Court Opinion

ID: 9645536
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:27:56.876289+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:29.292537
License: Public Domain

BILLINGS, Judge.
The Court granted transfer of this case after the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, ruled that collateral estoppel barred plaintiffs claims against her former employer because a key fact issue had been ruled adversely to plaintiff in an administrative proceeding.
The trial court entered judgment against plaintiff on her claim for punitive damages but let stand the jury’s award of actual damages in her favor. Both parties appealed. The court of appeals reversed the actual damage award on the collateral estoppel ground and noted the punitive damage issue was without merit and the trial court correctly set aside that award.
The Court agrees with the opinion authored by the Honorable Douglas W. Greene, Special Judge, for the court of appeals. Without quotation marks and with minor modifications, that opinion follows:
Plaintiff Bresnahan, an employee of the Famous-Barr South County store in St. Louis County, was discharged on May 6, 1983, for violation of company work rules. Famous-Barr is a division of the May Department Stores Company.
The incident which led to the discharge occurred on April 22, 1983. Plaintiff ar*328rived for work that morning, prior to the store opening for business, and was observed by the store security manager looking through greeting cards. Shopping before store hours was against the store policy. A security guard was alerted and plaintiff was placed under surveillance. She walked to the toy department, picked up a stuffed toy monkey, and without paying for it, or obtaining proper authorization for removing it from that department, took the toy, placed it in a Famous-Barr sack and placed it in a “lockup” in her department. When her work day was over, plaintiff picked up the sack containing the toy and was leaving the store when she was intercepted by the security manager. Plaintiff twice refused to let the security manager look into the sack, and then said, “I did not leave the building with it. You can't get someone for stealing if they don’t leave the building first.” She then contended that she had made a mistake, and that she thought the sack contained her work shoes. Plaintiff was detained while a search was made of the three lockups in the department and office area where she worked. Her work shoes were not found.
Famous-Barr had work rules for its employees, among which was rule .15C which provided that “[a]ny attempt to remove Famous-Barr property/equipment from the premises without proper documentation or authorization is grounds for immediate dismissal.” After a thorough investigation of the incident, during which it was found that plaintiff had violated additional work rules such as holding the monkey for a future exchange or, if regarded as a purchase, failed to have the purchase sealed, marked, and verified by a sales clerk, plaintiff was fired.
Plaintiff then made a claim for unemployment insurance benefits with the Division of Employment Security, pursuant to Chapter 288, RSMo 1978, as amended, seeking unemployment benefits. Based on the evidence of the incident, a deputy of the Division of Employment Security made the determination that plaintiff was not qualified for benefits because she had been discharged for misconduct connected with her work. The reason given for this determination was that:
The claimant was discharged because she was observed by security leaving the store with a stuffed animal, valued at less than $10.00, she had not paid for. Claimant’s actions constitute aggravated misconduct and wage credits reported by this employer from 1/1/82 through 4/22/83 are cancelled.
Plaintiff filed a notice of appeal with the Appeals Tribunal of the Division of Employment Security. After a hearing at which witnesses testified for the employer and employee, the appeals referee affirmed the deputy’s decision based on the following findings:
On April 22, 1983, before the employer had opened its store and even before it had turned on its lights, the claimant was observed by an employer security manager looking at merchandise outside of her department. The claimant was observed taking a stuffed animal from the employer’s toy department. The claimant was seen putting this item in a bag. The employer’s security manager set up a surveillance on the claimant for the rest of the day. When the claimant left work, the employer’s security manager did a security check of the claimant’s possessions. The claimant willingly gave up two packages in which she was carrying bona fide purchases. The claimant, however, refused to give the employer’s security manager a third package. In this third package was found a stuffed animal valued at approximately $10.00. The claimant at first indicated that she had taken a wrong package and that she had1 meant to take home an old pair of shoes. Once the claimant had been detained, she informed the security manager that she, the security manager, could not do anything about the claimant’s actions because she had not actually left the store. Because the claimant had tried to take merchandise from the employer without purchasing it, the claimant was discharged on April 22, 1983.
The Missouri Employment Security Law provides that a claimant shall be disqualified for waiting week credit or *329benefits for not less than one nor more than sixteen weeks for which he claims benefits and is otherwise eligible if it is found that he has been discharged for misconduct connected with his work. In addition to the disqualification for benefits under this provision the Division may in the more aggravated cases of misconduct cancel all or any part of the individual’s wage credits, which were established through his employment by the employer who discharged him, according to the seriousness of the misconduct.
The claimant was discharged on April 22, 1983. The claimant was discharged because she attempted to take merchandise from the employer without proper payment. It is believed that the claimant did steal from the employer. The claimant’s actions in stealing from the employer violates the fiduciary duty which the claimant owes to her employer. The claimant was entrusted with the employer’s merchandise and money. The claimant’s actions in stealing from the employer not only constitute misconduct but misconduct of the most aggravated nature. Accordingly, I find the claimant was discharged on April 22, 1983, for aggravated misconduct connected with her work.
Plaintiff’s attorney then filed an application for review by the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission. The Commission adopted the findings of fact of the Appeals Tribunal, determined that those findings were supported by competent and substantial evidence, and determined that the decision of the Appeals Tribunal denying benefits was made in accordance with the law. This decision was properly communicated to plaintiff. She did not avail herself of the right to seek judicial review of the commission’s decision, as authorized by § 288.210, RSMo 1986.
Plaintiff then filed a multi-count damage suit against May Department Stores Co., the parent company of Famous-Barr, and several of its employees. She alleged breach of an implied contract of employment, false imprisonment, libel, and other civil wrongs. Some of the counts were dismissed by the trial court prior to, or during trial, for failure to state a claim, or for failure of proof. After trial, a jury returned a verdict for plaintiff and against May Department Stores on the implied contract count and.assessed her actual damages at $116,000 and punitive damages at $10,000. After hearing after trial motions, the trial court set aside the punitive damage award, but affirmed the judgment for actual damages. Both parties appealed, and the cases have been consolidated here.
The record indicates that May Department Stores timely raised the affirmative defense of collateral estoppel, and reasserted that defense at every relevant trial and after trial stage, including their motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Whether an employee’s claim for damages is barred by collateral estoppel is a question of law. The trial court ruled that plaintiff’s claim was not barred for that reason, which ruling is one of the employer’s claims on appeal of trial court error. The issue is dispositive.
As was ably stated in State ex rel. O’Biennis v. Adolf, 691 S.W.2d 498, 501 (Mo.App.1985), collateral estoppel deals with issue preclusion. This means that when a fact is appropriately determined in one legal proceeding, it is given effect in another lawsuit in cases where such fact or facts are a vital part of the evidentiary chain necessary to be established in order to prove a cause of action. In Oates v. Safeco Ins. Co. of America, 583 S.W.2d 713, 719 (Mo. banc 1979), it was emphasized that the purpose of the doctrine was to prevent the same parties from relitigating issues which had been previously litigated with adverse results. See Hudson v. Carr, 668 S.W.2d 68, 70 (Mo. banc 1984).
The doctrine has been applied by Missouri courts in situations where the fact issue was raised and decided in an administrative proceeding and relitigation later attempted in a circuit court action. In Hines v. Continental Baking Co., 334 S.W.2d 140, 144-46 (Mo.App.1960), the court held that an unappealed final award of the then named Industrial Commission in a workmen’s compensation case which held that an employee *330did not sustain an accidential injury arising out of or in the course of his employment was a bar to his asserting it in any other proceeding in the future that he did, and that such adjudication of the Commission upon a fact issue “as effective and impregnable to collateral attack as a judgment of a court.” Twenty-two years later, in Butcher v. Ramsey Corp., 628 S.W.2d 912, 914 (Mo.App.1982), the court of appeals under a similar factual and legal situation present in Hines specifically held “the un-appealed final administrative determination in a workmen’s compensation proceeding upon a fact issue within the jurisdiction of the administrative body is not subject to collateral attack and constitutes a bar to relitigation of the same fact issue in a subsequent common law action.”
Since plaintiff sought to litigate a disputed fact issue (did she attempt to remove her employer’s property from the store premises without paying for it and, in so doing, did she violate the company work rules, which conduct justified immediate dismissal?) before an administrative tribunal (The Labor and Industrial Commission), and did not appeal its decision, the reasoning of Hines and Butcher applies, and she may not relitigate the issues raised and decided adversely to her in the administrative proceeding, if those proceedings met the four-pronged test set out in Oates v. Safeco Ins. Co. of America, 583 S.W.2d at 719:
The court in reviewing whether the application of collateral estoppel is appropriate should consider: (1) whether the issue decided in the proper adjudication was identical with the issue presented in the present action; (2) whether the prior adjudication resulted in a judgment on the merits; and (3) whether the party against whom collateral estoppel is asserted was a party or in privity with a party to the prior adjudication. LaRose v. Casey, [570 S.W.2d 746, 749 (Mo.App. 1978); Bernhard v. Bank of America Nat. Trust & Sav. Ass’n., 19 Cal.2d 807, 122 P.2d 892, 895 (1942) ]. Most courts have added a fourth factor to the three enunciated by Chief Justice Traynor in the Bernhard case: whether the party against whom collateral estoppel is asserted had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue in the prior suit. [Cunningham, Collateral Estoppel: The Changing Role of the Rule of Mutuality, 41 Mo.L.Rev. 521, 529 (Fall 1976)]; 860 Executive Towers, Inc. v. Board of Assessors, 53 A.D.2d 463, 385 N.Y.S.2d 604, 612 (1976); Johnson v. United States, 576 F.2d 606, 614 (5th Cir.1978). Fairness is the overriding consideration in determining whether or not to apply the Doctrine of Mutuality. Johnson, at 614; Freeman v. Marine Midland Bank-New York, 419 F.Supp. 440, 448-49 (E.D.N.Y.1976); Read v. Sacco, 49 A.D.2d 471, 375 N.Y.S.2d 371, 375 (1975).
Here, the issue to be decided in the administrative proceeding was identical with that presented in the present action. The prior adjudication by the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission, when not appealed, resulted in a final and conclusive determination of the fact issue. The party against whom collateral estoppel is now asserted was a party to the administrative decision, and she had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the fact issue in the administrative proceeding. This being so, she was barred from relitigating the fact issue of whether she was attempting to remove the stuffed toy monkey from the store premises without proper documentation or authorization in a subsequent breach of contract proceeding.
The trial court erred in failing to grant defendant’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the cause remanded with directions to enter judgment for defendant (May Department Stores) on Count I of plaintiff’s first amended petition.
In view of our disposition noted above, plaintiff’s appeal on the punitive damage issue has no merit, and the trial court’s action in setting aside such judgment is affirmed.
HIGGINS, C.J., and DONNELLY and WELLIVER, JJ., concur.
*331RENDLEN, J., concurs in result.
BLACKMAR, J., dissents in separate opinion filed.
ROBERTSON, J., dissents and concurs in separate dissenting opinion of BLACKMAR, J.

. See also Mack v. South Bay Beer Distributors, Inc., 798 F.2d 1279, 1283-84 (9th Cir.1986); Hill v. Coca Cola Bottling Co., 786 F.2d 550 (2nd Cir.1986); Moore v. Bonner, 695 F.2d 799 (4th Cir.1982); Lewis v. International Business Machines Corp., 393 F.Supp. 305 (1974).