Court Opinion

ID: 9946785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-01 15:18:22.485029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:23.211778
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
                               APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
        This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court ." Although it is posted on the
     internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.

                                                        SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
                                                        APPELLATE DIVISION
                                                        DOCKET NO. A-0998-22

MARGARET GOODE, NICOLE
MANN, JESSICA DEQUITO,
THERESA ATWATER, and
JACQUELINE BALLINGER,

          Plaintiffs-Appellants,

and

RENA PIERCE,

          Plaintiff,

v.

CAMDEN CITY SCHOOL
DISTRICT,

     Defendant-Respondent.
____________________________

                   Submitted January 16, 2024 – Decided March 1, 2024

                   Before Judges Gilson and DeAlmeida.

                   On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law
                   Division, Camden County, Docket No. L-4986-19.
             Kober Law Firm, LLC, attorneys for appellants (Peter
             M. Kober, on the briefs).

             Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin,
             attorneys for respondent (Walter F. Kawalec, III, and
             Richard L. Goldstein, on the brief).

PER CURIAM

      Plaintiffs are former teachers who worked for the Camden City School

District (the District). They all resigned or requested to be placed on medical

leave after receiving two consecutive poor annual performance evaluations.

They appeal from a February 14, 2020 order dismissing their claims against the

District because the claims were barred by principles of collateral estoppel. We

affirm because essential elements of plaintiffs' claims were resolved against

plaintiffs in a prior federal action.

                                        I.

      Plaintiffs in this appeal are five former tenured teachers who were

employed by the District through the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school years.1

In 2012, the New Jersey Legislature enacted the Teacher Effectiveness and

Accountability for the Children of New Jersey Act (TEACHNJ), N.J.S.A.

1
  Rena Pierce settled with the District before the other five teachers filed their
notice of appeal. Accordingly, plaintiffs Margaret Goode, Nicole Mann, Jessica
Dequito, Theresa Atwater, and Jacqueline Ballinger are appellants.

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                                        2
18A:6-117 to -129. TEACHNJ authorized school districts to develop their own

evaluation rubrics to assess teachers' performances on an annual basis. N.J.S.A.

18A:6-122. Under the statute, the rubrics had to include four rating categories:

ineffective, partially effective, effective, and highly effective. N.J.S.A. 18A:6-

123(b)(1). Any teacher who received a partially effective rating followed by an

ineffective rating the next year, or who received a partially effective rating two

years in a row, could be brought up on tenure charges and might be subject to

termination. N.J.S.A. 18A:6-128; N.J.S.A. 18A:6-17.3.

      In June 2013, the New Jersey Board of Education took over the operation

of the Camden City Board of Education.           Thereafter, the State-appointed

Superintendent of Schools adopted a new rubric to evaluate District teachers. In

the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school years, each plaintiff was evaluated under

the new rubric and found to be partially effective. Plaintiffs were therefore

noticed that they were either being brought up on tenure charges or were being

placed on administrative leave due to their low evaluation scores. Rather than

contest the charges, four of the plaintiffs resigned and one plaintiff requested

and was placed on medical leave.

      In June 2016, plaintiffs filed a complaint in federal court in the District of

New Jersey asserting claims against the District and several individual

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                                         3
defendants who were involved in their evaluation processes (the Federal

Action). Plaintiffs alleged that the District and its employees had used the new

rubric as a pretext to discriminate against teachers who were over forty years of

age.

       Over the next several years, the parties engaged in motion practice and

plaintiffs amended their complaint several times. During that process, plaintiffs

dismissed certain claims and dismissed several individual defendants.

       In their fourth and final amended complaint filed in the Federal Action,

plaintiffs alleged that the District and two individual defendants had violated the

federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-34;

the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD), N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 to -50, for

retaliating against activity protected by the First Amendment under 42 U.S.C. §

1983 and the New Jersey Civil Rights Act (the CR Act), N.J.S.A. 10:6-1 to -2;

the New Jersey Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), N.J.S.A.

34:19-1 to -14; and the New Jersey doctrine of fundamental fairness.

       In May 2019, defendants moved for summary judgment, seeking to

dismiss all of plaintiffs' claims in the Federal Action. On November 22, 2019,

the federal court issued a written opinion and order granting defendants' motion

in part and denying it in part. The court dismissed plaintiffs' ADEA claims

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                                        4
against the District with prejudice. The federal court also dismissed plaintiffs'

LAD and CEPA claims against the District without prejudice because it

determined that the District was an arm of the State and was not subject to suit

in federal court under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution.

      Regarding the claims against one of the individual defendants, the federal

court determined that one of the plaintiffs, Pierce, had alleged facts that allowed

her claims to survive summary judgment. In contrast, the court found that the

claims by all other plaintiffs were subject to dismissal on summary judgment.

Specifically, the federal court found that the claims by plaintiffs Goode, Mann,

Dequito, Atwater, and Ballinger should be dismissed. The court dismissed the

LAD claims, finding that those plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate adverse

employment actions. In addition, the court dismissed plaintiff Goode's CEPA

claim, the only CEPA claim asserted in the Federal Action other than Pierce's

claim, because it found that she failed to demonstrate that she engaged in a

whistleblowing activity addressing a matter of public concern as required by the

CEPA. Two of the plaintiffs moved for reconsideration, but the federal court

denied that motion. Because the claims by Pierce were not dismissed, her claims

continued to be litigated in the Federal Action.

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      In the meantime, in December 2019, plaintiffs sued the District in the Law

Division, reasserting the LAD and CEPA claims that had been dismissed without

prejudice in the Federal Action. The District moved to dismiss with prejudice

the claims asserted on behalf of all the plaintiffs except for Pierce. Concerning

Pierce's claims, the District moved to stay the Law Division action pending the

resolution of Pierce's claims in the Federal Action.

      On February 14, 2020, the Law Division judge entered an order dismissing

the LAD and CEPA claims asserted on behalf of plaintiffs Goode, Mann,

Dequito, Atwater, and Ballinger. The court held that those claims were all

barred by the doctrine of collateral estoppel. The court stayed Pierce's claims

pending the resolution of those claims in the Federal Action.

      In October 2022, Pierce settled her remaining claims in the Federal

Action. Pierce and the District then agreed to the entry of a consent order

dismissing Pierce's claims with prejudice in this state court action. Thereafter,

the five remaining plaintiffs filed this appeal from the February 14, 2020 order.

Those same plaintiffs also filed an appeal with the United States Court of

Appeals for the Third Circuit, challenging the dismissal of their claims asserted

in the Federal Action.

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                                        6
      On January 10, 2024, while this appeal was pending, the Third Circuit

affirmed the federal district court's order granting summary judgment to

defendants and dismissing all the remaining claims in the Federal Action.

Goode v. Camden City Sch. Dist., No. 22-3044, 2024 WL 107887, at *1 (3d Cir.

Jan. 10, 2024).

                                        II.

      On this appeal, plaintiffs argue that the rulings by the federal court should

not bar their LAD and CEPA claims because when the Law Division made its

decision, the federal court's rulings were not final. That argument is no longer

viable because the Third Circuit has now affirmed the district court's rulings,

and those rulings are indisputably final. The district court's rulings on the LAD

and CEPA claims against the individual defendants eliminate an essential

element of plaintiffs' LAD and CEPA claims against the District. Consequently,

plaintiffs' LAD and CEPA claims against the District are barred by collateral

estoppel.

      Whether collateral estoppel applies is a question of law, which we review

de novo. Gannon v. Am. Home Prods., Inc., 414 N.J. Super. 507, 523-24 (App.

Div. 2010), rev'd on other grounds, 211 N.J. 454 (2012). Moreover, as this issue

arose on a motion to dismiss, we use a de novo standard of review. Baskin v.

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                                        7
P.C. Richard & Son, LLC, 246 N.J. 157, 171 (2021) (citing Dimitrakopoulos v.

Borrus, Goldin, Foley, Vignuolo, Hyman & Stahl, P.C., 237 N.J. 91, 108

(2019)); Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. v. County of Bergen, 450 N.J. Super.

286, 290 (App. Div. 2017); Rezem Fam. Assocs. v. Borough of Millstone, 423

N.J. Super. 103, 114 (App. Div. 2011).

      Collateral estoppel, which is also referred to as issue preclusion, "bars

relitigation of any issue which was actually determined in a prior action,

generally between the same parties, involving a different claim or cause of

action." In re Liquidation of Integrity Ins. Co., 214 N.J. 51, 66-67 (2013)

(quoting N.J. Div. of Youth & Fam. Servs. v. R.D., 207 N.J. 88, 114 (2011)).

"When the prior action is the subject of a prior federal court judgment, the

binding effect of that judgment, whether applying principles of res judicata or

collateral estoppel, is determined by the law of the jurisdiction that rendered it."

Id. at 67.

      Here, a federal court rendered the rulings that the District seeks to enforce;

we, therefore, look to federal law, and specifically to the law as applied by the

United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, to determine the prior

judgment's preclusive effect. Ibid.; see also Gannon, 211 N.J. at 471. In the

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                                         8
Third Circuit, collateral estoppel applies when the party asserting the doctrine

establishes that:

             (1) the identical issue was decided in a prior
             adjudication; (2) there was a final judgment on the
             merits; (3) the party against whom the bar is asserted
             was a party or in privity with a party to the prior
             adjudication; and (4) the party against whom the bar is
             asserted had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the
             issue in question.

             [Bestwall LLC v. Armstrong World Indus., Inc. (In re
             Bestwall LLC), 47 F.4th 233, 243 (3d Cir. 2022)
             (quoting Doe v. Hesketh, 828 F.3d 159, 171 (3d Cir.
             2016)).]

      There is no dispute that identical issues necessary to assert claims under

the LAD and the CEPA were decided in the Federal Action. To support their

claims under the LAD, plaintiffs must demonstrate adverse employment actions.

Ali v. Woodbridge Twp. Sch. Dist., 957 F.3d 174, 180 (3d Cir. 2020). The

federal court, however, found that plaintiffs had not established adverse

employment actions related to their resignations or paid administrative leave

with the District. To support their CEPA claims, plaintiffs must demonstrate a

whistleblower activity on a matter of public concern. Fraternal Ord. of Police,

Lodge 1 v. City of Camden, 842 F.3d 231, 240 (3d Cir. 2016). The federal court

determined that Goode, who was the only plaintiff asserting a CEPA claim in

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                                        9
both the Federal Action and this action, could not demonstrate that she had

engaged in a whistleblowing activity on a matter of public concern.

      There is also now a final judgment on the merits of the LAD and CEPA

claims.     When the District Court rendered its decision, its ruling likely

constituted a final judgment on the merits under federal law. See Free Speech

Coal., Inc. v. Att'y Gen. of the U.S., 677 F.3d 519, 541 (3d Cir. 2012).

Nevertheless, we need not dwell on that issue. The Third Circuit has now

affirmed the district court's rulings and they are, therefore, indisputably final.

      Plaintiffs also cannot dispute that they were parties against whom the prior

adjudication was entered and that they had a full and fair opportunity to litigate

the issues in question. Indeed, plaintiffs were also plaintiffs in the Federal

Action. They had a full and fair opportunity to litigate whether they could

establish adverse employment actions under the LAD and whistleblower activity

under the CEPA.      Under well-established principles of collateral estoppel,

plaintiffs cannot now relitigate those same issues in another forum. The Law

Division, therefore, correctly dismissed the LAD and CEPA claims against the

District.

      Affirmed.

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