Headley v. Bacon

668 F. Supp. 1315, 51 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 736, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17759
CourtDistrict Court, D. Nebraska
DecidedNovember 13, 1986
DocketNo. CV86-L-146
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 668 F. Supp. 1315 (Headley v. Bacon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Nebraska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Headley v. Bacon, 668 F. Supp. 1315, 51 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 736, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17759 (D. Neb. 1986).

Opinion

[1316]*1316MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

URBOM, District Judge.

The plaintiff is a former police officer with the Grand Island Police Department. The defendant, Howard Bacon, is and was at all relevant times the Chief of Police for the City of Grand Island and the ultimate superior officer. The defendant, Burnell Shum, is and was at all relevant times a Lieutenant in the Grand Island Police Department and was the plaintiffs supervisor and training officer. The defendant, Gary Piel, is and was at all material times the Deputy Chief of Police for the City of Grand Island. Filing # 18, at 4-5. The plaintiff alleges that during her employment with the police department, the defendants violated her constitutionally protected rights of free speech, equal protection, and due process. The plaintiff also alleges that the defendants conspired to deny her these constitutional guarantees and that all the aforementioned actions constituted violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1982 and § 1988.

The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment and attached an affidavit and other competent evidence in support of the motion. The defendants argue that this case is precluded by the doctrine of res judicata, since the plaintiff prevailed in a prior Title VII suit brought against the City of Grand Island for sexual harassment, retaliation, and constructive discharge.

The plaintiff also filed a motion for partial summary judgment and attached an affidavit and other competent evidence. The plaintiff seeks a determination that based on the findings of fact contained within the memorandum of Headley v. City of Grand Island, No. CV83-L-760 (D.Neb. Dec. 13, 1985), that defendants are variously responsible for violations of the first, fifth, and fourteenth amendments.

I.

In ruling on a motion for summary judgment “the facts and inferences which may be derived therefrom must be viewed in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and the burden is on the movant to establish that no genuine issue of material fact remains and that the case may be decided as a matter of law.” Fields v. Gander, 734 F.2d 1313, 1314 (8th Cir.1984). The United States Supreme Court determined that summary judgment is authorized “only where the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, where it is quite clear what the truth is, that no genuine issue remains for trial, and that the purpose of the rule is not to cut litigants off from their right of trial by jury if they really have issues to try.” Sartor v. Arkansas National Gas Corp., 321 U.S. 620, 627, 64 S.Ct. 724, 88 L.Ed. 967 (1944).

II.

The doctrine of res judicata provides that a “final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action.” Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S. 394, 398, 101 S.Ct. 2424, 69 L.Ed.2d 103 (1981). The parties agree that this court may take judicial notice of the proceedings in Headley v. City of Grand Island, No. CV83-L-760 (D.Neb. Dec. 13, 1985) (Hereinafter referred to as Headley I) [Available on WESTLAW, DCT database]. Since there is no dispute that a final judgment on the merits exists in Headley I, there are two issues which remain in resolving the applicability of res judicata. First, whether the claim presently presented was asserted in Headley I. Second, whether the parties in this suit are identical to or in privity with the parties in the previous suit.

III.

In Poe v. John Deere Co., 695 F.2d 1103, 1106 (8th Cir.1982), the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals relied on the standard articulated in the Restatement (Second) of Judgments for determining the identity of claims. The Restatement (Second) looks to whether the claim arose from the same transaction or a series of transactions. A transaction connotes a common nucleus of operative facts. Moreover, a single transaction may be involved although several [1317]*1317harms, substantive theories, or types of relief are implicated:

“In the more complicated case where one act causes a number of harms to, or invades a number of different interests of the same person, there is still but one transaction; a judgment based on the act usually prevents the person from maintaining another action for any of the harms not sued for in the first action.
That a number of different legal theories casting liability on an action may apply to a given episode does not create multiple transactions and hence multiple claims. This remains true although the several legal theories depend on different shadings of the facts, or would emphasize different elements of the facts, or would call for different measures of liability or different kind of relief.”

Id. at 1106, n. 5 (quoting the Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 24, Comment C (1982)).

I find, as a matter of law, that the present suit arose out of the same nucleus of operative facts as the former action. First, the plaintiff argues that in Headley I this court found that Piel and Bacon retaliated against the plaintiff because she filed EEOC charges; thus, she asserts, the defendants violated the plaintiffs right of free speech. The plaintiff also argues that this court previously found the plaintiff was constructively discharged; thus, the plaintiff claims, she was denied pretermination procedural due process. Additionally, the plaintiff contends that this court determined that the plaintiff was a victim of sexual harassment in her work place; thus, she contends, the defendants violated the plaintiffs right to equal protection. Lastly, the plaintiff argues that the deprivations suffered at the hands of the defendants were committed under color of law; thus, violations of section 1983 were established in the prior suit.

Moreover, the plaintiff asserts that “the conduct which lead to the legal conclusion of sex discrimination [in the former action] also violated [the plaintiffs] constitutional rights ... [Therefore,] the findings of this Court in Headley No. 1 are no longer at issue and are applicable to the instant case.” Plaintiff’s Brief in Support of Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, at 10. The plaintiff is right about those assertions. Both cases arise from the same factual setting. The result, though, is that the two cases are actually the same claim for purposes of res judicata.

Second, this court notes that the plaintiff advances inconsistent arguments in her brief in opposition to the motion for summary judgment as compared to her brief in support of the motion for partial summary judgment. In her brief in support of the motion for partial summary judgment, the plaintiff contends that the she was entitled to pretermination due process because she had a “property interest” in her employment position and although “this would be a fact question which is material and would have to be litigated ...

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Bluebook (online)
668 F. Supp. 1315, 51 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 736, 1986 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17759, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/headley-v-bacon-ned-1986.