Opinion ID: 1381882
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Factual Issues Underlying Plaintiffs' Claims Were Addressed by the State Court and Are Barred by Issue Preclusion

Text: The district court also correctly held that the factual issues underlying plaintiffs' remaining claims were addressed by the state court's judgment and cannot be relitigated under the doctrine of issue preclusion. Issue preclusion reflects the fundamental principle that courts should not revisit factual matters that a party previously litigated and another court actually decided. See, e.g., Enica v. Principi, 544 F.3d 328, 336 (1st Cir.2008); see also 18 Wright, Miller & Cooper, supra, § 4416, at 386-87. It is well settled that state court decisions have the same preclusive effect in federal courts that they would have in the state where the judgment was issued. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Epstein, 516 U.S. 367, 373, 116 S.Ct. 873, 134 L.Ed.2d 6 (1996). Federal courts may not employ their own rules... in determining the effect of state judgments, but must accept the rules chosen by the State from which the judgment is taken. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Westcott Constr. Corp. v. Firemen's Fund of N. J., 996 F.2d 14, 16 (1st Cir.1993); 18 Wright, Miller & Cooper, supra, § 4469, at 72-73. We look to Maine preclusion law. Maine courts apply a two-part test to determine if issue preclusion applies, asking first if the identical issue was determined by a prior final judgment and second if the party estopped had a fair opportunity and incentive to litigate the issue in a prior proceeding. Portland Water Dist. v. Town of Standish, 940 A.2d 1097, 1099 (Me.2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). The doctrine precludes courts from revisiting factual matters that meet this test, even when a second action seeks a different remedy than the initial litigation. Id. ; see also Macomber v. MacQuinn-Tweedie, 834 A.2d 131, 139 (Me. 2003). Mutuality of parties is not required for issue preclusion. As plaintiffs concede in their brief, their argument that the parties to the prior action must be identical for issue preclusion to arise finds no support in Maine law. See Hossler v. Barry, 403 A.2d 762, 767 (Me.1979) (finding mutuality of parties unnecessary for application of issue preclusion); see also 18 Wright, Miller & Cooper, supra, § 4464, at 692. We first address whether the identical factual issues plaintiffs raise in federal court were previously decided in the Maine state courts' proceedings. Plaintiffs' federal district court complaint alleges that Nichols violated their statutory and constitutional rights by not making adequate efforts to reunify the family. The precise mechanisms for their failure were alleged to be: neglecting to accommodate Miller's disability, unlawfully sharing damaging mental health information with a state evaluator, falsely claiming to be a licensed social worker, inappropriately insisting that Mahood cut ties with Miller to avoid termination of his parental rights, and threatening to terminate plaintiffs' parental rights if they did not waive their religious objections to vaccinating G.M. Plaintiffs sued defendant Harvey under a theory of supervisory liability for Nichols's conduct. Although plaintiffs make a variety of claims, the theme of their briefs in both the federal district court and this court is the failure to accommodate the parents' needs in the context of the reunification obligation. [3] Their arguments in any event depend on an identical factual issuethe alleged biased failure to accommodateand, for purposes of issuepreclusion analysis, are one and the same. Plaintiffs' complaint also references violations of civil rights, identifying only First Amendment religious and associational rights and privacy rights that they allege were violated during the reunification process. The state court proceedings addressed the factual issues underpinning each of these claims. We do not accept plaintiffs' assertion that a state court has only addressed an issue for purposes of issue preclusion if the earlier state court opinion contains an explicit discussion of the facts. That is not the law. [4] See Grubb, 281 U.S. at 477-78; 50 S.Ct. 374; see also Hoult v. Hoult, 157 F.3d 29, 32 (1st Cir.1998); 18 Wright, Miller & Cooper, supra, § 4420, at 521. Nor do we reach the state's argument that the entry of any termination order necessarily means that the court found, as a matter of fact, that DHHS made reasonable but unsuccessful efforts at reunification and this necessarily, as a matter of law, precludes any further claims of lack of reasonable accommodations. Instead, we find that, on this record, plaintiffs actually made, and the state courts addressed, the contention that the state social work agency was biased and had not accommodated the parents' needs. Under Maine law, courts may review the record and assess specific findings made by the prior court to determine precisely what issues were addressed in a prior judgment. See Macomber, 834 A.2d at 139-40 (evaluating the record as well as a previous court's order before concluding that issue preclusion did not bar plaintiff's claim); see also 18 Wright, Miller & Cooper, supra, § 4420, at 510, 520. An explanation of the Maine law on termination of parental rights sets the stage for our evaluation of the factual issues addressed in the state court proceedings. Under the state statute, 22 M.R.S.A. § 4041, DHHS must make good faith efforts to cooperate with parents in pursuit of reunification. Id. at 1-A(A)(3). This obligation arises as soon as the child is deemed to have entered foster care. Id. at 1-A. The record reflects that plaintiffs vigorously challenged at every turn the reasonableness of social worker Nichols's efforts at reunification. For example, they elicited testimony from Nichols about her handling of Miller's mental health. On cross-examination, counsel for one of the parents questioned Nichols directly about her familiarity with the ADA and made repeated inquiries into any reasonable accommodations she made for Miller's disability. The state district judge rejected this line of reasoning and concluded that, based on the evidence before her, DHHS ha[d] made reasonable efforts to rehabilitate and reunify the family and to finalize the permanency plan by providing extensive supervised visitation, counseling for the mother, a therapeutic foster home, in-home parenting, and caseworker services. Whether or not required by Maine law to make such a determination, explicitly or implicitly, in order to terminate parental rights, the district court specifically identified a series of reasonable steps taken by DHHS to address G.M.'s family's needs in light of the parents' circumstances. In doing so, the court rejected plaintiffs' factual assertions to the contrary. Miller revisited these factual issues in her motion for further findings, which urged the court to find that Nichols had shared records identifying ... Miller as having a mental illness and that Nichols failed to accommodate Miller's mental health disability. Mahood's motion for further findings of fact suggested that the court should reject Nichols's testimony on Mahood's cooperation in the reunification effort outright. The court declined to do so. Instead, its order on these motions emphasized the careful consideration that it had already given to all the evidence presented. Plaintiffs argued these factual issues yet again before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Mahood specifically sought review of whether DHHS's reconciliation efforts were appropriate. The Law Court affirmed the district court's judgment and explicitly held that the father's argument that the Department did not engage in legitimate reunification efforts is not supported by the record. Following the rejection of plaintiffs' arguments on appeal, plaintiffs filed a motion for reconsideration. In their motion, they persisted in urging consideration of the fact that defendant Nichols was inexperienced and biased against individuals with a perceived mental health issue. Once more, the Law Court considered this factual matter and ultimately denied plaintiffs' motion for reconsideration. Plaintiffs assert that the issues raised in the federal complaint were not essential to the state court decisions and, if not essential, are not subject to issue preclusion. See Beale v. Chisholm, 626 A.2d 345, 347 (Me.1993). They say that, as a matter of law, the termination proceeding necessarily concluded only that (1) G.M. was in jeopardy, (2) termination was in the best interests of the child, and (3) the circumstances of the parents' unwillingness or inability to protect the child from jeopardy are not likely to change in time reasonably to meet the child's needs. See 22 M.R.S.A. § 4055(1)(A)(1)(a), (B)(2)(a)-(b). This argument ignores both the constituent components of the second finding and what actually happened in the state court proceedings. It fails. We now turn to the second prong of issue preclusion under Maine law. For issue preclusion to apply, a party must have a fair opportunity and incentive to litigate the issue in [the] prior proceeding. Portland Water Dist., 940 A.2d at 1100 (internal quotation marks omitted). Under Maine law, [a] party has a fair opportunity to litigate an issue if that party either controls the litigation, substantially participates in that litigation, or could have participated in the litigation had they chosen to do so. State v. Hughes, 863 A.2d 266, 269 (Me.2004) (emphasis in original). It is clear that since plaintiffs actually litigated the issues in state court, they had both incentive and opportunity to present the claims. In the face of this obvious fact, they resort to one final argument. They say that their federal claims could not have been litigated before the state court. Plaintiffs rely on Maine R. Civ. P. 80, which precludes counterclaims in cases of determinations of parental rights and responsibilities. But plaintiffs misunderstand the rule. In fact, plaintiffs defensively used arguments that the state had failed to make reasonable efforts to reunify the family because it had not reasonably accommodated whatever disabilities the plaintiffs had. Finally, because all claims against defendant Nichols are either without merit, precluded, or waived, any claim of supervisory liability against defendant Harvey must also fail. See, e.g., Rivera v. Rhode Island, 402 F.3d 27, 38-39 (1st Cir.2005) (Since the plaintiff has failed to state a constitutional claim at all, her claims against the other defendants for supervisory liability... fail.). We affirm the district court's dismissal of all of plaintiffs' claims.