Opinion ID: 473643
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: preclusive effect of the prior state court judgment

Text: The City first argues that the district court erroneously found that the final decision of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas did not preclude the claims raised in this lawsuit. This argument is based on the Full Faith and Credit Statute, which requires all United States courts to afford the same full faith and credit to state court judgments that would apply in the state's own courts. 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1738. In the present case, the City contends that the courts of Ohio would hold that the decision of the Court of Common Pleas precludes a subsequent discrimination claim. Therefore, the City argues, the district court should have reached the same conclusion. The City's argument rests on the assumption that the courts of Ohio would apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel to the state court judgment, and hold that the judgment bars the present claims of discrimination. The seminal Ohio case on collateral estoppel is Norwood v. McDonald, 142 Ohio St. 299, 52 N.E.2d 67 (1943). There the Ohio Supreme Court defined collateral estoppel as follows: A point or a fact which was actually and directly in issue in a former action and was there passed upon and determined by a court of competent jurisdiction may not be drawn in question in any future action between the same parties or their privies, whether the cause of action in the two actions be identical or different. 142 Ohio St. at 300, 52 N.E.2d 67 (syllabus p 3). More recently, Justice Holmes, writing for the Ohio Supreme Court in Goodson v. McDonough Power Equip., Inc., 2 Ohio St.3d 193, 200-01, 443 N.E.2d 978 (1983), stated that: 1 The main legal thread which runs throughout the determination of the applicability of res judicata, inclusive of the adjunct principle of collateral estoppel, is the necessity of a fair opportunity to fully litigate and to be heard in the due process sense. Accordingly, an absolute due process prerequisite to the application of collateral estoppel is that the party asserting the preclusion must prove that the identical issue was actually litigated, directly determined, and essential to the judgment in the prior action. 2 (citations omitted). Therefore, the City must prove that the issues of race and sex discrimination were actually and directly at issue in the prior state proceedings, and that they were essential to the judgment of the state court against Cooper. 3 The record in this case reveals that the question of whether Cooper's discharge was the result of race or sex discrimination by the City was not actually or directly presented to or ruled upon by the OBES or the Common Pleas Court. The prior state proceedings instead addressed Cooper's entitlement to unemployment benefits. Ohio Rev.Code Sec. 4141.29(D)(2)(a) (Page 1980) provides that an individual is ineligible for benefits if he or she has been discharged for just cause in connection with his [or her] work. In the present case, Cooper was denied benefits by the OBES because it found that her employer had just cause to discharge her. The determination of whether just cause exists focuses on the existence of fault on the part of the employee as a factor in the discharge. See Sellers v. Board of Review, Ohio Bureau of Employment Serv., 1 Ohio App.3d 161, 164, 440 N.E.2d 550 (1981). Here, the OBES concluded that Cooper's discharge was justified by her infractions of the rules of her employer. On appeal, the Common Pleas Court held that the OBES determination was not unlawful, unreasonable, or against the manifest weight of the evidence. Ohio Rev.Code Sec. 4141.28(O). The court rejected Cooper's arguments that her transgressions were insufficient to justify the discharge, and that the OBES hearing was unfair in that Cooper was unable to present her side of the case. The record is devoid of any consideration of race or sex discrimination, and such claims were beyond the scope of the administrative and state court actions. 1 Under these circumstances, the courts of Ohio would hold that Cooper's discrimination claims are not barred by the prior state proceedings. 4 The City's reliance on Kremer v. Chemical Constr. Corp., 456 U.S. 461,102 S.Ct. 1883, 72 L.Ed.2d 262 (1982), is misplaced. In that case, the question confronting the Supreme Court was whether to give preclusive effect to a decision of a state court upholding a state administrative agency's rejection of an employment claim as meritless when the state court's decision would be res judicata in the State's own courts. 456 U.S. at 463, 102 S.Ct. at 1888. The Court held that the prior state proceedings barred the plaintiff's Title VII charges of discrimination. In Kremer, New York law clearly held that the judicially-affirmed determination of the New York State Division of Human Rights that plaintiff was not the victim of discrimination barred later suits based on the same grievance. Id. at 467, 102 S.Ct. at 1890 (quoting New York law). In this case, the prior state proceedings did not encompass the claims raised in the subsequent Title VII lawsuit, and the Ohio courts would not apply collateral estoppel. 2 5 The City's reliance on Pullar v. UpJohn Health Care Serv., Inc., 21 Ohio App.3d 288, 488 N.E.2d 486 (1984), is also unavailing. There the Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals held that a prior OBES decision that plaintiff had been terminated for just cause bars a later age discrimination action. The discrimination suit was based on an Ohio statute that prohibits discharging individuals between the ages of 40 and 70 without just cause. 21 Ohio App.3d at 290, 488 N.E.2d 486 (quoting Ohio Rev.Code Sec. 4101.17). Pullar is distinguishable from the present case, as the subsequent discrimination suit raised the same issue of just cause to discharge as had been addressed in the OBES proceedings. In this case, as previously stated, the prior OBES proceedings did not encompass the claims raised later in the discrimination action. Moreover, a number of decisions from the other Ohio courts indicate that collateral estoppel does not apply in circumstances similar to those in the present case. These courts have refused to give collateral estoppel effect to judicially-affirmed administrative decisions, holding that those decisions did not affect later proceedings addressing issues not directly raised in the first actions. See, e.g., Ohio Dept. of Mental Health, Cambridge Mental Health Center v. Hunt, No. CA-766 (Ohio Ct.App. Aug. 2, 1985); Pickaway County General Health Dist. v. Administrator, Ohio Bureau of Employment Serv., No. 84-CA-12 (Ohio Ct.App. July 1, 1985); Reed v. Dodge, No. E-84-41 (Ohio Ct.App. March 15, 1985). 6 The foregoing analysis reveals that the courts of Ohio would not preclude Cooper from asserting her discrimination claims because of the prior judicially-affirmed OBES proceedings. The district court's refusal to apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel is affirmed. 7