Rose v. Town of Harwich

• Decision Date: 03 December 1985
• Docket Number: No. 85-1258,85-1258
• Citation: 778 F.2d 77
• Parties: Leonard J. ROSE, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. TOWN OF HARWICH, Defendant, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 77

778 F.2d 77

Leonard J. ROSE, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. TOWN OF HARWICH, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 85-1258.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Argued Sept. 9, 1985.

Decided Dec. 3, 1985.

Robert C. Hahn with whom William A. Hahn and Hahn & Matkov, Boston, Mass., were on brief for plaintiff, appellant.

Michael D. Ford with whom James M. Falla and Mycock, Kilroy, Green & McLaughlin, P.C., Boston, Mass., were on brief for defendant, appellee.

Before COFFIN, Circuit Judge, WISDOM, ^* Senior Circuit Judge, and BREYER, Circuit Judge.

BREYER, Circuit Judge.

In December 1978 the appellant, Leonard J. Rose, brought suit in Massachusetts Superior Court, alleging that the town of Harwich, Massachusetts, had unlawfully taken a piece of his land. He lost the suit, basically because the relevant statute of limitations had run. He then filed this suit in federal court for the District of Massachusetts, essentially claiming that the town had taken his property without satisfying the procedures or paying him the just compensation that the Constitution requires. The district court held that res judicata barred this suit; and it granted summary judgment for the town. We affirm.

I

Rose is a merchant seaman who owns land in Harwich township on Cape Cod. On December 12, 1968, the town, using its eminent domain powers, recorded the taking of a parcel of land that Rose says was his. In 1969, the town took possession of the land and built a water tower on it. Evidently, town records did not make clear who owned the land, and the town did not give Rose notice of the taking. But eventually, in June 1977, Rose learned that the town had taken the property in question.

About eighteen months later, in December 1978, Rose brought suit against the town in Massachusetts state court. He sought damages for the taking, Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 79, Sec. 14, and, in the alternative, a declaration that the taking had been unlawful and that he was therefore entitled to possession of the land. On June 23, 1980, the state court found against Rose, for three reasons. First, he had not offered any evidence of the value of the land. Second, he had not satisfied the statute of limitations that governs actions for damages under the Massachusetts eminent domain law. That statute says that a landowner like Rose, who has not received notice from the taking authority, must file suit within six months from "the taking possession of his property or the receipt by him of actual notice of the taking, whichever first occurs...." Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 79, Sec. 16. The court adopted a "most liberal view" of this provision (construing it to have permitted suit within six months from the time of actual notice, irrespective of "possession"), but found that Rose had still filed a year too late. The court concluded that it was therefore "without jurisdiction to entertain [his] petition for damages." Third, in respect to Rose's request for declaratory relief, the court said that "the taking of the locus previously owned by plaintiff was legal and valid."

Rose subsequently asked the court to vacate its entry of judgment against him, to dismiss the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and to vacate the opinion that accompanied the judgment. The court complied with the first two of these requests, but it denied the third. It subsequently refused to grant a "voluntary dismissal" of the suit. Rose did not appeal.

In January 1981, Rose filed the present 'civil rights' action in federal court. See 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. He says that the Massachusetts eminent domain law's statute of limitations violates the Due Process Clause and the Just Compensation Clause of the federal Constitution. He adds that the town's "trespassory taking of and entry on plaintiff's land" has deprived him of "rights, privileges and immunities" secured by various provisions of the federal Constitution. He wants the federal courts to remove the cloud on title, to award him damages, and to enjoin "further trespass on plaintiff's land." As noted, the federal district court has granted the town summary judgment on grounds of res judicata; and Rose now appeals.

II

The basic legal doctrine that governs this case is that of 'claim preclusion.' The Restatement (Second) of Judgments describes this aspect of res judicata as follows:

A valid and final personal judgment rendered in favor of the defendant bars another action by the plaintiff on the same claim.

....

[T]he claim extinguished includes all rights of the plaintiff to remedies against the defendant with respect to all or any part of the transaction, or series of connected transactions, out of which the action arose.

Restatement (Second) of Judgments Secs. 19, 24(1) (1980). Massachusetts follows this traditional doctrine. See Isaac v. Schwartz, 706 F.2d 15, 16 (1st Cir.1983); Boyd v. Jamaica Plain Co-operative Bank, 7 Mass.App. 153, 386 N.E.2d 775, 781 (1979) (quoting tentative draft of Restatement (Second)). And, we must follow Massachusetts law. See Migra v. Warren City School District Board of Education, 465 U.S. 75, 85, 104 S.Ct. 892, 896, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984) (in Sec. 1983 suit in federal court, prior state court judgment has same claim-preclusive effect it would have in state in which it was rendered). Unless Rose can fit his case within some exception to the general 'claim preclusion' rule, his federal court claims are barred, for both his state court and his federal court claims grow out of the same "transaction, or series of connected transactions"--namely, the town's taking of his land and subsequent failure to give him notice or compensation. That is to say, Rose must find an exception freeing him from the legal doctrine against 'claim splitting'--the principle that requires a litigant to assert all his various legal theories and factually related allegations the first time he brings suit. See Boyd, 386 N.E.2d at 781. Rose argues for an exception on several different grounds.

1. Rose first notes that the state court purported to dismiss his suit for "lack of jurisdiction." In Massachusetts, as elsewhere, a judgment does not preclude future claims if not rendered "on the merits." See Dowd v. Morin, 18 Mass.App. 786, 471 N.E.2d 120, 125-26 & n. 15 (1984), review denied, 393 Mass. 1105, 474 N.E.2d 181 (1985). And, ordinarily a dismissal for "lack of jurisdiction" is not a judgment "on the merits." See Wright Machine Corp. v. Seaman-Andwall Corp., 364 Mass. 683, 307 N.E.2d 826, 833 (1974); Mass.R.Civ.P. 41(b); 18 C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure: Jurisdiction Sec. 4436 (1981). Indeed, the Restatement itself says

A personal judgment for the defendant ... does not bar another action by the plaintiff on the same claim:

(a) When the judgment is one of dismissal for lack of jurisdiction, for improper venue, or for nonjoinder or misjoinder of parties....

Restatement (Second) of Judgments Sec. 20(1) (emphasis added).

The word "jurisdiction," however, has a protean quality and can play different roles in different legal contexts. The Restatement means the word to refer to typical "jurisdictional" dismissals--where, for example, a plaintiff sues in the wrong court. Such dismissals are usually entered at the outset of a case. They rest upon the discovery of defects of a technical or procedural nature which, if cured, normally ought not to bar a plaintiff from bringing the action again. Thus, the Restatement lists "lack of jurisdiction" together with other defects of this type, such as "improper venue" and defective joinder.

The state court, however, was not referring to this type of jurisdictional defect. It could not have meant the words "lack of jurisdiction" to signify that Massachusetts superior courts lack competence over eminent domain actions generally. See Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 79, Sec. 14. Nor did it mean that the plaintiff should have applied to some other court for relief. Rather, the court used the term "lack of jurisdiction" to mean that the statute of limitations had run. Its initial opinion explained that the statute of limitations left it "without jurisdiction" to entertain Rose's petition for damages. See Wine v. Commonwealth, 301 Mass. 451, 455-56, 17 N.E.2d 545 (1938); Whitehouse v. Town of Sherborn, 11 Mass.App. 668, 419 N.E.2d 293, 297 (1981). And, Massachusetts precedent reveals that its courts describe a statute of limitations as defeating "jurisdiction" when that statute is incorporated into a substantive statute (in this case, the eminent domain law), so as to extinguish not only the plaintiff's "remedy" in the Massachusetts courts but also the underlying substantive "right." See Jordan v. County Commissioners, 268 Mass. 329, 333, 167 N.E. 652 (1929) ("As the statute 'is a limitation of the right as well as a limitation of the remedy' the trial court had no jurisdiction to entertain the petition....") (citation omitted); see also Wine, 301 Mass. at 455-56, 17 N.E.2d 545; L'Huilier v. City of Fitchburg, 246 Mass. 349, 352, 141 N.E. 122 (1923). Presumably, this is why the state court, despite its use of the word "jurisdiction," refused to grant Rose's motion for "voluntary dismissal" and so declined the opportunity to dismiss Rose's initial action "without prejudice." See Mass.R.Civ.P. 41(a).

The question for us, therefore, is not about "jurisdictional" dismissals; rather, it is whether Massachusetts would consider a dismissal based on this particular limitations provision to be a dismissal "on the merits." After examining the case law in some detail, we conclude that Massachusetts would treat this particular limitations-based dismissal as one with claim-preclusive effect.

For one thing, our survey of recent cases suggests a clear trend toward giving claim-preclusive effect to dismissals based on statutes of limitations. See, e.g., Nilsen v. City of Moss Point, 701 F.2d 556, 562 (5th Cir.1983) (en banc); PRC Harris, Inc. v. Boeing Co., 700 F.2d 894, 896 (2d Cir.), cert....