Court Opinion

ID: 9498455
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:17:40.165247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:50.298148
License: Public Domain

KEARSE, Circuit Judge,
concurring dubitante.
Plaintiff Carol Aurecchione litigated her employment dispute before the New York State Division of Human Rights (“NYDHR”); the decision of NYDHR stated that that agency found in Aurecchione’s favor “pursuant to the provisions of the Human Rights Law,” Aurecchione v. Classic Coach, No. 2A-E-S-88-126025E, at 11 (N.Y.D.H.R. Apr. 29, 1999), and did not mention Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (“Title VII”). The district court found, accordingly, that Aurecchione had not prevailed on a Title VII claim. See Aurecchione v. Schoolman Transportation System, Inc., No. 99-CV-3644, at 6 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 30, 2003).
In the present action, Aurecchione sought no relief under Title VII except attorneys’ fees. As the majority opinion notes, Aurecchione claimed entitlement to an award of Title VII attorneys’ fees under the authority of New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U.S. 54, 100 S.Ct. 2024, 64 L.Ed.2d 723 (1980). However, while Carey stated that Title VII authorizes an award of fees for work done in state and local proceedings, see id. at 65-66, 100 S.Ct. 2024, that case in fact involved “federal litigation [that] was commenced in order to obtain relief for respondent on the merits of her basic dispute with petitioners, and not simply to recover attorney’s fees,” id. at 71, 100 S.Ct. 2024 (Stevens, J., concurring). See also id. (stating that it is “doubtful” that “Congress intended to authorize a separate federal action solely to recover ... attorney’s fees[ ] incurred in obtaining administrative relief’); cf. North Carolina Department of Transpor*640tation v. Crest Street Community Council, 479 U.S. 6, 12, 16, 107 S.Ct. 336, 93 L.Ed.2d 188 (1986) (although attorneys’ fees are available under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 to a prevailing party in an action to enforce .the substantive provisions of, inter alia, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq., such fees are not available in “a court action other than litigation in which a party seeks to enforce” the substantive provisions (emphasis in original)).
Aurecchione, however, has already litigated the substance of her dispute to judgment in the state proceedings; hence, principles of res judicata would seem to bar her from now pursuing a claim under Title VII based on the same dispute. See, e.g., Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S. 394, 398, 101 S.Ct. 2424, 69 L.Ed.2d 103 (1981) (“A final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action.”); Heimbach v. Chu, 744 F.2d 11, 14 (2d Cir.1984) (“a claim that could have been asserted under a given set of facts in a concluded action is barred from being asserted under the same set of facts in a subsequent action”).
I am thus skeptical that Aurecchione will be able, in an amended complaint as suggested by the majority, to state a viable claim with respect to her already litigated employment dispute or as to a freestanding right to attorneys’ fees that could enable her to be found a “prevailing party” under Title VII within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k).