Kelly v. Borough of Sayreville

• Decision Date: 10 May 1996
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 94-5460.
• Citation: 927 F. Supp. 797
• Parties: Charles F. KELLY, Plaintiff, v. BOROUGH OF SAYREVILLE, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

927 F. Supp. 797

Charles F. KELLY, Plaintiff, v. BOROUGH OF SAYREVILLE, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 94-5460.

United States District Court, D. New Jersey.

May 10, 1996.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Richard J. Kaplow, Westfield, NJ, for Plaintiff.

Jerrold J. Wohlgemuth, Apruzzese, McDermott, Mastro & Murphy, Liberty Corner, NJ, for Defendants.

OPINION

WOLIN, District Judge.

This case requires the Court as a matter of first impression to determine whether the entire controversy doctrine applies to actions initiated before an administrative agency where the agency is unable to award compensatory and punitive damages to the claimant.¹ Subsumed within this issue is New Jersey's policy that a plaintiff select the forum with the widest possible relief or lose the right to obtain specific relief in a separate judicial proceeding before a court of competent jurisdiction, either state or federal.

Before the Court is defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's complaint for failure to comply with New Jersey's entire controversy doctrine and for failure to state a cause of action. The Court has decided this motion on the written submissions of the parties pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 78. For the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant defendants' motion to dismiss.

BACKGROUND

In November 1992, the Borough of Sayreville ("Borough") and the Chief of the Sayreville Police Department, Douglas A. Sprague ("Sprague"), (collectively the "defendants") commenced a departmental disciplinary proceeding to remove plaintiff Charles F. Kelly ("Kelly") from the Sayreville Police Department. In response, Kelly and the Sayreville Policeman's Benevolent Association ("PBA") brought an Order to Show Cause with Temporary Restraints before the Public Employment Relations Commission ("PERC") to enjoin the Borough from proceeding with the disciplinary hearing against Kelly. (Pl.'s Ex. B.)

Contemporaneous with the filing of the order to show cause, Kelly and the PBA elected to file an unfair labor practice charge with PERC² wherein Kelly alleged that he was subjected to disciplinary actions in retaliation for his union activities as PBA president. Kelly contended that the defendants' proposed disciplinary proceeding violated the New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act, N.J.S.A. 34:13A-1, et seq. (the "Act") and his First Amendment right of free speech. (Def.'s Ex. A.) Defendants agreed to postpone the disciplinary hearing pending the disposition of the unfair labor practice charge.

In May 1995, PERC issued its opinion that the Borough had violated the Act. PERC then ordered that the pending disciplinary proceeding against Kelly be withdrawn, that defendants cease and desist from interfering with or discriminating against the PBA or Kelly, and that Kelly's record be expunged of any related discipline. With respect to Kelly's First Amendment claim, PERC merely noted that the hearing examiner had declined to address it. Neither the PBA nor Kelly sought appellate review of PERC's decision and order which dismissed certain of their claims and declined to address Kelly's First Amendment claim.

While the unfair labor practice charge was still pending with PERC, Kelly filed the instant action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("section 1983") alleging that defendants' conduct violated his rights under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. In this action Kelly is seeking compensatory damages for pain and suffering, punitive damages, and attorneys' fees. Such remedies were not available to him under the Act.

Defendants move to dismiss this action because Kelly voluntarily and knowingly elected to litigate his First Amendment claim and his claims under the Act before PERC, which he was not required to do.³ Subsequently, he named Sprague as a party defendant and brought his Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment claims in this Court to obtain additional remedies. It is this fragmented presentation of claims that defendants contend violates the entire controversy doctrine. Defendants alternatively contend that the Court should dismiss Kelly's section 1983 claims for failing to state a claim.

DISCUSSION

A. New Jersey's Entire Controversy Doctrine

New Jersey's entire controversy doctrine is a strict application of the rule against splitting a cause of action, "reaching more broadly than the same cause of action requirement of the traditional res judicata doctrine."⁴Electro-Miniatures Corp. v. Wendon Co., Inc., 889 F.2d 41, 44 (3d Cir. 1989) (citation and quotation marks omitted); Bennun v. Rutgers State University, 941 F.2d 154, 163 (3d Cir.1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1066, 112 S.Ct. 956, 117 L.Ed.2d 124 (1992). The doctrine holds that "the adjudication of a legal controversy should occur in one litigation in only one court" and that "all parties involved in the litigation should at the very least present in that proceeding all of their claims and defenses that are related to the underlying controversy." Kozyra v. Allen, 973 F.2d 1110, 1111 (3d Cir.1992) (citation omitted). The entire controversy doctrine also:

encompasses the mandatory joinder of parties. To the extent possible courts must determine an entire controversy in a single judicial proceeding and that such a determination necessarily embraces not only joinder of related claims between the parties but also joinder of all persons who have a material interest in the controversy.

Cogdell v. Hospital Center at Orange, 116 N.J. 7, 26, 560 A.2d 1169, 1178 (1989).

The doctrine now is codified in New Jersey Court Rule 4:30A, which provides that "non-joinder of claims or parties required to be joined by the entire controversy doctrine shall result in the preclusion of the omitted claims to the extent required by the entire controversy doctrine." Rule 4:30A. Therefore, a party who holds back from litigation any claim which could have been asserted will be precluded from attempting to assert such claim in a subsequent proceeding.

In applying this doctrine, the New Jersey courts make an evaluation of

each potential component of a particular controversy to determine the likely consequences of the omission of that component from the action and its reservation for litigation another day. If those consequences are likely to mean that the litigants in the action as framed will, after final judgment therein is entered, be likely to engage in additional litigation in order to conclusively dispose of their respective bundles of rights and liabilities which derive from a single transaction or related series of transactions, then the omitted component must be regarded as constituting an element of the minimum mandatory unit of litigation. That result must obtain whether or not the component constitutes either an independent cause of action by technical definition or an independent claim which, in the abstract, is separately adjudicable.

Electro-Miniatures Corp., 889 F.2d at 45 (quoting Wm. Blanchard Co. v. Beach Concrete Co., Inc., 150 N.J.Super. 277, 293-94, 375 A.2d 675 (App.Div.), certif. denied, 75 N.J. 528, 384 A.2d 507 (1977)).

The boundaries of the doctrine are not limitless, however. "The doctrine does not apply to bar component claims that are unknown, unarisen, or unaccrued at the time of the original action." Mystic Isle Development Corp., 142 N.J. at 323, 662 A.2d 523 (citations omitted). The doctrine is not applied when "joinder would result in significant unfairness to the litigants or jeopardy to a clear presentation of the issues and a just result." Id. at 322, 662 A.2d 523 (citations omitted); accord Cafferata v. Peyser, 251 N.J.Super. 256, 597 A.2d 1101 (App.Div.1991) ("The entire controversy doctrine is equitable in nature and is fundamentally predicated upon judicial fairness and will be invoked in that spirit."). And the doctrine is not applied where "the first proceeding occurred before a lesser tribunal." Petrocelli v. Woodhead Co., 993 F.2d 27, 29 (3d Cir.1993) (citations and quotation marks omitted).

In applying the entire controversy doctrine to this case, the Court must resolve: (i) whether Kelly could have raised his federal claims before PERC and (ii) whether raising such claims before PERC would have constituted a full and fair opportunity to litigate such claims. See Cafferata, 251 N.J.Super. at 261, 597 A.2d 1101 (as a matter of first principle the entire controversy doctrine requires that the "party whose claim is sought to be barred must have had a fair opportunity to have litigated that claim in the first action").

With respect to the first question, the Court finds that Kelly could have raised his federal claims before PERC, but he simply chose not to. Indeed, notwithstanding Kelly's contention that he was unable to bring his section 1983 claims before PERC, Kelly has not cited, nor has this Court's research uncovered, any case in which a plaintiff was barred from bringing his federal claims before PERC. Cf. Hunterdon Cent. High Sch. Bd. of Ed. v. Hunterdon Cent. High Sch. Teachers' Ass'n, 174 N.J.Super. 468, 416 A.2d 980 (App.Div.1980) (acknowledging that "administrative agencies are competent to pass upon constitutional issues germane to proceedings before them"), aff'd 86 N.J. 43, 429 A.2d 354 (1981); Abbott v. Burke, 100 N.J. 269, 297, 495 A.2d 376 (1985) (finding that the presence of constitutional issues and claims for ultimate constitutional relief does not, in all circumstances, preclude resort in the first instance to administrative adjudication). Kelly's contention, moreover, ignores the fact that he included his First Amendment claim in his charge before PERC.

As to the second question, the Court finds that Kelly's opportunity to raise his claims before PERC constituted a full and fair opportunity to litigate such claims. A party has been denied a full and fair opportunity to litigate only when state procedures fall below the minimum requirements of due process as defined...