Opinion ID: 163962
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: issues

Text: 41 We apply Oklahoma state law to determine the preclusive effect, if any, of the Pittsburg County and Oklahoma proceedings on this federal court action. See McFarland v. Childers, at 1185 (10th Cir.2000). Under Oklahoma law, `once a court has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, the same parties or their privies may not relitigate the issue in a suit brought upon a different claim.' Id. at 1185 (quoting Fent v. Okla. Natural Gas Co., 898 P.2d 126, 133 (Okla. 1994)). Here, none of the issues disputed in this federal case were actually decided by the Oklahoma state courts or necessary to their judgments; the state court rulings were essentially limited to determining the propriety of service by Pitt-7 in attempting to perfect its appeal of the deannexation. Thus, under issue preclusion doctrine, the Oklahoma state courts' rulings do not bar Pitt-7's claims in this action. 42 Regarding whether issue preclusion flowed directly from the Pittsburg County Board of Commissioners' deannexation order, we note initially that the Board was sitting as a quasi-judicial body. Regardless, though, of the resolution of that question, the Board's order does not preclude Pitt-7's claims in this case because it did not resolve the merits of any of the § 1926, federal or state antitrust claims at issue in this action. The Board merely found that the statutory standard for deannexation — that the granting of the petition is to the best interests of the affected landowners and the district, Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 82, § 1324.21 — was satisfied, and the Board thus granted the deannexation petition. See Aples' Supp.App. at 355 (Certificate Releasing Lands, issued Jun. 27, 1997). In contrast, the questions before us concern primarily the legality under federal law of sales by McAlester before and after the deannexation to customers within Pitt-7's territorial border as it stood on June 15, 1994, the date Pitt-7 entered into an FMHA loan. Accordingly, issue preclusion flows from neither the proceedings before the Board nor the proceedings before the Oklahoma courts to bar Pitt-7's claims in this case.