Green v. Jefferson County Com'n

• Decision Date: 31 March 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-15888.,08-15888.
• Citation: 563 F.3d 1243
• Parties: Steven GREEN, Mark Persall, Charles Horton, James Phillips, Cassie Bell, Sherry J. Amick, William V. Arnold, Lynn G. Baswell, Phillip A. Bailey, Samuel R. Beard, and all those similarly situated as related to Jefferson County Resolution No. 2006-683 and District Court case 2:08-00162-IPJ, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. JEFFERSON COUNTY COMMISSION, General Retirement System for Employees of Jefferson County, Alabama, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

563 F.3d 1243

Steven GREEN, Mark Persall, Charles Horton, James Phillips, Cassie Bell, Sherry J. Amick, William V. Arnold, Lynn G. Baswell, Phillip A. Bailey, Samuel R. Beard, and all those similarly situated as related to Jefferson County Resolution No. 2006-683 and District Court case 2:08-00162-IPJ, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. JEFFERSON COUNTY COMMISSION, General Retirement System for Employees of Jefferson County, Alabama, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 08-15888. Non-Argument Calendar.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

March 31, 2009.

William Eugene Rutledge, Rutledge & Yaghmai, Birmingham, AL, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Grace Robinson Murphy, James L. Priester, Maynard, Cooper & Gale, P.C., Birmingham, AL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before HULL, PRYOR and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges.

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge:

In this case, Jefferson County employees challenge as unconstitutional and violative of federal law certain amendments made by the Jefferson County Commission to its retirement system. The district court dismissed the employees' claims, finding that (1) the claims constituted a de facto appeal from a previous state court judgment which rejected similar arguments and that, therefore, under the Rooker-Feldman¹ doctrine, the district court did not have jurisdiction to consider these claims; and (2) because the related state court judgment was on appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court, any ruling by the district court would be an "undue interference with state proceedings" and that, therefore, the district court must abstain from exercising its jurisdiction pursuant to the Younger doctrine.²

Both the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and the Younger doctrine are extremely narrow exceptions to the federal courts' "virtually unflagging" duty "to adjudicate claims within their jurisdiction." New Orleans Pub. Serv., Inc. v. Council of the City of New Orleans, 491 U.S. 350, 359, 109 S.Ct. 2506, 105 L.Ed.2d 298 (1989) ("NOPSI"). Upon review of the parties' briefs and the record, we conclude that neither of these limited exceptions to our jurisdiction applies. We conclude, however, that the doctrine of res judicata, as applicable through the Full Faith and Credit Clause, does require dismissal of this case. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the disposition, although on a different ground than that relied upon by the district court.³

BACKGROUND

The General Retirement System for Employees of Jefferson County, Alabama (the "Retirement System") was created in 1965 by an act of the Alabama legislature. It is funded by yearly contributions from the participating Jefferson County employees which are matched by yearly contributions from the County and by the income generated from the investment of those contributions. At some point during the 1970s, approximately 238 Jefferson County sheriff's deputies voluntarily withdrew from the Retirement System and removed their contributions, with interest.

In 2003, the Alabama Legislature approved a local law, Alabama Act 2003-343 (the "Act"), allowing Jefferson County employees who had previously withdrawn from the Retirement System to rejoin and "make up" for up to 20 years in which they did not contribute to or participate in the Retirement System. The Act also allowed Jefferson County employees who had not withdrawn to convert periods of unpaid service to paid service upon making an additional contribution to the Retirement System. The Act then required the County to contribute matching funds for any employee taking advantage of the Act and to pay any additional amounts necessary to make the Retirement System actuarially sound. In other words, the Act required the County to contribute additional funds to replicate investment earnings that would have occurred had the employees in question continually contributed to the Retirement System.

After the Act was passed, two groups of county employees filed suit in state court to establish the constitutionality of the Act and to force the County to implement it. Sheriff Deputy Jimmy Black brought one of the class-action lawsuits on behalf of all deputies who had opted out of the Retirement System and who were seeking to rejoin as allowed under the Act. Certain other Jefferson County employees also sought a hearing before a special master when the County did not allow them to convert unpaid service to paid service under the Act. Employee-members who had not opted out of the Retirement System brought a separate lawsuit seeking to invalidate the Act. These cases were all consolidated in the Jefferson County Circuit Court, with Black identified as the lead plaintiff ("Black"). In November of 2005, the Black court ruled that the Act, which created additional pension benefits for certain employees of Jefferson County, was constitutional and due to be enforced (the "November 2005 Order"). Thereafter, the court set deadlines for the County's compliance with the terms of the Act.

In an effort to offset the costs of funding the enhanced pension benefits mandated by the Act, the Jefferson County Commission passed Resolution No. 2006-683 on June 7, 2006 (the "Resolution"). The Resolution states that if a member of the Retirement System elects to take advantage of the additional pension benefits provided by the Act, he or she will no longer be eligible to receive the discretionary, non-pension benefits of retiree health insurance and sick leave retirement benefits. The County distributed the Resolution to persons eligible under the Act, giving them the opportunity to elect between (1) obtaining the Act's enhanced benefits and foregoing the non-pension benefits or (2) remaining eligible for retiree health insurance coverage and sick leave retirement benefits and foregoing the enhanced pension benefits available under the Act.

On June 19, 2006, the Black plaintiffs made a motion for supplemental relief before the Jefferson County Circuit Court, arguing that the Resolution "impermissibly impairs and impedes" the November 2005 Order, which instructed the County to implement the Act. Specifically, the Black plaintiffs argued that the Resolution discourages those entitled to enhanced benefits under the Act from electing to receive those benefits, impermissibly imposes additional burdens upon the exercise of the rights established under the Act, and frustrates the enforcement and implementation of the Act as ordered by the court. Accordingly, the plaintiffs asked the court to enjoin the County from enforcing the Resolution as inconsistent with its Order to implement the Act.

The Black court held an evidentiary hearing on this motion for supplemental relief and, on September 14, 2006, it issued an order stating, in pertinent part:

The Jefferson County Commission has been vested with the responsibility for maintaining a balanced budget for the County and funding and overseeing vital public services for the citizens of the County. In adopting the Resolution, the Commission did not abuse their vested discretion, and did not engage in fraud. This Court's inquiry must end there, as the authority to determine the appropriations necessary for the performance of government function is a legislative power, not a judicial power. This Court would infringe upon the boundaries between our State's branches of government delineated in Sec. 43 of the Alabama Constitution if it were to enjoin this Resolution. This Court also finds that the issues presented in Plaintiffs' challenge to the Resolution are completely separate and involve different facts, issues and theories than the previous action challenging Act 03-343. Thus, the Court finds that there is no justiciable issue involved in the Plaintiffs' Motion for Supplemental Relief. Therefore, it is hereby ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that Plaintiffs' Motion for Supplemental Relief is DENIED.

(citations omitted, emphasis added). The Black plaintiffs did not appeal the denial of their motion for supplemental relief. On November 17, 2006, the court certified its judgment in the Black litigation as final. Neither party appealed from this final judgment.

On May 18, 2007, six Jefferson County employees, including lead plaintiff Steven Green,⁴ filed a class action lawsuit against the Retirement System and the County in the Circuit Court for Jefferson County, Alabama ("Green I"). The Green I plaintiffs sought to represent the class of "107 Jefferson County employees" who had elected to receive the additional pension benefits provided under the Act. They argued that, by adopting the Resolution, the County had retaliated against and treated the putative class unequally. Accordingly, the Green I plaintiffs sought a declaration that the Resolution was invalid, a permanent injunction preventing the operation of the Resolution, and damages measured by the value of the sick leave retirement credit and retiree health insurance they had been forced to forego by the Resolution. The County moved for summary judgment, arguing (1) that the plaintiffs' claims were barred by the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel; (2) that Art. III, § 43, Ala. Const. 1901, prevented the trial court from hearing the plaintiffs' challenge to the Resolution; (3) that Alabama law does not recognize an equal-protection challenge; and (4) that the plaintiffs' claims are due to be dismissed because the plaintiffs did not present their claims to the Jefferson County Commission before commencing their action and, thereby, violated § 6-5-20 et seq., Ala.Code 1975.

On September 17, 2007, the Green I court issued a brief order stating, in toto:

For the reasons stated therein, the defendants' motion for summary judgment is due to be GRANTED. Neither the named class representatives nor any member of the putative class may maintain the claims raised in the complaint. This action is therefore DISMISSED with prejudice, costs taxed as paid.

The Green I plaintiffs moved...