Herington v. City of Wichita

• Decision Date: 04 December 2020
• Docket Number: No. 120,329,120,329
• Citation: 479 P.3d 482
• Parties: Dawn HERINGTON, Individually, and as Mother and Next Friend of B.D.J.L., Minor Child and Heir-at-Law of Troy Lanning II, Deceased, and as Special Administrator of the Estate of Troy Lanning II, Appellant, v. CITY OF WICHITA and City of Wichita Police Department Officer Randy Williamson, Individually, Appellees.
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

479 P.3d 482

Dawn HERINGTON, Individually, and as Mother and Next Friend of B.D.J.L., Minor Child and Heir-at-Law of Troy Lanning II, Deceased, and as Special Administrator of the Estate of Troy Lanning II, Appellant,

v.CITY OF WICHITA and City of Wichita Police Department Officer Randy Williamson, Individually, Appellees.

No. 120,329

Court of Appeals of Kansas.

Opinion filed December 4, 2020.

James A. Thompson, of Malone, Dwire & Thompson, LLC, of Wichita, for appellant.

J. Steven Pigg and Samuel A. Green, of Fisher, Patterson, Sayler & Smith, L.L.P., of Topeka, for appellee.

Before Atcheson, P.J., Malone, J., and Daniel D. Creitz, District Judge, assigned.

Per Curiam:

Wichita Police Officer Randy Williamson fatally shot Troy Lanning II after pursuing him in a high-speed car chase and then on foot. Dawn Herington, Lanning's mother, filed an action for damages against Williamson and the City of Wichita in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas alleging violations of Lanning's civil rights under federal law and several state law tort claims. Herington filed the action in her dual capacity as an heir of Lanning and as the special administrator of his estate. The federal district court granted summary judgment to Williamson on the federal claims based on qualified immunity and to the City on the federal claims based on several other grounds going to their merits. Having done so, the district court dismissed the state law claims for lack of jurisdiction and, therefore, without ruling on their merits. See Herington v. City of Wichita , No. 6:14-cv-01094-JTM, 2017 WL 76930, at *13 (D. Kan. 2017) (unpublished opinion).

Herington refiled the state claims in Sedgwick County District Court in this case. Applying res judicata as the Kansas Supreme Court has defined that rule of preclusion, the district court granted summary judgment to Williamson and the City simply because those claims had been asserted in the federal action and were later dismissed without any consideration of their validity. As a result, Herington has been denied relief on those state law claims even though neither the federal court nor the district court ever considered their merits.

We are obligated to apply res judicata the way the Kansas Supreme Court has outlined the doctrine in Stanfield v. Osborne Industries, Inc. , 263 Kan. 388, 403-04, 949 P.2d 602 (1997), and later in Rhoten v. Dickson , 290 Kan. 92, Syl. ¶ 7, 223 P.3d 786 (2010). See Majors v. Hillebrand , 51 Kan. App. 2d 625, 629-30, 349 P.3d 1283 (2015) (Court of Appeals required to follow Supreme Court precedent absent some indication Supreme Court is departing from its previous position). The preclusion rule that originated in Stanfield prohibits a plaintiff from pursuing state law claims in the Kansas district courts when a federal court has dismissed them for lack of jurisdiction in conjunction with entering a judgment on the merits for the defendant on all of the federal claims. Rhoten , 290 Kan. at 112, 223 P.3d 786. And that rule applies here, given the procedural progression of the federal case and Herington's refiling of the state law claims in this case.

The Stanfield formulation of res judicata appears to be unique to Kansas and effectively deprives Herington of a hearing on the merits of the state law claims she has pursued from the beginning of her legal battle merely because the federal court declined to consider them at all. Conventional res judicata principles would have permitted Herington to go forward with those claims in this case, since the federal court dismissed them without adjudicating their merits. See Jackson Trak Group v. Mid States Port Authority , 242 Kan. 683, 690-91, 751 P.2d 122 (1988) ; 18 Wright, Miller, & Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure: Jurisdiction 3d § 4402 (2020). Neither we nor the district court can pick and choose what rule of res judicata to apply. The district court properly applied Stanfield and Rhoten in entering judgment for the defendants based on res judicata.

Affirmed.

Atcheson, J., concurring:

The Kansas Supreme Court fashioned an eccentric and exceedingly unfair rule of res judicata in Stanfield v. Osborne Industries, Inc. , 263 Kan. 388, 403-04, 949 P.2d 602 (1997), and perpetuated that eccentricity and unfairness in Rhoten v. Dickson , 290 Kan. 92, Syl. ¶ 7, 223 P.3d 786 (2010). On the whole, judicially created doctrines, such as res judicata, ought to avoid both remarkable oddity and patent inequity. In every instance, however, they should be shaped by considerations of basic fairness. As this case illustrates, the Stanfield iteration of res judicata as a matter of federal common law isn't fair, and there is no public policy tradeoff for that lack of fairness. In short, Rhoten and Stanfield deny plaintiffs their proverbial day in court for no good reason.

As I discuss, the path to and the reasoning underlying Stanfield is suspect. In that case, the court abandoned without discussion the res judicata principles set out in Jackson Trak Group v. Mid States Port Authority , 242 Kan. 683, 690-91, 751 P.2d 122 (1988) —principles that conform to the customary understanding of claim preclusion in both federal and state law. Those conventional rules of res judicata would have allowed Dawn Herington to go forward with this case in the district court. The court then replicated the departure from orthodox doctrinal notions of res judicata in Rhoten , based primarily on an adherence to the Stanfield decision as settled law and the force of stare decisis. But, as I explain, stare decisis ought to yield, given the misconceived application of res judicata in Stanfield that breaks with federal law and general preclusion principles set out in Jackson Trak and an array of other contrary authority. The Stanfield rule likewise undermines a foundational objective of the civil litigation process to decide legal disputes on their merits whenever possible. And the rule offers no tangible benefit to the process offsetting that destructive effect.

Apart from being peculiar and something short of intrinsically just, the Stanfield version of res judicata is likely unconstitutional. By denying plaintiffs a forum for review of state law claims dismissed for lack of jurisdiction in federal court, the rule undercuts the purpose of 28 U.S.C. § 1367 (2016), governing federal courts’ supplemental jurisdiction over state law claims, and presumably runs afoul of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution as a result. The Supremacy Clause doctrine of conflict preemption negates the Stanfield rule of res judicata because it imposes a substantial obstacle to the full operation of 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

The Kansas Supreme Court ought to consider taking this opportunity to reexamine what was done nearly 25 years ago in Stanfield and to realign this state's application of res judicata with conventional preclusion principles. Herington and similarly situated plaintiffs should be afforded a judicial forum to have their state law claims heard on the merits. I offer no opinion on the merits of Herington's claims—only my sentiment that she has been figuratively barred at the courthouse door because of a rule that inexplicably breaks with well-settled law and advances no discernible judicial or public policy.

Factual and Procedural Progression of This Litigation

The factual and procedural setting before us is remarkably straightforward and presents a recurrent litigation pattern involving civil cases with both state and federal claims. While on duty, a Wichita police officer shot and killed Troy Lanning II. The precise circumstances are irrelevant to the legal issue on appeal. Herington filed federal civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2016) and state law tort claims against the City of Wichita and the police officer in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. Again, the precise theories of liability are irrelevant. The federal district court granted summary judgment to the City and the officer on the merits of the civil rights claims, leaving only the state law claims unresolved. Consistent with 28 U.S.C. § 1367, the federal district court dismissed them without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction—never considering their underlying validity.

Herington refiled the state law claims in Sedgwick County District Court. The City and the officer then faced the same unresolved claims the federal court declined to consider and dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. But based on the Kansas Supreme Court's unique view of res judicata, the district court entered judgment for the City and the officer, dismissing those claims without regard to their merits. So as Kansas law now stands, Herington will never get a judicial determination on whether the City and the police officer committed torts causing the wrongful death of her son.

We are constrained to apply the rule of res judicata the court created in Stanfield and continued in Rhoten . For that reason (and that reason alone), I necessarily join in the per curiam opinion affirming the district court's judgment for the City and the police officer. As my comments suggest, I do so unhappily.

Conventional Res Judicata Doctrine

Res judicata is a judge-made rule that prevents one party from serially suing a second party for claims that have already been decided on their merits in an earlier action or for related claims that could have been but were not asserted in that action. See Jackson Trak Group , 242 Kan. at 690-91, 751 P.2d 122 ; Estate of Belden v. Brown County , 46 Kan. App. 2d 247, 259, 261 P.3d 943 (2011) ("[R]es judicata prohibits a plaintiff from filing a successive suit against a defendant based either on factually related claims omitted from an earlier suit or on claims actually asserted and lost on a final judgment on the merits in the earlier suit."); Pierson Sand and Gravel, Inc. v. Keeler Brass Company , 460 Mich. 372, 380, 596 N.W.2d 153 (1999) ("[T]he doctrine of res judicata applies,...