Lindas v. Cady

• Decision Date: 01 March 1994
• Docket Number: No. 91-1293,91-1293
• Citation: 183 Wis.2d 547,515 N.W.2d 458
• Parties: , 71 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 791 Kathleen LINDAS, Plaintiff-Appellant-Petitioner, v. Elmer CADY, Robert Hable, State of Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services, Defendants-Respondents. . Oral Argument
• Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Page 458

515 N.W.2d 458

183 Wis.2d 547, 71 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 791

Kathleen LINDAS, Plaintiff-Appellant-Petitioner, v. Elmer CADY, Robert Hable, State of Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services, Defendants-Respondents.

No. 91-1293.

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Oral Argument March 1, 1994.

Decided May 17, 1994.

For the defendants-respondents the cause was argued by Bruce A. Olsen, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom on the brief was James E. Doyle, Atty. Gen.

WILCOX, Justice.

This is a review of a published decision of the court of appeals, Lindas v. Cady, 175 Wis.2d 270, 499 N.W.2d 692 (Ct.App.1993) (Lindas II ), which affirmed the circuit court's dismissal of petitioner's 42 U.S.C., sec. 1983 (sec. 1983) claims. Both the circuit court and the court of appeals held that Kathleen Lindas's (Lindas) sec. 1983 claims were precluded by an earlier unreviewed finding by the Wisconsin Personnel Commission (Commission) that there was no probable cause to believe that the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) discriminated against Lindas because she was a woman. We agree that the commission's findings preclude Lindas from relitigating the issue of sex discrimination in her sec. 1983 action. Unlike the court of appeals, however, we rely upon the doctrine of issue preclusion rather than claim preclusion or estoppel by record, to reach that conclusion.

In August of 1979, Lindas was appointed Superintendent of Education of the Bureau of Program Resources in the Corrections Division of DHSS. She was to serve a one year probationary period. In May of 1980, defendant Hable, Lindas's supervisor at DHSS, gave Lindas the option to resign or be discharged. Lindas resigned. Shortly thereafter she filed a complaint with the commission alleging that DHSS discriminated against her on the basis of sex, contrary to the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act, (WFEA) secs. 111.31-111.37, Stats. (1979-80).

On February 9, 1981, following an investigation, the commission issued an initial determination that there was no probable cause to support Lindas's allegations of sexual discrimination. Lindas appealed that determination to the full commission, and in January and March of 1983, a hearing examiner from the Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations conducted four days of hearings on the matter. At these hearings, Lindas called witnesses and cross-examined hostile witnesses. She offered approximately fifty exhibits into the hearing record. After the hearing, Lindas submitted a legal brief and entered the deposition of an expert witness into the hearing record. In December of 1984, she presented oral arguments directly before the commission. Lindas was represented by legal counsel throughout the entire administrative process.

On January 3, 1985, the commission affirmed its initial determination that there was no probable cause to believe that DHSS discriminated against Lindas because she was a woman.

Lindas chose not to have the commission's determination judicially reviewed, although that option was available to her. Rather, she brought an original sec. 1983 action in the circuit court for Dane County. Lindas's sec. 1983 complaint accused her supervisors at DHSS, including the individual defendants, of sexual discrimination, in contravention of her constitutional right to equal protection. Lindas subsequently amended her complaint to include a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C., sec. 2000e (Title VII). The amended complaint also joined DHSS as a defendant in both the sec. 1983 and Title VII claims. Lindas's Title VII claims are not before us today.

Rather, this appeal deals solely with Lindas's sec. 1983 claims. In August of 1986, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Angela Bartell dismissed those claims because they had not been brought within what Judge Bartell held was the three year statutory period.

In Lindas v. Cady, 150 Wis.2d 421, 431, 441 N.W.2d 705 (1989) (Lindas I ), this court affirmed Judge Bartell's dismissal of Lindas's sec. 1983 claim against DHSS, holding that under Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989), governmental entities such as DHSS are not "persons" amenable to suit under sec. 1983. Lindas I, 150 Wis.2d at 431. Our decision in Lindas I, however, did not address the statute of limitations issue. Subsequently, Judge Bartell reinstated Lindas's sec. 1983 actions against the individual defendants in light of a seventh circuit court of appeals decision which established a six-year statute of limitations for such claims.

In August of 1990, Judge Bartell dismissed Lindas's remaining sec. 1983 claims, holding that the commission's no probable cause determination estopped Lindas from relitigating the issue of sex discrimination. Judge Bartell believed that preclusion was proper because an identity of parties and issues existed between Lindas's WFEA suit and her sec. 1983 claims, Lindas had a full and fair opportunity to litigate before the commission, and the "probable cause" burden of proof which Lindas failed to satisfy before the commission was lower than the burden she would have to sustain in the sec. 1983 action.

The court of appeals affirmed. Drawing in large measure upon Judge Bartell's analysis, and relying as well upon the Supreme Court's decision in University of Tennessee v. Elliott, 478 U.S. 788, 106 S.Ct. 3220, 92 L.Ed.2d 635 (1986), the court of appeals held that the common law doctrine of estoppel by record precluded Lindas's sec. 1983 claims. Lindas II, 175 Wis.2d at 285, 499 N.W.2d 692.

In its decision, the court refused to consider Lindas's contention that she lacked the necessary incentive to litigate before the commission. Incentive to litigate, the court held, was a factor only under the doctrine of issue preclusion. In this case, because it was relying upon the doctrine of estoppel by record, not issue preclusion, the court did not believe that Lindas's incentive to litigate was a relevant consideration. Id. at 287-88, 499 N.W.2d 692.

The court also held that under Acharya v. AFSCME, Council 24, WSEU, AFL-CIO, Local No. 1, 146 Wis.2d 693, 432 N.W.2d 140 (Ct.App.1988), it did not matter that Lindas chose not to have the commission's findings judicially reviewed. In the court of appeals' view, the crucial fact was that judicial review was available to Lindas. That she chose not to exercise that right for tactical reasons does not impact the preclusion analysis. Lindas, 175 Wis.2d at 298, 499 N.W.2d 692.

The question we must decide is whether the commission's unreviewed determination of no probable cause now precludes Lindas's sec. 1983 claim. The application of preclusion doctrines to a given set of facts is a question of law which this court reviews without deference to lower courts. DePratt v. West Bend Mutual Insurance Co., 113 Wis.2d 306, 310, 334 N.W.2d 883 (1983).

Our analysis begins with the United States Supreme Court's decision in Elliott. As the opening paragraph from Elliott reveals, the facts in that case were similar to those before us today:

A state Administrative Law Judge determined that petitioner University of Tennessee ... was not motivated by racial prejudice in seeking to discharge respondent. The question presented is whether this finding is entitled to preclusive effect in federal court, where respondent has raised discrimination claims under various civil rights laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ..., and 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983.

Elliott, 478 U.S. at 790, 106 S.Ct. at 3221-22. ¹

Like Lindas, the complainant in Elliott elected not to have the state agency's findings judicially reviewed. Rather, following the agency's determination, he brought his civil rights actions directly into federal district court. Id. at 792, 106 S.Ct. at 3222-23.

With respect to Elliott's Title VII claims, the Supreme Court held that the unreviewed determinations of state agencies cannot preclude a claimant from initiating a subsequent Title VII suit in court. The court believed its decision was dictated by the language and history of Title VII, which revealed a legislative intent to accord plaintiffs a trial de novo. Id. at 797, 106 S.Ct. at 3225.

As to sec. 1983, however, the court concluded otherwise. Specifically, the court found that "the legislative history of sec. 1983 does not in any clear way suggest that Congress intended to repeal or restrict the traditional doctrines of preclusion." Id., quoting Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 97-98, 101 S.Ct. 411, 416-17, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980). Moreover, the court believed that giving preclusive effect to administrative factfinding "serves the value underlying general principles of collateral estoppel: enforcing repose." Elliott, 478 U.S. at 798, 106 S.Ct. at 3226. The imposition of repose, in turn, furthers the parties' interest in avoiding costly and vexatious relitigation, and conserves judicial resources. Id. Accordingly, the court went on to articulate the following analysis:

[W]e hold that when a state agency, "acting in a judicial capacity ... resolves disputed issues of fact properly before it which the parties have had an adequate opportunity to litigate," (citation omitted), federal courts must give the agency's factfinding the same preclusive effect to which it would be entitled in the State's courts.

Id. at 799, 106 S.Ct. at 3226-27.

The methodology established in Elliott is clear. When deciding whether to give preclusive effect to the unreviewed factfindings of state agencies in sec. 1983 cases, courts must first determine a) whether the agency was adjudicating a disputed issue of fact properly before it and b) whether the agency's proceedings provided the parties an adequate opportunity to litigate. Only if both of these conditions are satisfied can the court advance to the second stage of analysis, that being whether under state law, do the agency's findings have preclusive effect.

In this...