Heyliger v. State University and Community College System of Tennessee

• Decision Date: 03 October 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-5307,96-5307
• Citation: 126 F.3d 849
• Parties: 72 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,087 Wilton E. HEYLIGER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE UNIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM OF TENNESSEE, Allen Spritzer and John Smith, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 849

126 F.3d 849

72 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 45,087

Wilton E. HEYLIGER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE UNIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM OF TENNESSEE Allen Spritzer and John Smith, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 96-5307.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued March 18, 1997.

Decided Oct. 3, 1997.

Robert Jan Jennings (argued and briefed), Branstetter, Kilgore, Stranch & Jennings, Nashville, TN, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

S. Elizabeth Martin (argued and briefed), Office of the Attorney General, Civil Litigation Before: MERRITT, KRUPANSKY, and BOGGS, Circuit Judges.

& State Services Division, Nashville, TN, for Defendants-Appellees.

OPINION

BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

Wilton E. Heyliger appeals the district court's dismissal, as "res judicata," of his complaint alleging employment discrimination in violation of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. p 2000e et seq. For reasons somewhat different from those relied on below, we find that Heyliger's Title VII claim was barred by the doctrine of claim preclusion, and thus affirm the judgment of the district court.

I

According to his affidavit, Heyliger, a black male, is a native of the former British Guiana who immigrated to the United States in 1967, attended Howard University, obtained a doctorate in economics from Indiana University, and became an American citizen in 1986. In 1988, East Tennessee State University ("ETSU"), a unit of defendant State University and Community College System of Tennessee, recruited Heyliger to join ETSU's Economics and Finance faculty as an associate professor, a tenure-track position. Apart from his teaching duties, Heyliger served on two faculty committees, one pertaining to race relations on campus, the other a search committee for a new chair of his department. Heyliger expressed the view that the search procedures and job qualifications adopted by the committee discriminated against applicants by reason of their race, age, and national origin. Consequently, he claimed, the committee rejected a highly-qualified candidate who was a native of India. Heyliger then protested the eventual selection of defendant Jon Smith, a former member of the search committee, who, Heyliger claimed, did not meet the committee's own criteria. Smith--Heyliger's new boss--soon recommended that Heyliger's contract not be renewed at the end of the 1990-91 academic year. Smith justified his recommendation by stating that Heyliger was incompetent, had sexually harassed a number of female students, and had committed plagiarism, charges which Heyliger denied. Defendant Allen Spritzer, dean of the College of Business, adopted Smith's recommendation. Heyliger was informed in May 1990 that his contract would not be renewed upon its expiration in July 1991.

Heyliger filed a complaint with the EEOC in September 1990, alleging violations of Title VII. On December 5, 1990, he filed a complaint in state court, alleging violations of the Tennessee Human Rights Act, T.C.A. § 4-21-101 et seq. Almost three years later, on November 19, 1993, the chancery court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment. On July 27, 1994, the Tennessee court of appeals affirmed that decision. On January 30, 1995, the Tennessee Supreme Court denied permission to appeal in a brief order headed "Concurring in Results Only."

Meanwhile, on January 12, 1994, some two months after Heyliger's loss in chancery court, Heyliger received from the EEOC a notice of right to sue. Heyliger filed a complaint in federal district court on April 13, 1994, seeking, among other things, actual and punitive damages, and either reinstatement to his position or front pay. The court referred the case to a magistrate judge, who issued a report and recommendation on September 20, 1995, recommending that the defendants' motion to dismiss or for summary judgment be granted on res judicata or collateral estoppel grounds. Heyliger filed objections. The district court adopted the report and recommendation, and dismissed the case on February 8, 1996. Heyliger timely appealed.

II

This court reviews de novo a district court's decision with regard to issue preclusion (collateral estoppel) or claim preclusion (res judicata in its narrow sense). See Black v. Ryder/P.I.E. Nationwide, Inc., 15 F.3d 573, 582 (6th Cir.1994). When considering whether the judgment of a state court will have either type of preclusive effect on a subsequent action brought in federal court, the Full Faith and Credit Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, requires the federal court to give the prior adjudication the same preclusive effect it would have under the law of the state whose court issued the judgment. See Migra v. Warren City School Dist., 465 U.S. 75, 81, 104 S.Ct. 892, 896, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984); Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 96, 101 S.Ct. 411, 415-16, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980). This requirement does not apply, however, where the statute creating the federal cause of action eliminates, for such claims, the strictures of the Full Faith and Credit Act. In the language of the cases, the statute must contain "an express or implied partial repeal" of § 1738. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Epstein, 516 U.S. 367, ----, 116 S.Ct. 873, 881, 134 L.Ed.2d 6 (1996); Marrese v. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 470 U.S. 373, 386, 105 S.Ct. 1327, 1334-35, 84 L.Ed.2d 274 (1985). The Supreme Court held in Kremer v. Chemical Constr. Corp., 456 U.S. 461, 470-72, 102 S.Ct. 1883, 1891-93, 72 L.Ed.2d 262 (1982), that Title VII contains no such repeal. Consequently, Heyliger's federal suit is subject to whatever preclusive effect the state court judgments would have under Tennessee law.

Before beginning that analysis, it might be useful, in view of the perennial confusion over the vocabulary and concepts of the law of preclusion, to restate the following exposition:

The Supreme Court has noted:

[t]he preclusive effects of former adjudication are discussed in varying and, at times, seemingly conflicting terminology, attributable to the evolution of preclusion concepts over the years. These effects are referred to collectively by most commentators as the doctrine of "res judicata." Res judicata is often analyzed further to consist of two preclusion concepts: "issue preclusion" and "claim preclusion." 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. Claim preclusion therefore encompasses the law of merger and bar.

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) (citations omitted). Some commentators and court decisions have used the term "res judicata" as being "virtually synonymous with 'claim preclusion.' " Ibid.

In the proceedings attendant to these appeals, the parties and the district court appear to have adopted the position that "res judicata" is synonymous with "claim preclusion" and "collateral estoppel" is synonymous with "issue preclusion." At this stage of the litigation, we will not disturb this usage although we will, during the course of our discussion of the legal issues, use the terms "claim preclusion" and "issue preclusion." We also express our hope that future litigants, in the interests of precision and clarity, will formulate arguments which refer solely to issue or claim preclusion and which refrain from using the predecessors of those terms, whose meanings have become so convoluted.

Barnes v. McDowell, 848 F.2d 725, 728 n. 5 (6th Cir.1988).

The hope we expressed in Barnes was not realized in the arguments of the present parties, nor in the decision of the district court. We can only express the hope again.

1. Issue Preclusion

In Tennessee,

Collateral estoppel operates to bar a second suit between the same parties and their privies on a different cause of action only as to issues which were actually litigated and determined in the former suit.... To sustain a plea of collateral estoppel it must be shown, inter alia, that the issue sought to be concluded not only was litigated in the prior suit but was necessary to the judgment in that suit. 22 Tenn. Jurisprudence, pp. 111-12.

Massengill v. Scott, 738 S.W.2d 629, 632 (Tenn.1987) (emphasis added).

The chancery court recited the university's allegation of plagiarism, and noted with a tone of skepticism that Heyliger contested the allegations, but did not explicitly make a finding on that issue. Nor did the chancellor hold that ETSU did not renew Heyliger's contract in retaliation for criticizing its recruiting practices. The chancellor simply held that, by alleging retaliation, Heyliger did not state a cause of action under § 4-21-401(a) of the Tennessee Code. The chancellor granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment.

The Tennessee Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the chancery court. Unlike the trial court, the court of appeals considered the possible application of § 4-21-301 (which does bar retaliation), but held that Heyliger had failed to state a claim under that section, because he had sued the individual defendants only in their official capacities, whereas the statute allows a suit for retaliation to be brought only against persons in their individual capacities. As for the § 401 claim, the court of appeals affirmed, stating:

The chancellor reasoned that the plaintiff could not proceed with his claim of retaliation under § 4-21-401(a) because the statute offers no protection against termination for protesting actions perceived as discriminatory towards unspecified individuals as a class. We agree. The statute proscribes the failure to hire because of race ... or national origin; it provides a claim only for discrimination against the...