Court Opinion

ID: 9429020
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:28.132994+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:16.808443
License: Public Domain

Justice White,
dissenting.
In this case brought under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 the Sixth Circuit held that res judicata principles barred the petitioner from presenting a constitutional claim because she had failed to present the claim in previous state litigation. The issue of whether constitutional claims not actually litigated in earlier state proceedings are barred in a subsequent federal suit is of considerable importance, to §1983 litigants and has divided the Federal Courts of Appeals. The First, Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits, and now the Sixth Circuit, have *931held that a § 1983 claimant is precluded by res judicata from relitigating not only the issues which were actually decided in the state proceeding, but also the issues which he might have presented. See Lovely v. Laliberte, 498 F. 2d 1261 (CA1), cert. denied, 419 U. S. 1038 (1974); Jennings v. Caddo Parish School Bd., 531 F. 2d 1331 (CA5 1976); Robbins v. District Court, 592 F. 2d 1015 (CA8 1979); Scoggin v. Schrunk, 522 F. 2d 436 (CA9 1975), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 1066 (1976); Spence v. Latting, 512 F. 2d 93 (CA10), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 896 (1975). The Second and Third Circuits hold that a litigant is not precluded from asserting later such claims in federal court. See Lombard v. Board of Ed. of New York City, 502 F. 2d 631 (CA2 1974), cert. denied, 420 U. S. 976 (1975); New Jersey Ed. Assn. v. Burke, 579 F. 2d 764 (CA3), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 894 (1978). This conflict — which has been recognized by petitioners, by respondents, by the court below, and even by this Court, Allen v. McCurry, 449 U. S. 90, 97, n. 10 (1980) — should now be resolved. I would grant certiorari.