Atchison v. State of Wyo.
| Decision Date | 30 May 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-1890,84-1890 |
| Citation | 763 F.2d 388 |
| Parties | Edward M. ATCHISON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE OF WYOMING, James R. Coulter, W. Don Nelson, Peter J. Kithas, John Rooney and John Does I, II, and III, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Harold Frederick Buck of Kline & Buck, Cheyenne, Wyo., for plaintiff-appellant.
Bruce A. Salzburg of Freudenthal Law Offices, P.C., Cheyenne, Wyo., for defendants-appellees.
Before BARRETT and BREITENSTEIN, Circuit Judges and WEINSHIENK *, District Judge.
The appeal in this civil rights action is from a final judgment of the District Court for the District of Wyoming granting defendants-appellees' motion to dismiss on the grounds of Eleventh Amendment immunity as to State of Wyoming and collateral estoppel and res judicata as to the individual defendants. We affirm.
The facts are complex and may be found in Atchison v. Career Service Council of the State of Wyoming, Wyo., 664 P.2d 18, cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 424, 78 L.Ed.2d 359, and in the Plaintiff's Notice of Exhibits A and B. Atchison, plaintiff-appellant, was separated from his employment with the Wyoming Department of Health and Social Services on March 3, 1978. He appealed his separation to the Wyoming Career Service Council (W.C.S.C.) which found that he was a probationary employee who had been terminated on the ground of unsatisfactory performance and that this was a valid reason for termination.
Atchison filed almost simultaneous suits in federal and state court on August 3, 1978. In the federal suit Atchison charged that the defendants conspired to chill his First Amendment rights by designing his job classification so that he could not meet its requirements and that he was discharged to silence his political and union activities and for his opposition to the incumbent Wyoming administration. In the state court he sought a review of the action of the W.S.C.S. and claimed breach of contract, arbitrary and outrageous conduct in violation of the Wyoming State Constitution, and libel.
On November 17, 1978, the federal court dismissed the action against the State of Wyoming and its agencies on the ground of Eleventh Amendment immunity. It dismissed the action without prejudice as to the individual defendants stating that the same central issues were presented in the federal and state suits and that the principles of comity and judicial economy required it to abstain.
On March 2, 1979, the state court dismissed Atchison's suit for various claims for relief because they had been improperly joined with the petition for review. On June 20, 1979, Atchison filed a second federal suit alleging the same civil rights violations. The federal court again dismissed Wyoming and its agencies on the grounds of Eleventh Amendment immunity and dismissed the suit against the individuals without prejudice for failure to allege specific facts sufficient to state a cause of action against the individuals.
On December 4, 1979, Atchison filed in federal court an amended complaint against the individual state employees. The defendants moved to dismiss on the ground of abstention. The federal court denied the motion on June 27, 1980, but held that if the state court remanded to W.C.S.C., it would automatically dismiss the action. On July 8, 1980, the state court remanded Atchison's suit to the W.C.S.C. for further administrative hearings. On July 15, 1980, the federal court dismissed Atchison's second suit.
On July 13, 1981, the W.S.C.S. decided after a hearing that the separation of Atchison from his employment was proper and was not due to his exercise of free speech. Atchison appealed the decision of the W.S.C.S. to the Wyoming state court. On August 4, 1980, Atchison moved to vacate the federal court's order of dismissal arguing that unless he was allowed to continue his federal civil rights action, it would be barred by the Wyoming statute of limitations. On July 24, 1981, the federal court denied the motion and dismissed the second suit on the ground of abstention, stating that Atchison had now received a full administrative hearing from which he had an appeal pending in state court.
The state district court affirmed the decision of the W.S.C.S. Atchison appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court which affirmed the district court. Atchison, supra, 664 P.2d at 25. Atchison filed a petition for certiorari in the United States Supreme Court which was denied. 104 S.Ct. 424.
Atchison then filed his third federal suit, the instant action, on April 12, 1984. The defendants were the State of Wyoming, and individual state employees alleging civil rights violations in the denial of due process, and his discharge in retaliation for his exercise of his First Amendment rights. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss which the court granted on the grounds of the immunity as to State of Wyoming and of collateral estoppel and res judicata as to the individuals. The trial court sustained the defendants' motion to dismiss. In so doing it said, Tr. 43-44:
"The Court finds that the State indeed is immune under the Eleventh Amendment from the suit for damages by Plaintiff Edward Atchison. That's what I have held twice before, and I see no reason to hold differently today....
With respect to the issues of collateral estoppel and res judicata, it was always my view that Mr. Atchison had a right to have a full hearing, and I abstained and withheld decisions in this court to see that he got one on the theory that if he didn't get one in front of the state administrative agency and the state courts, he would get one here.
I now find that he has had one, had a full hearing which encompassed his civil rights claims and his First Amendment claims as well as all others. I think I'm bound by that. I don't believe that there is anything that would be tried in the trial of this case that would not be foreclosed by the findings of the Career Services Council."
On this appeal the appellant does not question the ruling of the district court that the action against the State is barred by immunity. He contends that his claims against the individual defendants are not barred by collateral estoppel and res judicata because he submitted the federal claims to the federal district court first. In England v. Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners, 375 U.S. 411, 84 S.Ct. 461, 11 L.Ed.2d 440, graduates of chiropractic schools filed suit in federal court seeking an injunction and a declaration that the educational requirements of the Louisiana Medical Practice Act as applied to them violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court abstained and, sua sponte, remitted the case to the state courts. After the plaintiffs unsuccessfully pursued their claims in state court, they again brought suit in federal court where...
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