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Text: This Court has held that § 1738 requires that state-court judgments be given both issue and claim preclusive effect in subsequent actions under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Allen v. McCurry, supra (issue preclusion); Migra v. Warren City School District Board of Education, supra (claim preclusion). Those decisions are not controlling in this case, where § 1738 does not apply; nonetheless, they support the view that Congress, in enacting the Reconstruction civil rights statutes, did not intend to create an exception to general rules of preclusion. As we stated in Allen:

"[N]othing in the language of § 1983 remotely expresses any congressional intent to contravene the common-law rules of preclusion or to repeal the express statutory requirements of the predecessor of 28 U. S. C. § 1738. . . .
"Moreover, the legislative history of § 1983 does not in any clear way suggest that Congress intended to repeal or restrict the traditional doctrines of preclusion." 449 U. S., at 97-98.
The Court's discussion in Allen suggests that it would have reached the same result even in the absence of § 1738. We also see no reason to suppose that Congress, in enacting the Reconstruction civil rights statutes, wished to foreclose the adaptation of traditional principles of preclusion to such subsequent developments as the burgeoning use of administrative adjudication in the 20th century.

We have previously recognized that it is sound policy to apply principles of issue preclusion to the factfinding of administrative bodies acting in a judicial capacity. In a unanimous decision in United States v. Utah Construction & Mining Co., 384 U. S. 394 (1966), we held that the factfinding of the Advisory Board of Contract Appeals was binding in a subsequent action in the Court of Claims involving a contract dispute between the same parties. We explained:

"Although the decision here rests upon the agreement of the parties as modified by the Wunderlich Act, we note that the result we reach is harmonious with general principles of collateral estoppel. Occasionally courts have used language to the effect that res judicata principles do not apply to administrative proceedings, but such language is certainly too broad. When an administrative agency is acting in a judicial capacity and resolves disputed issues of fact properly before it which the parties have had an adequate opportunity to litigate, the courts have not hesitated to apply res judicata to enforce repose." Id., at 421-422 (1966) (footnotes omitted).
Thus, Utah Construction, which we subsequently approved in Kremer v. Chemical Construction Co., 456 U. S., at 484-485, n. 26, teaches that giving preclusive effect to administrative factfinding serves the value underlying general principles of collateral estoppel: enforcing repose.[6] This value, which encompasses both the parties' interest in avoiding the cost and vexation of repetitive litigation and the public's interest in conserving judicial resources, Allen v. McCurry, 449 U. S., at 94, is equally implicated whether factfinding is done by a federal or state agency.

Having federal courts give preclusive effect to the factfinding of state administrative tribunals also serves the value of federalism. Significantly, all of the opinions in Thomas v. Washington Gas Light Co., 448 U. S. 261 (1980), express the view that the Full Faith and Credit Clause compels the States to give preclusive effect to the factfindings of an administrative tribunal in a sister State. Id., at 281 (opinion of STEVENS, J.); 287-289 (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment); 291-292 (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting). The Full Faith and Credit Clause is of course not binding on federal courts, but we can certainly look to the policies underlying the Clause in fashioning federal common-law rules of preclusion. "Perhaps the major purpose of the Full Faith and Credit Clause is to act as a nationally unifying force," id., at 289 (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment), and this purpose is served by giving preclusive effect to state administrative factfinding rather than leaving the courts of a second forum, state or federal, free to reach conflicting results.[7] Accordingly, we hold that when a state agency "acting in a judicial capacity . . . resolves disputed issues of fact properly before it which the parties have had an adequate opportunity to litigate," Utah Construction & Mining Co., supra, at 422, federal courts must give the agency's factfinding the same preclusive effect to which it would be entitled in the State's courts.[8]

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.