983 claims. Indeed, Sundheim did not involve any issue of claim preclusion, and we did not 7 address claim preclusion in that case. Instead, our statement was a reference to the federal preemption principles described in Felder and cases like it. See, e.g., Felder, 487 U.S. at 153 (concluding that principles of federalism, as well as the Supremacy Clause, dictate that a state law that conditions the right of recovery under section 1983 on compliance with a state rule designed to minimize governmental liability “must give way to vindication of the federal right when that right is asserted in state court”). We, however, do not perceive the certified question before us as asking us to determine whether the application of the claim preclusion doctrine here would create a conflict with the remedy available under section 1983, and we express no opinion on that subject. ¶18 Stjernholm likewise did not establish an exception to the claim preclusion doctrine such that a prior state C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) action cannot preclude section 1983 claims brought in federal court. In Stjernholm, 935 P.2d at 963–64, the State Board of Chiropractic Examiners suspended a chiropractor’s license, and the chiropractor sought judicial review in the court of appeals pursuant to the applicable provisions of the state Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). While the foregoing administrative proceedings were ongoing and before the court of appeals had issued its opinion in the review proceeding before it, the chiropractor filed a section 1983 action in the district court against the Board of Chiropractic Examiners, among others. Id. at 965. As pertinent here, the Board subsequently 8 contended that under the claim preclusion doctrine, the chiropractor’s failure to raise all of his constitutional issues in the judicial review action precluded litigation of those issues in his section 1983 action. Id. at 967. We, however, disagreed. Id. ¶19 In so ruling, we first noted that “[a] court reviewing agency action is competent to review state and federal constitutional issues therein, and parties are ordinarily barred from raising issues which were not presented in a single action for judicial review.” Id. We continued, however, that in Sundheim, we had held that a suit under section 1983 could exist separately from a C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) action. Id. (citing Sundheim, 926 P.2d at 548–49). We then explained: Our rationale in Sundheim allowing a section 1983 claim to be tried independently also applies here. Judicial review of state agency action under APA section 24-4-106(7)[, C.R.S. (2019),] is the counterpart to judicial review of local governmental action under C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4). Here, judicial review of this agency’s action must commence in the court of appeals under a special statutory provision of the Chiropractic Act, while section 1983 lawsuits are tried in the district court. Review of agency action, whether in the district court or the court of appeals, is essentially appellate in nature based on the Board’s administrative record. See § 24-4-106(6), [C.R.S. (2019)]. Section 1983 suits involve evidentiary presentation to and fact finding by a district court. As to the alleged federal constitutional violations essential to a section 1983 action, the court of appeals did not err in refusing, as a general matter, to employ res judicata to preclude section 1983 litigation in the district court. Id. 9 ¶20 Although we acknowledge that the above-quoted passage could perhaps have been clearer, when read in context, it did not create the exception to the claim preclusion doctrine for section 1983 actions that Gale asserts. ¶21 In Stjernholm, the chiropractor had sought judicial review under the APA, not under C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4). As a result, the review occurred in the court of appeals, not in the district court, and it was based solely on the administrative record. Accordingly, unlike in a C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) proceeding, the review process in Stjernholm did not afford the chiropractor an opportunity to assert a section 1983 claim before he filed his section 1983 complaint: he could not assert such a claim before the chiropractic board, nor could he assert such a claim, which required the production of evidence, for the first time in the court of appeals. Thus, the chiropractor could not have asserted his section 1983 claim other than in a separate section 1983 action, and therefore the claim preclusion doctrine did not bar that claim. ¶22 In short, in concluding that the plaintiffs’ section 1983 claims were not barred, Sundheim relied on federal preemption, not claim preclusion, principles, and Stjernholm relied on the fact that the chiropractor there could not have raised his section 1983 claims in his prior administrative proceedings. Thus, Sundheim did not address claim preclusion principles at all, and Stjernholm’s conclusion was fully consistent with the claim preclusion doctrine. Accordingly, we conclude that 10 neither of these cases established any exception to the claim preclusion doctrine such that a prior state C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) action cannot preclude section 1983 claims brought in federal court. ¶23 In reaching this conclusion, we are unpersuaded by the decisions of divisions of our court of appeals on which Gale relies. None of these cases required the divisions to address the question of claim preclusion in a case in which the plaintiff had brought separate C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) and section 1983 claims. Moreover, these decisions are fully consistent with the above-discussed principles set forth in Sundheim and Stjernholm. See, e.g., Nat’l Camera, Inc. v. Sanchez, 832 P.2d 960, 966 (Colo. App. 1991) (concluding that the availability of judicial review of a state agency’s action pursuant to the APA did not preclude a separate section 1983 action, as this court would likewise conclude six years later in Stjernholm); Luck v. Bd. of Cty. Comm’rs, 789 P.2d 475, 477 (Colo. App. 1990) (concluding that the district court had erred in dismissing the plaintiff’s section 1983 claim when the plaintiff had filed a complaint seeking both judicial review under C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) and damages under section 1983 but the district court had concluded that the C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) claim was untimely under the short limitations period applicable to that claim, a decision that is fully consistent with this court’s later ruling in Sundheim); Wilson v. Town of Avon, 749 P.2d 990, 992 (Colo. App. 1987) (concluding that the plaintiffs’ section 1983 claims were not 11 barred under the claim preclusion doctrine because neither plaintiff had sought judicial review of the underlying administrative proceedings under C.R.C.P. 106(a)(4) and the plaintiffs’ section 1983 claims could not have been raised in the prior administrative proceedings).