Oppenheim v. Gruell, No. CV-03-0472301 S (CT 1/11/2005), CV-03-0472301 S
| Decision Date | 11 January 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. CV-03-0472301 S,CV-03-0472301 S |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | Ilene Oppenheim v. Dennis Gruell et al. |
The plaintiff in this case was formerly the Waterbury Regional Director of the Connecticut Small Business Development Center. In 1997 the defendant Dennis Gruell was appointed State Director of the program. The defendant Thomas Gutteridge at the relevant times in question was Dean of the University of Connecticut School of Business and "ultimately in charge" of the center according to the Amended Complaint. The defendant Virginia Miller was an Assistant Vice Chancellor for Human Resources. The complaint asserts a claim of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress against all three defendants. It is alleged that Gruell subjected the plaintiff to very abusive treatment at two meetings in one-on-one situations and before others with whom the plaintiff had to work. It is alleged that Gruell had a hatred of women which Gutteridge was aware of yet he appointed Gruell to his position and took no action to protect the plaintiff.
The plaintiff took her complaints of ongoing mistreatment to her union representative but "the defendants" retaliated by denying her the right to take a prepaid vacation, not adequately staffing her office or providing her with an adequate computer, and locating her office far from downtown.
A payroll authorization was signed to continue the plaintiff in her position for the year commencing October 1, 1998 but she was then wrongfully terminated for pretextural reasons.
The defendants Miller and Gutteridge were aware of Gruell's abusive behavior; in fact an agreement was worked out limiting Gruell's contacts with the plaintiff. But Miller and Gutteridge did not enforce the terms of the agreement. Based on the foregoing the plaintiff advances the state tort claim against all defendants.
Prior to this action the plaintiff's union filed a complaint with the Connecticut State Labor Relations Board raising the foregoing allegations and claiming her termination from employment was based on anti-union bias. The claim was that Gruell's actions violated the collective bargaining agreement and the University (Miller and Gutteridge), because of the plaintiff's complaints about his actions, retaliated by firing Oppenheim. The Labor Board dismissed the complaint.
In an action filed in federal district court the foregoing allegations were also made. Judge Chatigny dismissed the 42 U.S.C. §1983 cause of action, ruling it did not meet the "shocks the conscience" standard. (Oppenheim v. Gutteridge et al, 225 F.Sup.2d 185, 188 (2002).) The federal court declined to exercise jurisdiction over the state tort claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress and dismissed them without prejudice. This state action was then brought.
The defendants have filed a motion to dismiss and/or motion for summary judgment.
The motion to dismiss is based on two grounds. It is claimed that the defendants are entitled to common-law sovereign immunity since it cannot be established that any of the defendants acted in excess of statutory authority. At argument the defendants withdrew this defense. The defendants still maintain, however, that the court should dismiss the complaint under the statutory immunity provided by §4-165 of the General Statutes.
In the alternative the defendants have moved for summary judgment and argue that the "plaintiff is collaterally estopped from re-litigating her intentional infliction of emotional distress claim based on the federal court's factual findings and decision regarding the substantive due process claim and the State Labor Board's Decision that the defendants' action were reasonable and did not demonstrate hostility or animus toward plaintiff." Also it is argued that in any event a case of intentional infliction of emotional distress cannot be made out based on the facts before the court.
The court will address the summary judgment motion first dealing with the collateral estoppel argument initially. The court will then discuss the motion as it applies to each defendant and finally refer to the statutory immunity question under §4-165 of the General Statutes.
I.
MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
(A)
The defendants rely on the doctrine of collateral estoppel for one aspect of their motion for summary judgment. In effect the claim is that rulings by prior tribunals—federal district court and the Labor Relations Board—define and limit the scope of the legal and factual issues that may be considered by this court in ruling on the summary judgment motion.
In a prior ruling in the district court dismissing a 42 U.S.C. §1983 action the court there held the plaintiff's right to substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment was not violated due to her wrongful termination from employment. Oppenheim v. Gutteridge et al., 225 F.Sup.2d 185 (2002). At page 188 the court said the "Plaintiff claims that her right to substantive due process was violated by Gruell when he mistreated her and by all three defendants when they retaliated against her for complaining to her union representative."
The defendants also claim that the plaintiff is collaterally estopped by what they say is "the State Labor Board's decision that the defendants' actions were reasonable and did not demonstrate hostility or animus toward plaintiff."
Before dealing with each of these two claims it would be helpful for the court at least to review some basic distinctions between res judicata and collateral estoppel and the elements that must be found for the latter doctrine to apply.
In 46 Am.Jur.2d, "Judgments," §516 at page 780 it says:
The doctrine of res judicata is composed of two parts: claim preclusion and issue preclusion. Claim preclusion prohibits a party from relitigating a previously adjudicated cause of action, and entirely bars a new lawsuit on the same cause of action. Issue preclusion, or collateral estoppel, applies to a subsequent suit between the parties on a different cause of action. Collateral estoppel prevents the parties from relitigating any issue that was actually litigated and finally decided in the earlier action. The issue decided in the earlier action must be identical to the one presented in the subsequent action. The most important criterion in determining whether two suits concern the same controversy is whether they both arose from the same transactional nucleus of facts. If so, the judgment in the first action is deemed to adjudicate, for purposes of the second action, every matter that was urged, and every matter that might have been urged, in support of the cause of action or claim in litigation.
In Conn. National Bank v. Rytman, 241 Conn. 24, 34-44 the court said the following:
Although the doctrines of collateral estoppel and res judicata are conceptually related, in practice their application may yield distinct results. Unlike collateral estoppel, under which preclusion occurs only if a claim actually has been litigated, (Emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted.)
In order for there to be issue preclusion the issue in the prior action has to be identical to the issue in the present litigation. Midgett v. Cook Inlet Pre Trial Facility, 53 P.2d 1105, 1110 (Alaska, 2002); Bells v. Townsends, Inc., 765 A.2d 531, 535 (Del. 2000); United Fire & Casualty Co. v. Shelly Funeral Home, Inc., 642 N.W.2d 648, 655 (Iowa, 2002), 46 Am.Jur.2d "Judgments," §539, page 809. The Restatement (2d) Judgment is less definitive, at §27, page 252 it seems to suggest "total identity" does not necessarily preclude application of the doctrine. At comment c to §27 at page 252 the following remarks are made:
c. Dimensions of an issue. One of the most difficult problems in the application of the rule of this Section is to delineate the issue on which litigation is, or is not, foreclosed by the prior judgment. The problem involves a balancing of important interests: on the one hand, a desire not to deprive a litigant of an adequate day in court; on the other hand, a desire to prevent repetitious litigation of what is essentially the same dispute. When there is a lack of total identity between the particular matter presented in the second action and that presented in the first, there are several factors that should be considered in deciding whether for purposes of the rule of this Section the "issue" in the two proceedings is the same, for example: Is there a substantial overlap between the evidence or argument to be advanced in the second proceeding and that advanced in the first? Does the new evidence or argument involve application of the same rule of law as that involved in the prior proceeding? Could pretrial preparation and discovery relating to the matter presented in the first action and reasonably be expected to have embraced the matter sought to be presented in the second? How closely related are the claims involved in the two proceedings?
The court will now examine a Connecticut case that deals with some of the foregoing considerations. In Daoust v. McWilliams, 49 Conn.App. 715 (1998) the plaintiff's federal civil rights action had been dismissed. The federal district court declined to take jurisdiction on various state claims. A motion for summary judgment was filed in the state action in which the defendant claimed the plaintiff was collaterally estopped from pursuing...
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