Court Opinion

ID: 9476030
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:46:25.494198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:06.144183
License: Public Domain

ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting from the majority opinion and concurring in part in Judge Posner’s separate opinion.
The majority opinion is well written and well reasoned and I regret that I must dissent. The majority has gone the last mile in solving the plaintiff’s dilemma notwithstanding the fact that part of the plaintiff’s problem was of his own making: the plaintiff waived his right to appeal on some of the issues the majority reaches today. While it is not as well settled as the majority seems to imply, I accept the majority’s reasoning that section 1981 may reach a claim of racial discrimination implied within a claim for national origin discrimination. I simply do not believe that the plaintiff-appellant properly asked the court to reach the issue. Nor do I think that the plaintiff properly appealed the judgment on the Title VII claim.
I note first that Hussein expressly abandoned any appeal challenging the district court’s dismissal of the original complaint. Thus the single issue before the court is the propriety of the district court’s dismissal of the amended complaint. As the majority correctly notes, the district judge dismissed this “eve of trial” amendment to the complaint, which sought to proceed on a theory of racial discrimination while the original complaint had alleged only national origin discrimination. The majority analyzes in detail the comments of the district judge to conclude that he did not dismiss the amended complaint because it was untimely — which of course, it was. Wakeen v. Hoffman House, Inc., 724 F.2d 1238, 1244 (7th Cir.1983) (within trial court’s discretion to deny leave to amend when proffered amendment merely restates same facts in new language or reasserts claim previously determined); Darms v. McCulloch Oil, 720 F.2d 490, 494 (8th Cir.1983) (denial of eve of trial amendment upheld); see also Bohen v. City of East Chicago, 799 F.2d 1180, 1184-85 (7th Cir.1986) (delay and prejudice allow trial court discretion to deny amendment). Without a detailed analysis, it is abundantly clear that the majority is correct that the district judge was of the opinion that section 1981 did not include within its scope a claim based on national origin discrimination. It is equally true that the district judge expressed surprise that the plaintiff had endeavored to amend the complaint in such a manner as to allege what the district judge apparently believed was a different basis of discrimination on the eve of trial. Thus the record reveals that the district court dismissed the amended complaint for two reasons. The first was his erroneous opinion regarding the scope of section 1981, and the second reason was that the amendment was not timely and introduced an element of surprise at the last minute.
The majority attempts to circumvent the surprise issue by referring to various words in the complaint and at plaintiff’s deposition. I cannot read these remarks to convey fairly to defendant’s counsel that a racial discrimination claim had been stated, especially after a specific ruling that it had not been. It is perfectly understandable that more discussion would exist in the record regarding the substantive ground for dismissal than the timeliness ground, for both counsel and the experienced trial judge may have considered the timeliness ground unchallengeable. The majority makes much of the district court’s retrae*358tion of his statement that the amended complaint was “frivolous,” but that retraction simply reflected courteous treatment of counsel; nothing suggests that it represents a reconsideration by the district judge of the order or the grounds for it. I would uphold the district judge’s dismissal of the amended complaint because the district judge was well within his discretion when he dismissed the amended claim as untimely.
After the dismissal, the plaintiff Hussein proceeded to go to trial before the district judge on his Title VII claim, which the majority concedes is by itself not triable to a jury. The district court passed judgment on the Title VII claim and included findings of fact and conclusions of law. The findings on the Title VII claim are amply supported by the record and the appellant makes no effort to contend otherwise. The appellant has not raised as an issue in this appeal any error or deficiency in the findings, conclusions, or judgment of the district court on the Title VII judgment. Until he belatedly raised the issue in his reply brief the appellant offered absolutely no challenge to the validity of the Title VII judgment. In his reply brief appellant first suggested that if he were correct in bringing his section 1981 claim, the Seventh Amendment and its judicial gloss require that the Title VII judgment be vacated to avoid binding the later section 1981 jury trial in regard to the facts common to both claims. This claim came too late; we have repeatedly held that an issue raised for the first time in the reply brief is waived for the purposes of appeal. E.g., Rudell v. Comprehensive Accounting Corp., 802 F.2d 926, 933 n. 8 (7th Cir.1986); Shlay v. Montgomery, 802 F.2d 918, 922 n. 2 (7th Cir.1986); Christmas v. Sanders, 759 F.2d 1284, 1292 (7th Cir.1985).
Since those fact findings stand and have not been attacked on any basis on appeal they should collaterally estop further trial of the section 1981 claim on issues of fact common to both claims that meet the Supreme Court's requirements for collateral estoppel. E.g., Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 326 & n. 5, 99 S.Ct. 645, 649 & n. 5, 58 L.Ed.2d 552 (1979), cited supra at n. 5 (noting elements of collateral estoppel); see also United States v. Mendoza, 464 U.S. 154, 158, 104 S.Ct. 568, 571, 78 L.Ed.2d 379 (1984); Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 94-95, 101 S.Ct. 411, 415, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980). The Court’s definition applies here and the plaintiff at bar should be collaterally estopped on those factual issues necessarily and actually decided in the Title VII action. This does no injury to the Seventh Amendment, for all plaintiff would have had to do to justify the analysis reached by the majority would have been to challenge the Title VII judgment in a timely fashion in his appeal to this court.
While this analysis may appear to bring about a harsh result, we should not be reaching out to resolve issues we are not properly asked to solve on appeal. If the dismissal of the section 1981 claim and the resulting bench trial on the Title VII claim are a basis for setting aside the fact findings of the district judge on the Title VII claim, then the appellant should be required to say so. The appellant here had the full time legally allowed to appeal the Title VII claim but chose not to do so, with the result that the unappealed judgment should be considered a final and separate binding judgment from the section 1981 claim for the purpose of the application of collateral estoppel. If the appellant was satisfied to accept the findings of the district court on the Title VII claim, then the appellant is bound by them. It of course makes no difference that the appellant’s belatedly raised claim has a constitutional component. A decision not to appeal a judgment on constitutional grounds is no less final than a decision not to appeal on any other grounds. Our repeated holdings that procedural defaults will result in the waiver of the issues improperly raised has put counsel in this circuit on notice that we will generally not address those issues. We should not make the case for the appellant. We should rely on the appellant to make his own case.
While I differ with the majority statement that the findings of the district court would support a verdict for the plaintiff, that really is not relevant to the issues *359raised on appeal. The majority suggests that if the jury is not collaterally estopped it may find that the defendant discriminated against the plaintiff on the basis of his race. That may be true. But that does not in any way undercut my point that the Title VII judgment should stand and that the court’s findings there should collaterally estop those issues from being retried in the new trial on the section 1981 claim.
I do not believe that trial judges should be placed in the straightjacket tailored for them by this majority opinion. The appellant explicitly waived any argument that the original dismissal of the complaint was erroneous. The district court’s judgment that the amended complaint was untimely was within his discretion and should be upheld. The appellant did not in timely fashion attack the Title VII judgment. The use of any error on appeal to undermine and vacate the Title VII judgment was the responsibility of appellant’s counsel. We should not discharge that responsibility for him. In this day of ever increasing pressure on the federal trial judges we should not shoulder the burden that is counsel’s to carry.
While I do not agree with my brother Posner’s separate opinion to the extent that it rejects collateral estoppel, I certainly agree with him to the extent that the Title VII judgment should be affirmed.