Nelson v. Hull
| Decision Date | 17 March 2021 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 20-cv-11576 |
| Parties | MARK NELSON, Plaintiff, v. JEFFREY M. HULL, VALERIE GINGRICH, JOHN SPAULDING, GREGORY BENDEL, KEVIN CAIRA, JONATHAN EATON, JOMARIE F. O'MAHONY, GARY DEPALMA, MICHAEL J. WOODS, PAUL ALUNNI, MARIE LARIVEE and TOWN OF WILMINGTON, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Plaintiff Mark Nelson ("Nelson") has filed this lawsuit against the Town of Wilmington (the "Town") and eleven of its officials and employees ("Defendants") alleging negligence and/or wrongful conduct under Mass. Gen. L. c. 258 (Count I), seeking declaratory judgment (Count II), and bringing claims for fraud (Count III), intentional infliction of emotional distress (Count IV), negligent infliction of emotional distress (Count V), defamation (Count VI), violation of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act ("MCRA") (Count VII), violation of his right to equal protection (Count VIII) and violations of his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment right to due process pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Count IX). D. 1-1. Nelson also seeks injunctive relief (Count X). Id. Defendants have moved to dismiss. D. 6. For the reasons stated below, the Court ALLOWS the motion.
On a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), the Court must determine if the facts alleged "plausibly narrate a claim for relief." Schatz v. Republican State Leadership Comm., 669 F.3d 50, 55 (1st Cir. 2012) (citation omitted). Reading the complaint "as a whole," the Court must conduct a two-step, context-specific inquiry. García-Catalán v. United States, 734 F.3d 100, 103 (1st Cir. 2013). First, the Court must perform a close reading of the claim to distinguish the factual allegations from the conclusory legal allegations contained therein. Id. Factual allegations must be accepted as true, while conclusory legal conclusions are not entitled credit. Id. Second, the Court must determine whether the factual allegations present a "reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the conduct alleged." Haley v. City of Boston, 657 F.3d 39, 46 (1st Cir. 2011) (citation omitted). In sum, the complaint must provide sufficient factual allegations for the Court to find the claim "plausible on its face." García-Catalán, 734 F.3d at 103 (citation omitted).
The Court accepts the facts alleged in the complaint, D. 1-1, as true for the purposes of considering the motion to dismiss. Since the complaint runs some fifty-one pages, and as discussed below, repeats claims previously made in prior lawsuits, the Court addresses the allegations in connection with the analysis of the pending motion to dismiss below. In sum, however, Nelson challenges the actions of Defendants that allegedly impeded his family's use and development of their land in the Town.
Nelson has initiated several lawsuits against Town and Town officials prior to the current suit. In 2006, Nelson filed suit against the Town and Town officials in the Middlesex Superior Court, Nelson v. Town of Wilmington, et al., C.A. No. 2006-CV-04347 (Super. Ct.). Nelson alleged therein that Defendants "conspired over the previous seventeen years to prevent Nelson from obtaining building permits and approvals necessary to build housing for his family and from thereby obtaining income." D. 7-1 at 4. Nelson also asserted claims for libel, slander, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress and violation of the MCRA. D. 7-1 at 6-10. The Superior Court granted Defendants' motion for summary judgment and denied Nelson's motion for leave to amend the complaint to add claims for violations of his First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Id.at 10. Nelson then pursued another action in 2012, again in Middlesex Superior Court, against the Town, two Defendants named in the current action, Spaulding and Hull, and four other Town officials. Nelson v. Spaulding, et al., C.A. No. 2012-4873 (Super. Ct.). D. 7-2 at 3. The 2012 action sought judicial review of the November 14, 2012 decision of the State Building Code Appeals Board, affirming the Town Building Inspector's denial of an Occupancy Permit. Id. at 4. The Superior Court granted Defendants' judgment on the pleadings as to the Mass. Gen. L. c. 30A, § 14A appeal and dismissed Nelson's tort and civil rights claims. D. 7-3 at 2. Then, in 2014, Nelson filed another suit against the Town and several individual defendants in Nelson v. Hamilton, et al., C.A. No. 2014-0428 (Super. Ct.). D. 7-4. The action concerned the development of lots in Wilmington that were on roads not shown on the official town map. Id. at 2. Nelson alleged Defendants continuously interfered with and prevented the development and sale of Nelson's land. Id. The Middlesex Superior Court granted Defendants' motion to dismiss, this time for reasons including res judicata and failure to complywith Mass. R. Civ. P. 8(a). D. 7 at 6. The Appeals Court affirmed the dismissal in Nelson v. Hamilton, 87 Mass. App. Ct. 1127 (2015). Id.
Nelson instituted this action on July 4, 2020 in Middlesex Superior Court. D. 1-1. Defendants removed the case to this Court on August 24, 2020, D. 1, and then moved to dismiss. D. 6. The Court heard the parties on the pending motion to dismiss (and Nelson's motion to remand, D. 11, which the Court has since denied, D. 23) and took the matter under advisement. D. 20.
A claim is precluded under res judicata if there is "(1) a final judgment on the merits in an earlier action; (2) sufficient identity between the causes of action asserted in the earlier and later suits; and (3) sufficient identity between the parties in the two suits." Bay State HMO Mgmt., Inc. v. Tingley Sys., Inc., 181 F.3d 174, 177 (1st Cir. 1999). "The necessary identity will be found to exist if both sets of claims—those asserted in the earlier action and those asserted in the subsequent action—derive from a common nucleus of operative facts." Gonzalez v. Banco Cent. Corp., 27 F.3d 751, 755 (1st Cir. 1994). "Claim preclusion applies only where the parties to the claim in the second suit were all parties to, or have sufficient legal identity to one of the parties in, the first litigation." Laverty v. Massad, 661 F. Supp. 2d 55, 63 (D. Mass. 2009).
To assert res judicata, 'sufficient identity' must exist between the parties in the earlier and later suits. United States v. Raytheon Co., 334 F. Supp. 3d 519, 524 (D. Mass. 2018) (citing United States v. Cunan, 156 F.3d 110, 114 (1st Cir. 1998)). Here, Nelson previously filed suit against Defendants the Town, Hull and Spaulding in Nelson v. Spaulding, et al., Middlesex Super. Ct. C.A. No. 2012-4873 and Nelson v. Hamilton, et al., Middlesex Super Ct. C.A. No. 2014-0428.Now, Nelson again files suit against the Town, Spaulding and Hull, as well as number of other municipal employees, including the Director of Planning & Conservation, the Town's Building Inspector, members of the Board of Selectmen, the Superintendent of the Department of Public Works and Superintendent of Streets, the Town Engineer, the Senior Clerk of the Building Inspector's Office and the Clerk for the Board of Appeals. D. 1-1 at 2. The Court concludes the common identity between the parties as employees of the Town involved in Nelson's application process is adequate to meet the demands of 'sufficient identity' for res judicata purposes.
To determine whether an original and a later claim have 'sufficient identity,' the Court applies a transactional approach, "which extinguishes subsequent claims with respect to all or any part of the 'transaction, or series of connected transactions, out of which the action arose.'" Raytheon Co., 334 F. Supp. 3d at 524-25 (quoting Cunan, 156 F.3d at 114). Here, Nelson's claims in his current and prior litigations relate to the same events—the Town and its employees allegedly interfering with and/or preventing the development and sale of his land. The Defendants named here are accused of the same conspiracy as those in prior suits. More specifically, in the present suit, Nelson alleges "defendants continuously interfered with and prevented the development and sale of the plaintiff's residentially zoned land through a concerted campaign to harass, intimidate and abuse the plaintiff." D. 1-1 at 3; see D. 7.2 at 4 (complaint, 2012-4873) (same language); D. 7-4 at 3 (complaint, 2014-00428) (same language). Accordingly, as this pending suit invokes similar, and in some counts, the same claims with respect to the Town and the same permit process, res judicata has been satisfied and the motion to dismiss will be allowed as to all claims, including but not limited to all of the claims previously asserted such as declaratory judgment (Count II), fraud (Count III), intentional infliction of emotional distress (Count IV), negligent infliction of emotional distress (Count V), the MCRA claim (Count VII) and violation of equal protectionrights (Count VIII). See D. 7-1 () (addressing Nelson's multi-count action for libel, slander, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, violation of Mass. Gen. L. c. 12, § 11I and the MCRA); D. 7-3 (Memorandum of Decision, Nelson v. Spaulding, et al., C.A. No. 2012-04873 (Super. Ct. Apr. 3, 2014)) (allowing motion for judgment on the pleadings as to Nelson's multi-count action against the Town, State Building Code Appeals Board, and numerous state and municipal employees seeking declaratory judgment and injunctive relief and alleging fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, Mass. Gen. L. c. 12, §§ 11H & 11I and violation of equal protection).
As discussed above, the Court...
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