Opinion ID: 167744
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: General principles of res judicata or claim preclusion.

Text: 13  Res judicata ... encompasses two distinct barriers to repeat litigation: claim preclusion and issue preclusion. Park Lake Res. Ltd. Liab. Co. v. United States Dep't of Agric., 378 F.3d 1132, 1135 (10th Cir.2004); see also Migra v. Warren City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 77 n. 1, 104 S.Ct. 892, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984). It is claim preclusion that is at issue in this case. The principle underlying the rule of claim preclusion is that a party who once has had a chance to litigate a claim before an appropriate tribunal usually ought not have another chance to do so. Restatement (Second) of Judgments 6 (1982). 14 Under Colorado law, claim preclusion specifically bar[s] ... a second action on the same claim as one litigated in a prior proceeding when there is a final judgment, identity of subject matter, claims for relief, and parties to the action. 4 City and County of Denver v. Block 173 Assocs., 814 P.2d 824, 830 (Colo. 1991). Res judicata not only bars issues actually decided, but also any issues that should have been raised in the first proceeding but were not. Id. A defendant's failure to assert a counterclaim will preclude him from asserting that claim in a later action if [t]he counterclaim is required to be interposed by a compulsory counterclaim statute or rule of court. 5 Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 22(2)(a). 15 Colorado does have a compulsory counterclaim rule, Colo. R. Civ. P. 13. Under Colorado law, then, [t]he failure to plead a claim properly classified as a compulsory counterclaim bars any later action on the claim. In re Estate of Krotiuk, 12 P.3d 302, 304 (Colo.Ct.App.2000); see also 18 Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4414 (2d ed.2002) [hereinafter 18 Federal Practice and Procedure ] (noting that failure to make a counterclaim made compulsory in a state proceeding by state law precludes later action on the claim in federal court, while [f]ailure to advance a merely permissive counterclaim... ordinarily does not preclude a later action). 16 The dispositive question presented by this appeal, then, is whether Stone's ADA claim was a compulsory counterclaim under Colorado law. If it was, his failure to assert that counterclaim in the state-court action will preclude him from pursuing that claim now in this later federal action. For the following reasons, however, we conclude that under the facts of this case Stone's ADA claim was not a compulsory counterclaim. 17