Court Opinion

ID: 9685278
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:28:24.390038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:02.677653
License: Public Domain

CORRIGAN, J., Concurring.
I concur, but write separately to express misgivings about the path the litigation has taken in this case. I agree that plaintiffs’ state claims here are foreclosed by a combination of issue preclusion and the application of law to conceded facts. However, I do not believe *524that defendants and state courts should be required to relitigate the facts and parse the federal record for precluded issues in every case where a federal court retains supplemental jurisdiction of state claims, then dismisses them after trying a claim under 42 United States Code section 1983 (section 1983). In such cases, litigation in state court should be barred by principles of claim preclusion, for reasons well stated by Justice Kaufman in Mattson v. City of Costa Mesa (1980) 106 Cal.App.3d 441 [164 Cal.Rptr. 913] (Mattson), another case involving claims under both state tort law and section 1983:
“Once it is known that the federal court will not exercise pendent jurisdiction over the state claim, plaintiff’s proceeding to trial in the federal court on the federal claim alone will necessarily result in splitting the plaintiff’s cause of action, and that fact should be apparent to the plaintiff.
“In such circumstances the rule that would best accommodate the rights of the plaintiff to fully litigate his claim and to invoke the jurisdiction of the federal court and the right of the defendant, the courts and the public to be free of multiple litigation of the same cause of action, is that once the federal court has declined to exercise pendent jurisdiction over the state claim, if the plaintiff then elects to proceed to trial and judgment in the federal court, his entire cause of action is either merged in or barred by the federal court judgment so that he may not thereafter maintain a second suit on the same cause of action in a state court.
“A contrary rule would invite manipulation. It would permit a plaintiff halfheartedly to request the federal court to exercise pendent jurisdiction, offer little resistance to any argument by the defendant against its exercise, and hope that the federal court would decline to exercise pendent jurisdiction and thereby reserve to the plaintiff a second chance to prevail in a state court action should he be [un] successful in the federal court. Judicious utilization of judicial and litigant resources become[s] ever more essential in the wake of the law explosion. The efficient administration of justice would not be advanced by a rule resulting in or encouraging multiple litigation of a single cause of action.” (Mattson, supra, 106 Cal.App.3d at p. 455.)
Mattson is not precisely on point, because there the federal court had refused to exercise pendent jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s state claim, whereas here the court retained jurisdiction and dismissed the state claims only after plaintiffs were unsuccessful at trial.1
2However, once the federal court bifurcated the state claims and limited the scope of trial to the section 1983 claim, plaintiffs were in essentially the same position as the plaintiff in *525Mattson. The chances that the court would take up the state claims, once it decided not to present them to the jury, were slim to none. Furthermore, as noted in Mattson, if their state claims are preserved, plaintiffs have no reason to press for resolution of those claims in the federal action, because they are permitted to relitigate the underlying facts in state court. (Mattson, supra, 106 Cal.App.3d at p. 455.)
The Court of Appeal in this case relied on Lucas v. County of Los Angeles (1996) 47 Cal.App.4th 277 [54 Cal.Rptr.2d 655] (Lucas), and Harris v. Grimes (2002) 104 Cal.App.4th 180 [127 Cal.Rptr.2d 791] (Harris), to hold that claim preclusion does not apply when a federal court waits until after entering judgment on the federal claim to dismiss a state claim. Lucas, however, was a very different case. There, the federal court dismissed the state claims after granting summary judgment on the section 1983 claims. (Lucas, at p. 283; for a similar case, see Craig v. County of Los Angeles (1990) 221 Cal.App.3d 1294, 1298 [271 Cal.Rptr. 82] (Craig).)2 There was, evidently, no severance or bifurcation, and certainly there was no election by the plaintiffs to proceed to trial on their federal claims alone, as in this case and in Mattson.
Harris was a malpractice action arising from counsel’s failure to timely litigate state law claims that were dismissed after a federal trial of the plaintiff’s section 1983 claim. The Harris court disagreed with Mattson and followed Lucas. Noting what it deemed to be controlling principles from the Restatement Second of Judgments, the court reasoned that there was no concern about multiple litigation in the case before it. (Harris, supra, 104 Cal.App.4th at pp. 188-189.) Harris is unpersuasive. Lucas is materially distinguishable, as noted above. The Mattson court carefully considered the applicable Restatement principles, and its reasoning was sound. (Mattson, supra, 106 Cal.App.3d at pp. 450-453, discussing Rest., Judgments, §§ 61, 61.1 & 67, and comments; see Rest.2d Judgments, § 26, com. d, p. 238, § 24, com. g, p. 204 & § 25, com. e, p. 213.) While malpractice may have foreclosed multiple litigation in Harris, that peculiarity provides no support for the court’s claim preclusion analysis.
*526The Mattson rale adheres to the primary rights theory long followed by California courts. “The most salient characteristic of a primary right is that it is indivisible: the violation of a single primary right gives rise to but a single cause of action. (Slater v. Blackwood (1975) 15 Cal.3d 791, 795 [126 Cal.Rptr. 225, 543 P.2d 593].)” (Crowley v. Katleman (1994) 8 Cal.4th 666, 681 [34 Cal.Rptr.2d 386, 881 P.2d 1083].) “As far as its content is concerned, the primary right is simply the plaintiff’s right to be free from the particular injury suffered. (Slater[, at p.] 795.) It must therefore be distinguished from the legal theory on which liability for that injury is premised: ‘Even where there are multiple legal theories upon which recovery might be predicated, one injury gives rise to only one claim for relief.’ (Ibid.) The primary right must also be distinguished from the remedy sought: ‘The violation of one primary right constitutes a single cause of action, though it may entitle the injured party to many forms of relief, and the relief is not to be confounded with the cause of action, one not being determinative of the other.’ (Wulfjen v. Dolton [(1944)] 24 Cal.2d 891, 895-896 [151 P.2d 846], italics deleted.)” (Crowley, at pp. 681-682.)
Here, despite the contrary view of the Court of Appeal majority, plaintiffs’ section 1983 claim and their state law claims presented alternate theories of relief for the same injury, the shooting of the decedent. As recognized by the concurring opinion above, settled principles of law compel the conclusion that the state and federal claims in this case involve the same primary right. (Mattson, supra, 106 Cal.App.3d at pp. 447-448; see also, e.g., Harris, supra, 104 Cal.App.4th at p. 187; Lucas, supra, 47 Cal.App.4th at p. 286; Swartzendruber v. City of San Diego (1992) 3 Cal.App.4th 896, 908 [5 Cal.Rptr.2d 64].)
If primary rights were truly indivisible, then plaintiffs’ state law claims would be precluded by the federal judgment whether it was plaintiffs or the federal court that split their cause of action. However, I do not suggest that the rale against splitting a cause of action admits no exceptions. Clearly, there are some situations in which the plaintiff cannot avoid a split, as where the defendant succeeds in removing the case from state to federal court and the federal court thereafter declines to hear state claims. Furthermore, like the Mattson court, I have no quarrel with the rale that, when state claims are dismissed by a federal court after a summary disposition of federal claims, claim preclusion does not apply. (Mattson, supra, 106 Cal.App.3d at p. 453.) In that circumstance, the plaintiff has had no occasion to realize that the court would not try the state claims, and cannot fairly be held responsible for failing to present all theories of recovery in one forum. In such limited circumstances, primary rights theory must bend in the interests of justice. (See Slater v. Blackwood, supra, 15 Cal.3d at p. 796.) However, an exception *527to the rule of claim preclusion is not appropriate when a federal court declines to reach state law claims after trying federal claims based on the same primary right.
Mattson provides a clear, effective rule in this situation. It strikes the appropriate balance between the interests of the plaintiff in choosing a forum, the defendant in avoiding the vexation of relitigation, and the courts in the efficient administration of justice. The Mattson court recognized that it would be inappropriate to preclude a subsequent state court action whenever a federal court declines to exercise its supplemental jurisdiction over state claims. Such a rule “would have an unwarranted and unnecessary chilling effect upon the invocation of the jurisdiction of the federal courts in civil rights actions.” (Mattson, supra, 106 Cal.App.3d at p. 454.) “However, when the federal court has been requested to and has declined to exercise pendent jurisdiction over the nonfederal claim, the plaintiff is presented with a new choice. He may proceed to trial on the federal claim or, usually, he may elect to dismiss the federal claim without prejudice (see Fed. Rules Civ.Proc., rule 41(a)(1)) and litigate both claims in the state court [citations].” (Mattson, at pp. 454-455, fn. omitted.)
If the federal court bifurcates state claims and proceeds to trial on a section 1983 claim alone, plaintiffs are in a similar situation. They may seek voluntary dismissal, and their state claims are preserved under the tolling provisions of 28 United States Code section 1367(d).3 While the federal rules allow voluntary dismissal only by stipulation or court order after the answer is served (Fed. Rules Civ.Proc., rule 41(a), 28 U.S.C.), plaintiffs should be required to explore those alternatives in order to preserve their state claims. It would be particularly appropriate for the plaintiff to seek a stipulated dismissal in this situation. A defendant refusing to so stipulate should be barred from relying on the Mattson rule in subsequent state litigation.
If, instead, plaintiffs choose to go forward with only their section 1983 claim, they have opted for a trial on all the relevant facts, including “the events leading up to the shooting as well as the shooting.” (Billington v. Smith (9th Cir. 2002) 292 F.3d 1177, 1190.) They should not be entitled to a second opportunity to litigate those facts simply because the federal court waited until after trial to dismiss the state claims. The procedure adopted by the federal court in this case invites the manipulation and multiplication of *528litigation that the Mattson court rightly feared. As a general rule, the principle of res judicata ought to foreclose state court litigation of a cause of action that has already been tried in federal court. No reason to depart from that rule appears in this case.
Baxter, J., concurred.

 In 1990, after Mattson was decided, Congress codified the judicial doctrines of pendent and ancillary jurisdiction, under the name “supplemental jurisdiction.” (28 U.S.C. § 1367; see 2 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (5th ed. 2008) Jurisdiction, § 73, p. 639.)

 The Lucas and Craig courts followed the reasoning of Merry v. Coast Community College Dist. (1979) 97 Cal.App.3d 214 [158 Cal.Rptr. 603], another case involving refusal to exercise pendent jurisdiction over state claims following pretrial dismissal of federal claims. (Lucas, supra, 47 Cal.App.4th at p. 286; Craig, supra, 221 Cal.App.3d at pp. 1299-1300; Merry, at p. 228.) Merry was decided by the same court as Mattson. In Mattson, the court noted that Merry was not controlling when a plaintiff takes a cause of action to trial on a federal theory alone, because (1) “the decision in Merry was greatly influenced by the summary nature of the federal court judgment,” and (2) “it is by no means clear that in Merry the cause of action asserted by plaintiff in the federal court action was the same cause of action as that asserted in the state court action . . . .” (Mattson, supra, 106 Cal.App.3d at pp. 453-454; see Merry, at pp. 227-228.)

 “The period of limitations for any claim asserted under subsection (a) [i.e., claims under the federal court’s supplemental jurisdiction], and for any other claim in the same action that is voluntarily dismissed at the same time as or after the dismissal of the claim under subsection (a), shall be tolled while the claim is pending and for a period of 30 days after it is dismissed unless State law provides for a longer tolling period.” (28 U.S.C. § 1367(d).)