Court Opinion

ID: 9478074
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:39:39.652777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:13.750223
License: Public Domain

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I see no escape from the proposition that the Colorado civil proceeding was dismissed with prejudice under Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(b). This adjudication must operate as a bar to the later assertion of the same claim. Here, although the form of the later action was different, criminal as opposed to civil, the same property was involved, the same claimants, and the same underlying purpose: to deprive Maull of the fruits of his crime.
The Court holds that the Colorado dismissal was without prejudice. It relies upon the action of the Colorado District Court, coming after the ruling of the Missouri District Court, ordering the disputed funds disbursed to the government. This action, in my view, in no way shows that the Colorado District Court regarded its earlier judgment as having been entered without prejudice. The Missouri District Court, whose judgment we are now reviewing on appeal, had specifically stated that the earlier dismissal was with prejudice. It had ruled for the government on the quite different theory, now properly disavowed by this Court, that an adverse judgment in a civil forfeiture proceeding, even if with prejudice, does not bar a later criminal forfeiture proceeding. The Missouri Court had cited in support of this proposition United States v. Dunn, 802 F.2d 646 (2d Cir.1986), cert. denied, 480 U.S. 931, 107 S.Ct. 1568, 94 L.Ed.2d 760 (1987), which, as this court today acknowledges, is not in point. In Dunn, the criminal proceeding was brought first, and the government lost. A later civil proceeding was held not to be barred. The defendant did not even make the res judicata argument, and, if he had, it would have been without merit, because a judgment against the plaintiff in one proceeding (there, a criminal one) in *518which a greater burden of proof is required is not a bar to a later proceeding (there, a civil one) in which a lesser burden of proof is required. The criminal jury might have ruled against the government’s forfeiture claim in Dunn, in other words, simply because the claim had not been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. This is not inconsistent with a later finding, made in a civil forfeiture proceeding, that the claim had been established by a preponderance of the evidence.
Thus, when the Colorado District Court ordered the property turned over to the government on the basis of the Missouri District Court’s judgment, it was simply bowing to the Missouri District Court’s erroneous application of Dunn. That judgment, the Colorado District Court might well have felt, was itself res judicata as to the res judicata effect of the earlier Colorado judgment. See Treinies v. Sunshine Mining Co., 308 U.S. 66, 60 S.Ct. 44, 84 L.Ed. 85 (1939).
The Court cites Knox v. Lichtenstein, 654 F.2d 19, 22, rehearing denied and opinion clarified, 661 F.2d 693 (8th Cir.1981), in support of the proposition that the fact that the dismissal was under Rule 41(b) does not alone resolve the question whether it was “on the merits” for res judicata purposes. But Knox involved a dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), and had nothing to do with the effect of Rule 41(b). A dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted is simply a holding that a pleading is insufficient. If leave to amend the pleading is granted, obviously the dismissal is not with prejudice. Here, by contrast, the case is governed by the express words of Rule 41(b). They are as follows:
For failure of the plaintiff to prosecute or to comply with these rules or any order of court, a defendant may move for dismissal of an action or of any claim against the defendant.... Unless the court in its order for dismissal otherwise specifies, a dismissal under this subdivision and any dismissal not provided for in this rule, other than a dismissal for lack of jurisdiction, for improper venue, or for failure to join a party under Rule 19, operates as an adjudication upon the merits.
The dismissal here was not among the types specified as being without prejudice in the rule, and no one contends that it was. It must therefore have been a dismissal with prejudice, and this Court errs, in my opinion, by not recognizing this fact and giving it its customary legal affect.