Court Opinion

ID: 9724101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:44:18.702559+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:55.545924
License: Public Domain

*570SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). The plaintiff in this case processed her claim in accordance with the law then in existence. . The majority opinion creates a new rule of administrative preclusion and applies it retroactively to the plaintiff. As Judge Sundby explained in his dissent in the court of appeals-,1 issue preclusion is an equitable doctrine, subject to equitable principles. I believe this retroactive application of a new rule of law is fundamentally unfair, and I dissent.
In August 1980, the plaintiff reasonably believed that she was required under Wisconsin law to exhaust available administrative remedies before she could sue under section 1983. See Castelaz v. Milwaukee, 94 Wis. 2d 513, 536, 289 N.W.2d 259 (1980). Accordingly she filed employment discrimination charges with the Wisconsin Personnel Commission.2 The majority contends that by 1983, when the plaintiff appealed the initial probable cause determination to the entire Personnel Commission, she should have realized that the United States Supreme Court had vitiated the exhaustion requirement. See Patsy v. Board of Regents, 457 U.S. 496, 503-503 (1982).
The majority holds the plaintiff to a more prescient understanding of the law than the courts demonstrated. The Wisconsin courts did not follow Patsy. In *571Kramer v. Horton, 128 Wis. 2d 404, 419, 383 N.W.2d 54, cert. denied, 479 U.S. 918 (1986), this court reaffirmed its adherence to the exhaustion requirement in section 1983 cases.3 Thus, if the plaintiff wanted to be sure her section 1983 claim would not be dismissed on the grounds that she had failed to exhaust her administrative remedies, she acted prudently.
Equally important, in order to preserve a claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the plaintiff was required to pursue administrative remedies. Love v. Pullman, 404 U.S. 522, 523 (1972); 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000(e) (Title VII). If she had done as the majority suggests and foregone the administrative process, the plaintiff could have lost the opportunity to litigate her Title VII employment discrimination claims in court.
Moreover, contrary to the majority's reasoning, I do not believe that in 1980 a reasonable plaintiff could have been expected to conclude that Wisconsin courts accorded preclusive effect to the unreviewed fact-finding of an administrative agency. Under the then-controlling Wisconsin cases, the doctrine of res judicata did not apply to administrative agency proceedings. See, e.g., City of Fond du Lac v. Department of Natural Resources, 45 Wis. 2d 620, 625, 173 N.W.2d 605 (1970) ("It has long been established in this jurisdiction that the doctrine of res judicata has no application to the proceeding of an administrative agency such as the [DNR]."); Board of Regents v. Wisconsin Personnel *572Commission, 103 Wis. 2d 545, 552, 309 N.W.2d 366 (Ct. App. 1981) ("Wisconsin rejects the application of the doctrine of res judicata to the proceedings of an administrative agency."). The plaintiff reasonably believed that she had nothing to lose by taking the cautious route and exhausting her administrative remedies.
Even when the plaintiff received her final probable cause determination from the Personnel Commission in 1985, that determination had no preclusive effect in state or federal courts. Only if she had pursued judicial review of that administrative determination, as the majority implies she should have done, would her section 1983 claim have been foreclosed. Kremer v. Chemical Construction Corporation, 456 U.S. 461 (1982) (federal courts must apply state doctrine of issue preclusion to state court judicial review of a state administrative agency's action). Thus the plaintiffs decision to forego judicial review of the Personnel Commission's determination was also reasonable, based on then-existing law.
Indeed, it was not until 1986 that the potential preclusive effect of unreviewed state agency determinations became a factor in the strategic calculus of a would-be section 1983 plaintiff. See University of Tennessee v. Elliott, 478 U.S. 788 (1986). Elliott requires federal courts to apply to section 1983 claims the preclusive effect that state agency determinations would be accorded by the state's courts.
Regardless of the merits of the administrative agency issue preclusion rule established today, the majority opinion unfairly applies that rule to the plaintiff in the case at bar. Only under the majority's new interpretations do our cases hint that the plaintiff was not required to exhaust her administrative remedies or that she should have anticipated that unreviewed *573agency determinations would be accorded preclusive effect in a subsequent section 1983 action. The plaintiffs reading of the law was reasonable. To bar her section 1983 claim on the basis of an administrative agency determination she reasonably believed she had to pursue is patently unfair. The rule this court, adopts today could be fairly applied only to a plaintiff who, faced with a clear choice between pursuing administrative remedies and going to court, chose to take the administrative route.
Thus, the majority opinion fails the three-part Chevron test for retroactive application of a new rule of law. Under the Chevron test, a rule of law should not be applied retroactively when it is new, when its retroactive operation would retard its purpose, and when retroactive application would create inequitable results. See Chevron Oil v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 106-108 (1971). In this case, the administrative agency issue preclusion rule is new. Applying the new issue preclusion rule to the plaintiff retroactively defeats the underlying purpose of section 1983: to provide an opportunity for citizens to vindicate in court constitutional rights allegedly violated by state actors. Finally, retroactive application of this rule to the plaintiff is inequitable. No matter how adequate her administrative remedies they do not replace the day in court to which she was entitled.
Apart from the unfairness to the plaintiff, I am concerned that the majority opinion has far-reaching implications which the court has not explored. Although it seems to foster finality and a single proceeding, today's holding forces complainants to choose between administrative and judicial remedies. To the extent that they choose a judicial remedy rather thán a simpler and less expensive administrative mechanism *574for dispute resolution, the costs to the system as a whole will be unnecessarily increased. Furthermore, the holding may produce incongruous results in Title VII and section 1983 claims. See Marjorie A. Silver, In Lieu of Preclusion: Reconciling Administrative Deci-sionmaking and Federal Civil Rights Claims, 65 Ind. L.J. 367, 391-94 (1990).
Like Judge Sundby, I conclude that for reasons of fairness, justice and public policy, the plaintiff should be allowed to maintain her civil rights action. For the reasons set forth, I dissent.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice NATHAN S. Heffernan and Justice WILLIAM A. BABLITCH join this opinion.

 Lindas v. Cady, 175 Wis. 2d 270, 297, 499 N.W.2d 692 (Ct. App. 1993) (Sundby, J. dissenting). Judge Sundby reasoned that issue preclusion, not claim preclusion, was the relevant doctrine, and concluded that issue preclusion is not applicable in this case.

 Only if she directly challenged the adequacy of the administrative remedy or the fairness of the administrative process could she have escaped the exhaustion requirement. Castelaz, 94 Wis. 2d at 535.

 In Casteel v. Vaade, 167 Wis. 2d 1, 5, 17, 481 N.W.2d 277 (1991), this court expressly held that section 1983 plaintiffs are not required to exhaust state administrative remedies as a perquisite to section 1983 actions brought in state court. The court withdrew the language in the Kramer case concluding that state courts may require exhaustion of administrative remedies to bring a section 1983 action in state court.