Court Opinion

ID: 9489399
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:14:52.750037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:30.719937
License: Public Domain

*206KAREN LeCRAFT HENDERSON,
Circuit Judge, dissenting:
The majority holds that the Wholesale Liquor Industry Storage Act of 1986 (Storage Act) discriminates against interstate commerce: it is “patently discriminatory” because the “[local warehousing] requirement not only deprives out-of-state businesses access to a local market but also requires business operations be performed in the District even if they could be performed more efficiently elsewhere.” Majority Opinion (Maj. Op.) at 201 (citations omitted). As a result, the Storage Act violates the dormant commerce clause, and thus is unconstitutional, unless it survives strict scrutiny. The majority concludes that, regardless whether the Storage Act meets strict scrutiny, the legislation is a valid exercise of core twenty-first amendment power — because a District of Columbia (District) councilman said so. Id. at 202-04.
The trouble is that the District unsuccessfully litigated the dormant commerce clause and twenty-first amendment issues over six years ago. Accordingly the court below concluded that the doctrine of issue preclusion, in particular nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel, bars the District from relitigating the constitutionality of the Storage Act. In my view the district court did not err in so concluding and therefore I would not reach the merits. I respectfully dissent.
I. BACKGROUND
A. Legislative History of the Storage Act.
In 1979 the District’s Alcoholic Beverages Control Board (Board) granted Quality Brands, Inc., a District-licensed wholesaler, permission to store its District-bound alcoholic beverages in Maryland. As a result, jobs within the jurisdiction of Local 639 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters were lost to Maryland. Local 639 then lobbied the District’s governing body, the District Council (Council), to enact legislation prohibiting wholesalers from using warehouse facilities outside the District. To that end, in 1981 a bill entitled the “Wholesale Liquor Industry Job Protection Act” was introduced. Substantially identical bills were reintroduced in 1983 and 1985 bearing the same eyebrow-raising title.
In January 1986 the Council’s Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs held a hearing on the proposed legislation. The record manifests that the witnesses who testified at the hearing, including the president of Local 639, focused exclusively on the loss of jobs and tax revenue resulting from wholesalers using warehouse facilities outside the District. For example, the director of the District Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs testified, “The executive supports this bill because it will create and protect jobs for District of Columbia residents. This bill would also increase the tax base because current and prospective licensees would have to use facilities in the city to store their beverages.” Appellee’s Legislative History and Statutory Addendum (Ap-pellees Addendum) 50. A competitor of Quality Brands testified that the authorization extended to Quality Brands put his company at a competitive disadvantage and emphasized that it “has meant and will mean the continuing layoff of employees in Washington, as well as shrink the tax base.” Id. at 44. The president and general counsel of the D.C. Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association, Inc., a trade association consisting of five District-licensed wholesalers, urged passage of the bill, which the association viewed “as a job protection act.” Id. at 47 (emphasis in original). The committee report accompanying the bill described the bill as a job protection measure. See Appellant’s Statutory and Legislative History Addendum (Appellant’s Addendum) 55-57.
In short, the Storage Act (aka “Job Protection Act”) was conceived and justified as an act of pure economic protectionism. No other justification was asserted. No one suggested that the local warehousing requirement would assist the District in regulating alcoholic beverages. This is not surprising: The record contains no evidence that District officials have ever even visited a wholesaler’s warehouse. And the record manifests that a wholesaler can store beverages outside the District yet comply "with the *207Alcoholic Beverages Control Act (ABC Act), enacted by Congress in 1934, and its implementing regulations. See Brief of Amicus Curiae Quality Brands, Inc., Exhibit G. (admissions of District).
At any rate, the bill came before the Council as a whole during a legislative session in April 1986. A council member noted that the Council’s General Counsel had expressed eoneem about the legality of the local warehousing requirement under the dormant commerce clause because the legislation amounted to economic protectionism. Councilman John Ray responded that the Storage Act was more than that:
The interest that we have ... is to audit the records of these companies, to check their warehouses to make sure that they’re in compliance with the ABC laws of the District of Columbia, to make sure their licenses are posted correctly, to check each and every truck they own to make sure their licenses are posted correctly, to make sure all the lettering and numbering of these trucks are correct and in accordance with our licensing laws, to make sure that their tax forms are file [sic] so that we can audit to make sure that they’re paying the proper taxes to the District of Columbia because taxes are based upon the gallons they sell per year, and all other laws which comply [sic] with the District of. Columbia.
Appellant’s Addendum 62.1 The bill passed its first reading. On second reading three days later, it passed with a “grandfather” provision exempting from the Storage Act those District-based wholesalers then operating warehouses outside the District (i.e., Quality Brands). At the third and final reading of the bill an amendment was offered to remove the grandfather provision and to replace it with a provision which, in effect, gave Quality Brands a 2-year grace period before it had to find a warehouse in the District. The bill passed as amended and became law.
B. Quality Brands’Lawsuit.
Quality Brands filed a lawsuit in 1988 to challenge the constitutionality of the Storage Act. The district court held that the Storage Act violated the dormant commerce clause because it facially discriminated against interstate commerce and could not withstand strict scrutiny. Quality Brands, Inc. v. Barry, 715 F.Supp. 1138, 1139-42 (D.D.C.1989). The court further held that the Storage Act was not designed to serve a core purpose of the twenty-first amendment. Id. at 1142-43. Accordingly it “ordered that enforcement of the Act is enjoined.” Id. at 1143.
On appeal this Court affirmed the district court’s judgment enjoining enforcement of the Storage Act. Quality Brands, Inc. v. Barry, 901 F.2d 1130 (D.C.Cir.1990) (table); Joint Appendix (JA) 64 (“ORDERED and ADJUDGED, by this Court, that the judgment of the District Court appealed from in this cause is hereby affirmed for the reasons set forth in the accompanying memorandum.”). An accompanying unpublished memorandum stated: “we affirm substantially for the reasons articulated in the opinion of the district court.” Quality Brands, Inc. v. Barry, 901 F.2d 1130, 1990 WL 51795, at *1 (D.C.Cir.). The memorandum explained that the court declined to consider an argument the District failed to “press” in the district court, namely that the Storage Act did not violate the dormant commerce clause because the local storage requirement in fact flowed from the eongressionally-enacted ABC Act.
C. Kronheim’s Lawsuit.
Milton S. Kronheim & Co., Inc. (Kronheim) is a District-licensed wholesaler. Kronheim has been a wholesaler in the District since 1903. Historically the company has used warehouses in the District and, indeed, in 1986 the company lobbied (through its trade association) in support of the Storage Act. A decade later, however, Kron-heim, on the brink of a financial crisis, determined that it could not operate at a profit if it continued to store its inventory in the District. JA 48, 55. Kronheim proposed to consolidate, in a Maryland warehouse, its *208District-bound inventory with the inventory of its Maryland affiliate. With its warehouse leases in the District set to expire in early 1995, Kronheim applied in February 1995 for a preliminary injunction to enjoin the District from enforcing the Storage Act.2 The district court granted the injunction. The court held:
[The District is] collaterally estopped from disputing the application of Judge Rever-comb’s ruling in Quality Brands to the parallel situation of plaintiffs [sic] here: namely, (1) that the local warehousing requirement facially discriminates against the kind of interstate commerce in which plaintiff plans to engage; (2) that the articulated purposes given for the requirement cannot withstand the “strict scrutiny” accorded facially discriminatory legislation; and (3) that the Twenty-First Amendment does not validate the discrimination against the interstate commerce in which plaintiff plans to engage.
Milton S. Kronheim & Co., Inc. v. District of Columbia, 877 F.Supp. 21, 26-27 (D.D.C.1995). The court below added that this Court’s affirmance of the Quality Brands judgment constituted “further persuasive authority” for applying collateral estoppel. Id. at 27. Finally, the court below rejected on the merits the statutory issue this Court declined to consider in Quality Brands, to wit, whether Congress, via the ABC Act, prohibited District-licensed wholesalers from storing alcoholic beverages outside the District. Id. at 27-29.
The majority today agrees with the latter ruling, holding that the local warehousing requirement is a creature of the District, not Congress, and thus is subject to the dormant commerce clause. The majority nevertheless reverses. Over six years after our order in Quality Brands affirming the ruling that the Storage Act is unconstitutional, the majority now reverses field and concludes that the Storage Act is constitutional. The majority errs, I respectfully submit, in (again) passing on the constitutionality of the Storage Act because the lower court correctly concluded that the doctrine of nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel bars the District from relit-igating the dormant commerce clause and the twenty-first amendment issues.
II. Nonmutual Offensive Collateral EstoppelCan Apply to the DISTRICT
Before addressing why I believe the District is collaterally estopped from defending the constitutionality of the Storage Act, I must address the District’s argument that it should always be immune from the application of nonmutual offensive collateral estop-pel.3 The argument is grounded on the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Mendoza, 464 U.S. 154, 104 S.Ct. 568, 78 L.Ed.2d 379 (1984), a due process case involving the federal government. The Court held that “nonmutual offensive collateral es-toppel simply does not apply against the Government in such a way as to preclude relitigation of issues such as those in this case.” Id. at 162, 104 S.Ct. at 573. The Court observed that the federal government is more likely than any private party to be involved in lawsuits against different parties raising the same legal issues: the federal government litigates nationwide in multiple forums and frequently litigates legal questions of substantial public importance. Id. at 160, 104 S.Ct. at 572. The crux of the Court’s opinion is its observation that allow*209ing nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel to be used against the federal government would have two adverse consequences. First, and most important, it “would substantially thwart the development of important questions of law by freezing the first final decision rendered on a particular legal issue,” thereby “depriv[ing] [the] Court of the benefit it receives from permitting several courts of appeals to explore a difficult question before [the] Court grants certiorari.” Id. at 160, 104 S.Ct. at 572. Second, “[t]he Solicitor General’s policy for determining when to appeal an adverse decision would also require substantial revision” because the Solicitor General would, in effect, have “to appeal every adverse decision in order to avoid foreclosing further review.” Id. at 160-61, 104 S.Ct. at 572; see also id. at 163, 104 S.Ct. at 574; cf. United States v. Stauffer Chem. Co., 464 U.S. 165, 173 & n. 6, 104 S.Ct. 575, 579 & n. 6, 78 L.Ed.2d 388 (1984).
Mendoza's rationale is inapplicable to the District. Cf. State v. United Cook Inlet Drift Ass’n, 895 P.2d 947, 950-52 (Alaska 1995) (distinguishing Mendoza and holding that state of Alaska is not exempt from nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel). The District does not litigate in multiple federal forums but rather in one federal circuit with one district court. Therefore, immunizing the District from nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel will not “better allow thorough development of legal doctrine by allowing litigation in multiple forums,” Mendoza, 464 U.S. at 163, 104 S.Ct. at 574, or prevent “freezing the development of the law,” id. at 164, 104 S.Ct. at 574. Moreover, compared to the Solicitor General, the District’s Corporation Counsel is responsible for far less litigation and the District does not assert that its Counsel maintains, or has a compelling need to maintain, a “policy of circumspection in determining when to pursue appeals.” Stauffer Chem., 464 U.S. at 173 n. 6, 104 S.Ct. at 580 n. 6.4
No legitimate public policy would be served by immunizing the District from non-mutual offensive collateral estoppel here. True, the District, like all government entities, does at times litigate issues of “substantial public importance.” Mendoza, 464 U.S. at 160, 104 S.Ct. at 572. But if the District receives an adverse district court decision, it can appeal to this Court, and an adverse decision by this Court will bind the District in future litigation irrespective of the applicability of nonmutual offensive collateral estop-pel: principles of res judicata and estoppel will bar the District from relitigating the issue with the same party; and stare decisis should ordinarily preclude the District from relitigating the issue with a different party (this Court publishes the disposition of an issue of substantial public importance, D.C.Cir. R. 36(a), and published decisions have precedential effect, D.C.Cir. R. 28(c)). If we decline to pass on the merits of such an issue, the District can move to vacate the district court’s judgment and thereby deprive it of any preclusive effect.
III. COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL BARS ReLITI-GATIONOF THE CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
The District raises three issues in defense of the Storage Act. First, as a threshold issue, the District argues that the local warehousing requirement was imposed by Congress and thus the dormant commerce clause is inapplicable. Second, the Storage Act does not violate the dormant commerce clause because it does not discriminate against interstate commerce or, if it does, it nonetheless passes strict scrutiny. Third, irrespective of its impact on interstate commerce, the Storage Act is sanctioned by the twenty-first amendment.
*210The court below concluded that the threshold (statutory) issue had no merit and the majority agrees.5 I would add that the argument is downright disingenuous. The District contends that the Storage Act “was enacted by the Council simply to make it clear” that the “ABC Act, as it was enacted by Congress, prohibits wholesalers from storing alcoholic beverages outside the District.” Brief of Appellant at 18. But the record belies any claim that the Council thought Congress prohibited storage outside the District. First, the committee report accompanying the bill stated that “there are no statutory restrictions” in the ABC Act regarding storage outside the District. Appellant’s Addendum 55. Councilman Ray, who authored the report, elsewhere explained to the Council that the Council could permit a wholesaler to store its inventory outside the District. Id. at 63, 67, 80. Second, the Council added, on second reading, a grandfather provision which would have allowed Quality Brands to continue to store its beverages in Maryland, plainly violating the purported congressional mandate. Third, the Council’s General Counsel doubted the constitutionality of the bill under the dormant commerce clause, which does not apply to a congressional mandate. In short, the Council did not act on the premise that Congress mandated required local warehousing. The claim is instead a post hoc rationale offered to save the Storage Act, and an unpersuasive one at that.
A. This Court’s disposition in Quality Brands has preclusive effect.
Once we dispose of the threshold issue we are left with the dormant commerce clause and the twenty-first amendment issues. These are the precise issues litigated and adjudicated in Quality Brands. The majority concedes that the constitutional issues were “actually litigated” and “actually and necessarily determined” by the district court in Quality Brands. Maj. Op. at 197. On appeal this Court issued an order affirming that judgment. The accompanying unpublished memorandum declared that the panel affirmed “substantially for the reasons articulated in the opinion of the district court,” Quality Brands, 1990 WL 51795, at *1, an opinion which decided both the commerce clause and the twenty-first amendment issues (there were no alternative holdings). See Quality Brands, 715 F.Supp. at 1139-43. Our disposition in Quality Brands should estop the District from relitigating the constitutional issues. It is of no consequence that we did not expressly (and again) analyze the issues. See Securities Indus. Ass’n v. Board of Governors, 900 F.2d 360, 364-65 (D.C.Cir.1990) (“even when an opinion is silent on a particular issue, issue preclusion applies if resolution of that issue was necessary to the judgment”); American Iron & Steel Inst. v. EPA 886 F.2d 390, 397 (D.C.Cir.1989) (same “even in absence of any opinion”) (emphasis in original), cert. denied, 497 U.S. 1003, 110 S.Ct. 3237, 111 L.Ed.2d 748 (1990). Nor does it matter that we affirmed in an unpublished decision. D.C.Cir. R. 28(c) (unpublished decision has preclusive effect). What matters is that we affirmed the district court for the reasons the district court used.
The majority asserts that “our decision in Quality Brands did not necessarily involve adjudication of the issue[s] before us.” Maj. Op. at 197. I do not understand how the statement can be correct. We affirmed the district court’s judgment. However “murky” the language of the unpublished memorandum, see id. at 196, there is no dodging the fact that the only issues the district court decided in Quality Brands were the constitutional issues and they were the only issues we could have affirmed “substantially for the reasons” the district court gave. Indeed, because we plainly did not reverse or vacate the injunction or dismiss the appeal, we necessarily adjudicated the constitutional issues. See Watts v. United States, 402 F.2d 676, 685 (D.C.Cir.1968) (“Collateral estoppel will prevent the relitigation of an issue that was necessary to a prior judgment or final disposition of a case.”), rev’d on other grounds, 394 U.S. 705, 89 S.Ct. 1399, 22 L.Ed.2d 664 (1969). Contrary to the majority’s reading, the unpublished memorandum in Quality Brands nowhere “expressly stated ... that *211we did not determine the” constitutional issues. Maj. Op. at 197 (emphasis added); Concurring Opinion (Con. Op.) at 205 (“we expressly refrained from deciding the constitutional questions”). Rather, it stated that we “elected to dispose of th[e] appeal by unpublished opinion” and that we thought “it unnecessary to discuss” the constitutional issues but would instead “affirm substantially for the reasons articulated in the opinion of the district court.” Quality Brands, 1990 WL 51795, at *1 (emphasis added).
The concurring opinion’s deconstruction of the unpublished memorandum is not persuasive. According to the concurring opinion, “[w]e did not publish to avoid giving our opinion precedential effect, which could only mean we wished to preserve the District’s opportunity to raise the .[constitutional] issue again.” Con. Op. at 205. Why, then, the affirmance? As I read the unpublished memorandum, Quality Brands affirmed the trial judge but declined to publish any discussion of the constitutional issues because, in the event the District’s statutory argument had merit,' a published opinion would have constituted an advisory opinion both on the dormant commerce clause and the twenty-first amendment. There is no suggestion in the unpublished memorandum that “we wished to preserve the District’s opportunity to” have another crack at litigating the constitutional issues. Even if that were its un-articulated objective, the court failed in that objective because it overlooked the preclusive effect of the order affirming the lower court.
In any event, if forced to choose, why would we defer to an internally inconsistent unpublished memorandum over the unequivocal affirmance? Litigants and district judges rely on the judgments of this Court and should have confidence that our judgments mean what they say. I would not disregard our judgment and mandate in Quality Brands.
B. The district court’s unmodified judgment in Quality. Brands has preclusive effect.
. Even if we ignore our affirming order and indulge the fiction that we did not adjudicate the constitutional issues in Quality Brands, the majority is not out of the woods. The Supreme Court has held that collateral es-toppel applies “so long as the judgment in the first suit remains unmodified.” Southern Pac. R.R. Co. v. United States, 168 U.S. 1, 49, 18 S.Ct. 18, 27, 42 L.Ed. 355 (1897). The majority cannot deny that in Quality Brands we did not reverse, vacate or set aside the lower court’s judgment enjoining enforcement of the Storage Act. The district court’s unmodified judgment should therefore be accorded preclusive effect. Hubbell v. United States, 171 U.S. 203, 18 S.Ct. 828, 43 L.Ed. 136 (1898).6
Yet the majority disregards the district court’s judgment. Why? Because we purportedly, declined to review it. But it is well . established that a lower court judgment may have preclusive effect despite the lack of appellate review. Johnson Steel Street-Rail Co. v. William Wharton Jr. & Co., 152 U.S. 252, 14 S.Ct. 608, 38 L.Ed. 429 (1894) (appellate “re-examination” not necessary); Hubbell, 171 U.S. at 210, 18 S.Ct. at 831; Angel v. Bullington, 330 U.S. 183, 189-90, 67 S.Ct. 657, 660-61, 91 L.Ed. 832 (1947); Federated Dep’t Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S. 394, 398, 101 S.Ct. 2424, 2427, 69 L.Ed.2d 103 (1981). This principle applies not only when the losing party fails to appeal an adverse judgment but also when the losing party does appeal and the appeal is dismissed without appellate review on the merits.7
Wight v. Montana-Dakota Util. Co., 299 F.2d 470 (9th Cir.1962), is instructive. A *212decade earlier Mondakota Gas Company (Mondakota) had been sued, the district court had granted summary judgment against Mondakota on several issues and Mondakota had appealed. The Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal without considering the merits because Mondakota failed to timely pay the filing fee. Mondakota Gas Co. v. Montana-Dakota Util. Co., 194 F.2d 705 (9th Cir.1952) (per curiam). Thereafter, in Parissi v. Telechron, Inc., 349 U.S. 46, 47, 75 S.Ct. 577, 99 L.Ed. 867 (1955) (per curiam), the Supreme Court held that the untimely payment of a filing fee did not affect the validity of the petitioner’s appeal and added that it disapproved of the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Mondakota Gas. In other words, Mondako-ta’s appeal had been improperly dismissed. A decade later, in Wight, Mondakota attempted to relitigate issues identical to the ones it had lost on summary judgment in the earlier litigation and argued “that the doctrine of res judicata should not apply because that [earlier] case was never ruled on on its merits by an appellate court.” Wight, 299 F.2d at 471. The district court rejected the argument and the Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that “[t]he dismissal of the appeal from the judgment of the District Court ... did not operate to prevent that judgment from becoming final and from being res judicata.” Id. at 477.
Wight relied on United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 71 S.Ct. 104, 95 L.Ed. 36 (1950). In Munsingwear, a price fixing ease, the district court ruled against the government and the government appealed. While the appeal was pending, Munsing-wear moved for dismissal because an intervening event had rendered moot the issue decided by the district court. The Eighth Circuit dismissed the appeal. Thereafter the district court held that its unreviewed judgment was res judicata as to the government. The government appealed, arguing that res judicata did not apply because there had been no appellate review on the merits. The Eighth Circuit disagreed: “It is not conceivable to us that this refusal [to entertain an appeal in the prior case] had the effect of emasculating the judgment of the District Court which was appealed from, or of reserving the issue determined by that judgment for relitigation by the parties... United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 178 F.2d 204, 209 (8th Cir.1949). The Supreme Court affirmed. The Court rejected the government’s argument that “res judicata should not apply” to “those who have been prevent ed from obtaining the review to which they are entitled.” Munsingwear, 340 U.S. at 39, 71 S.Ct. at 106. The Court held that the government should have moved to vacate the adverse district court judgment when the Eighth Circuit dismissed the appeal in the original litigation. Id. at 39-40, 71 S.Ct. at 106-07.
How do these decisions bear on our case? First, even assuming we refrained from reviewing the merits of the trial judge’s decision in Quality Brands, his judgment should be accorded preclusive effect because it was not vacated or otherwise modified. Second, if the District believed that we did not review the merits of the district court judgment in Quality Brands, it should have moved to vacate that judgment. Third, vacatur likely would have been unwarranted because the District was responsible for any lack of appellate review, see U.S. Bancorp Mortgage Co. v. Bonner Mall Partnership, — U.S. -,-, 115 S.Ct. 386, 391-93, 130 L.Ed.2d 233 (1994): the District’s failure to press the statutory argument before the trial judge is what, according to the unpublished memorandum, caused us to demur on the constitutional issues. Cf. supra note 6 (discussing Hubbell v. United States ).8
IV. Conclusion
I believe the majority errs as a matter of fact in finding that this Court did not adjudi*213cate in Quality Brands the constitutional issues raised by the District again in this litigation. Moreover, the majority errs as a matter of law in concluding that the district court’s unmodified judgment in Quality Brands does not have preclusive effect based on our purported failure to review the decision on the merits. Finally, the majority omits to consider the consequences of not applying collateral estoppel.9 I respectfully dissent.

. It is Ray’s unsupported "llth-hour” statement, a statement essentially made in anticipation of litigation, on which the majority relies to conclude that the Council enacted the Storage Act " ‘to combat the perceived evils of an unrestricted traffic in liquor.’ ” Maj. Op. at 203 (quoting Bacchus Imports, Ltd. v. Dias, 468 U.S. 263, 276, 104 S.Ct. 3049, 3058, 82 L.Ed.2d 200 (1984)).

. According to Kronheim's complaint, the District continued to enforce the Storage Act notwithstanding the Quality Brands holding. JA 12. In addition, the complaint alleged that the District, through the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, was enforcing an unwritten “come to rest” policy — requiring alcoholic beverages sold by a District-licensed wholesaler to "come to rest” in the District at least 24 hours before being sold to a retailer — in an attempt to evade our decision in Quality Brands. Id. Kronheim urged that both the District's enforcement of the Storage Act and the Board’s "come to rest” policy — both requiring local storage — violated the dormant commerce clause and that Quality Brands precluded the District from relitigating the constitutionality of a local storage requirement.

. Nonmutual offensive collateral estoppel “occurs when a plaintiff seeks to foreclose a defendant from relitigating an issue the defendant has previously litigated unsuccessfully in another action against ... a different party.” United States v. Mendoza, 464 U.S. 154, 159 n. 4, 104 S.Ct. 568, 571 n. 4, 78 L.Ed.2d 379 (1984).

. The District relies on Hercules Carriers, Inc. v. Florida, 768 F.2d 1558 (11th Cir.1985), where the court held "that the rationale outlined by the Supreme Court in Mendoza for not applying non-mutual collateral estoppel against the government is equally applicable to state governments." Id. at 1579. Hercules offered no supporting analysis but instead relied on two observations. First, Mendoza "did not differentiate between federal governmental interests and state govem-mental interests." Id. Of course not; the case dealt only with the federal government. Second, Hercules stated that Mendoza contained nothing "to suggest that the concerns expressed by the Supreme Court were peculiar to the federal government.” Id. That statement is simply incorrect. At any rate, unlike the states in the Eleventh Circuit, the District does not litigate in multiple federal district courts.

. Kronheim does not argue that the District is collaterally estopped from raising this issue.

. Hubbell declared that the judgment of a lower court in a prior suit "operate[s] as a complete estoppel to the present suit, unless the'proceedings subsequent to the judgment in the'former suit in some way deprived that judgment of its force and effect as res adjudicata.” 171 U.S. at 207, 18 S.Ct. at 830 (emphasis added). In Hubbell there were two “proceedings subsequent to the judgment.” First, the losing party moved for a new trial which was denied. Id. at 209, 18 S.Ct. at 830. Second, that party noticed an appeal but failed to perfect it; the appeal was not allowed. Id. at 210, 18 S.Ct. at 831. Thus, the Supreme Court held, the lower court’s prior judgment had not been deprived of its preclusive effect. Id. Significantly, the fact that the merits of the lower court’s decision had not been reviewed by an appellate court did not dilute the preclusive effect of the judgment.

. The Quality Brands court, it bears repeating, did not dismiss the appeal; it affirmed. But, as noted, I am indulging the majority’s fiction that the court did not affirm. If, as the majority *212reasons, we did not affirm and it is plain that we did not reverse or vacate, then under the majority's logic our Quality Brands disposition amounts to a dismissal of the appeal.

. The District’s failure to make the statutory argument before the district judge in Quality Brands may well have been a strategic maneuver. The District does not contend that it was unaware of the argument while it was defending the Storage Act in Quality Brands. In fact, on appeal in Quality Brands the District unsuccessfully tried to convince us that it had raised the argument below. Quality Brands, 1990 WL 51795, at *1. Why did the District not press the argument below? It appears that Councilman Ray was of the view that the Council (but not the *213Board) should be able to exempt a wholesaler from any local warehousing requirement. See Appellant's Addendum 63, 67, 80. The Council, of course, could not exercise such power if Congress had in fact prohibited storage outside the District. Thus, it was in the Council's interest not to argue that Congress prohibited out-of-District storage but instead to seek a ruling that the District could require local warehousing without offending the Constitution.

. The majority opinion raises a number of questions, not least among them how today's decision will affect Quality Brands, which has been operating a warehouse in Maryland (with the Board's permission) since 1979. It successfully challenged the Storage Act over six years ago (having filed for declaratory and injunctive relief on July 19, 1988) and relies on, as it is entitled to do, this Court’s order affirming the injunction. It bears emphasizing that the law the majority today , revives contains no grandfather provision for Quality Brands: under the terms of the Storage Act, Qualily Brands had until July 27, 1988 (2 years after the effective date) to move its inventory back to the District. Appellee's Addendum 56-57; Brief of Amicus Curiae at 5.
Before today, if the District had attempted to force Quality Brands to use a warehouse in the District (e.g., by threatening to revoke Quality , Brands' license), the company could have moved to enforce the injunction. Res judicata plainly would have barred the District from collaterally challenging the injunction on the merits. See Maggio v. Zeitz, 333 U.S. 56, 68, 68 S.Ct. 401, 407, 92 L.Ed. 476 (1948); 18 Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice & Procedure § 4433, at 307 (1981) ("Preclusion ... prevents reexamination of the validity of a permanent injunction or similar order in subsequent contempt proceedings.”); id. § 4414, at 117 n.21. If, after today, the District can enforce the Storage Act against Quality Brands, the majority will have allowed the District to .wage a successful collateral attack on the judgment underlying the Quality Brands injunction. On the other hand, if Quality Brands is immune from today's decision upholding the Storage Act while Kronheim and all other wholesalers are not, the majority opinion will become a cátalyst for the very inconsistency collateral estoppel is designed to prevent. Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 154, 99 S.Ct. 970, 973, 59 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979) (collateral estoppel "fosters reliance on judicial action by minimizing the possibility of inconsistent decisions”). The majority considers none of this.