Peduto v. City of North Wildwood

696 F. Supp. 1004, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11338, 1988 WL 105850
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Jersey
DecidedOctober 7, 1988
DocketCiv. A. 87-2914(SSB)
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 696 F. Supp. 1004 (Peduto v. City of North Wildwood) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Peduto v. City of North Wildwood, 696 F. Supp. 1004, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11338, 1988 WL 105850 (D.N.J. 1988).

Opinion

OPINION

BROTMAN, District Judge:

Presently before the court is the motion of defendant City of North Wildwood (“North Wildwood” or “the City”) to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint on res judicata grounds or, in the alternative, for summary judgment on the merits. For the reasons stated in this opinion, the court will dismiss the complaint on res judicata grounds.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURE

In August 1985 North Wildwood imposed a sewer moratorium and construction ban based on a directive from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Plaintiffs John M. Peduto and El-Ro, Inc., were owners and developers of three residential condominium projects in North Wildwood with a total of forty-two individual condominium units. They allege that the City mislead them to believe sewer service would be available for their proposed projects, that they relied on those representations, and that the City failed to notify them before imposing the sewer moratorium and construction ban. Plaintiffs claim that the City should have imposed the moratorium fourteen months before it did, and by delaying the City deprived them of their property for at least eight months.

In July 1986 the plaintiffs filed a complaint against the City and three other defendants in the Law Division of the Superi- or Court of New Jersey for Cape May County (“the Cape May County action”) raising five claims arising under state common law, 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982), and the federal and state constitutions: (1) the state and municipal defendants’ actions constituted a taking of property and therefore they must pay compensation; (2) the state and municipal defendants’ actions constituted a denial of procedural due process; (3) the state and municipal defendants’ actions constituted a denial of substantive due process; (4) the state and municipal defendants breached a duty owed to the plaintiffs and therefore should pay damages pursuant to the New Jersey Tort Claims Act, N.J.Stat.Ann. §§ 59:1-1 to 12-3 (1982 & Supp.1988); and (5) the private defendant breached a duty owed to the plaintiffs and therefore should pay damages under common-law principles of negligence.

Several of the defendants, including North Wildwood, moved for summary judgment in the Cape May County action. In a lengthy opinion, Judge Callinan granted the defendants’ motions, Peduto v. City of North Wildwood, No. L-068803-86, slip op. (Super.Ct.Law Div.Cape May Cty. Mar. 19, 1987), and issued an order dismissing plaintiffs’ complaint against the City and other defendants with prejudice. Peduto v. City of North Wildwood, No. L-068803-86, order (Super.Ct.Law Div.Cape May Cty. May 11, 1987). Judge Callinan’s opinion addressed at length the plaintiffs’ three federal claims. Slip op. at 6-14.

In the present action the plaintiffs raise three federal claims arising under the United States Constitution and section 1983: (1) the City’s action constituted a taking of property and therefore it must pay compensation; (2) the City’s action constituted a denial of procedural due process; and (3) the City’s action constituted a denial of substantive due process. North Wildwood now moves to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint on res judicata grounds, or, in the alternative, for summary judgment on the merits.

II. DISCUSSION

Defendant invokes the principle of res judicata to argue for dismissal of the plaintiffs’ complaint. Res judicata has both a broad and a narrow meaning: Some authorities use the term to identify the general notion that a prior lawsuit has a preclusive effect in a future action between the parties who litigated the prior case; others use it to identify claim preclusion, one of two main branches of the general preclusion concept (the other branch is issue preclusion, which includes the doctrine of collateral estoppel). See generally 18 C. *1007 Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4402 (1981 & Supp.1987) [hereinafter C. Wright]. North Wildwood apparently uses the term to mean claim preclusion, and it argues that because the plaintiffs have brought their three federal constitutional claims against it in the Cape May County action and lost after the parties litigated the issues and the court rendered a judgment on the merits, the judgment in that case precludes any future action based on those claims. In response, the plaintiffs contend that claim preclusion cannot apply to their claims in this court because their unique position requires an exception to the usual preclusion rules. The court finds that although federal law may prohibit claim preclusion from operating to prevent a party from choosing federal forum, issue preclusion nonetheless bars relitigation of the federal questions actually litigated and determined in the Cape May County action.

The court will address the preclusion issue by analyzing both the claim preclusion and issue preclusion aspects of the defendant’s motion. But before proceeding, a brief discussion of the scope of these two branches of the preclusion doctrine will be helpful. A useful starting point is the Supreme Court’s synopsis of the two concepts:

Issue preclusion refers to the effect of a judgment in foreclosing relitigation of a matter that has been litigated and decided. This effect also is referred to as direct or collateral estoppel. Claim preclusion refers to the effect of a judgment in foreclosing litigation of a matter that never has been litigated, because of a determination that it should have been advanced in an earlier suit.

Migra v. Warren City School Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 77 n. 1, 104 S.Ct. 892, 894 n. 1, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984) (citing Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 27 (1982)). However, the distinction between the concepts is less clear than this quotation indicates. Claim preclusion, itself sometimes labelled res judicata, stresses the importance of the prior court’s judgment: “ ‘It treats a judgment, once rendered, as the full measure of relief to be accorded between the same parties on the same “claim” or “cause of action.” ’ ” 18 C. Wright, supra, § 4402, at 7 (quoting Raspar Wire Works, Inc. v. Leco Eng’g & Mach., Inc., 575 F.2d 530, 535-36 (5th Cir. 1978)). Thus, while claim preclusion prohibits a second court to consider matters that should have been litigated but never were, it also serves to bar matters stemming from the same claim that have been litigated. Issue preclusion, sometimes called collateral estoppel, stresses the importance of the prior court’s record: Issue preclusion “ ‘recognizes that suits addressed to particular claims may present issues relevant to suits on other claims ... [and it] bars the relitigation of issues actually adjudicated, and essential to the judgment, in a prior litigation between the same parties.’ ” Id. (quoting Raspar Wire Works, 575 F.2d at 535-36). See generally J. Friedenthal, M. Kane & A. Miller, Civil Procedure § 14.2 (1985) [hereinafter J. Friedenthal],

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Bluebook (online)
696 F. Supp. 1004, 1988 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11338, 1988 WL 105850, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/peduto-v-city-of-north-wildwood-njd-1988.