Saylor v. U.S.

• Decision Date: 07 January 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-5391.,01-5391.
• Citation: 315 F.3d 664
• Parties: Pearl SAYLOR, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 664

315 F.3d 664

Pearl SAYLOR, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 01-5391.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued October 31, 2002.

Decided and Filed January 7, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Eric C. Deters, David L. Drake (argued and briefed), Eric C. Deters & Associates, Ft. Mitchell, KY, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

David Y. Olinger, Jr., Asst. U.S. Attorney, Lexington, KY, Lisa E. Jones (argued and briefed), U.S. Department of Justice, Land & Natural Resources Division, Washington, DC, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before: KEITH, KENNEDY, and MOORE, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge.

I.

Plaintiffs Pearl Saylor, et al., appeal from the district court's dismissal of their action seeking to quiet title to a tract of land currently in possession of the United States.

The property at issue in this case originally belonged to Alice Asher. Alice Asher died on December 3, 1928, survived by her second husband and five minor children from her first marriage. The state of Kentucky appointed a guardian, W.D. Wilder, for the children, but in 1932, the state removed him and appointed another guardian. At the time of Alice Asher's death, there was a lien against the property at issue in this case. In 1933, creditors filed suit to recover on the lien, and a state court ordered the property sold to pay the judgment. The Saylors argue that this sale was invalid because legal notice of the proceedings never reached Alice Asher's children. According to the Saylors, the state court erroneously believed that W.D. Wilder was still the children's guardian, and therefore service on Wilder failed to give the children notice of the foreclosure.

In 1973, the United States acquired the property at issue in this case in a condemnation action under the Declaration of Taking Act, 40 U.S.C. § 258a. The land was flooded in 1974 as part of the Laurel River Dam Project. In 1990, a federal district court in the Eastern District of Kentucky held a full evidentiary hearing to permit interested parties to present their claims to just compensation for this particular portion of the flooded property. Some of the plaintiffs — specifically, Pearl Saylor, Melvin Saylor, Phil Clark and Mary England — were provided with notice of that hearing, were represented by counsel, and presented their evidence that the 1933 conveyance was invalid because they did not receive proper notice of the action adjudicating the lien against the property. In 1992, the district court dismissed their claim on the merits and awarded compensation to a party with a mutually exclusive competing claim. United States of America v. 399.02 Acres of Land, Civ. No. 2243 (E.D.Ky. Oct. 7, 1992).¹ The Saylor heirs did not appeal from that judgment.

Eight years later, in 2000, the instant plaintiffs filed suit against the United States in Kentucky state court, seeking to quiet title to the disputed property. Plaintiffs Pearl Saylor and Melvin Saylor are Alice Asher's children. Plaintiffs Joyce Saylor-Rider, Jerry Saylor, Virginia Saylor-Brooks, Robert Saylor, Don Saylor, Janet Nelson are Alice Asher's grandchildren by her son, Arvil Asher, who is deceased. Plaintiffs Mary England and Phil Clark are grandchildren of Alice Asher by her daughter, Verlie Asher, also deceased. The complaint did not specify a particular statutory cause of action; however, the parties have agreed that the complaint should be construed as one brought under the Quiet Title Act ("QTA"), 28 U.S.C. § 2409a.

The United States removed the case to federal district court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1441(b) and § 1442(a)(1). The United States moved to dismiss, arguing that under the QTA there is no jurisdiction over disputes involving land taken by means of condemnation, or, alternatively, that the QTA's twelve-year statute of limitations had expired. The district court reached neither of those issues, instead holding that plaintiffs' claims were precluded by the final judgment in United States v. 399.02 Acres of Land.

Plaintiffs filed a motion to alter, amend or vacate, arguing that claim preclusion should not apply because not all the plaintiffs were parties to the 1992 action, and the court in that action did not conduct a full evidentiary hearing. That motion was denied. The plaintiffs now appeal to this Court.

II.

In October 2001, appellants filed a motion in this Court to strike appellee's proof brief on the grounds that it was based substantially on documents outside of the record. Appellee United States argued that it had legitimate grounds for citing documents outside of the official record, and also submitted a cross-motion to take judicial notice of those documents. The Clerk's office granted the Saylors' motion to strike the United States' brief, and referred the motion for judicial notice to the hearing panel. The United States argues that the Clerk's office lacked authority to grant the Saylors' motion because that motion was substantive rather than procedural in nature, and the Sixth Circuit rules limit the Clerk's authority to deciding procedural motions.

Because we grant the United States' motion to take judicial notice, the debate about the nature of the Clerk's order and the scope of the Clerk's authority is moot. The additional documents cited by the United States are all part of the official record in United States v. 399.02 Acres of Land. Judicial notice is appropriate because the district court below considered and referenced that official record when it found plaintiffs' claims precluded. Even if some of these documents were not officially received into evidence, we have held that the court may take judicial notice of its own record in the prior case on which the claim preclusion argument is premised. Harrington v. Vandalia-Butler Bd. of Educ., 649 F.2d 434, 441 (6th Cir.1981) (quoting Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, 394 U.S. 147, 157 n. 6, 89 S.Ct. 935, 22 L.Ed.2d 162 (1969)).

III.

We review de novo a district court's dismissal for failure to state a claim. Begala v. PNC Bank, 214 F.3d 776, 779 (6th Cir.2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 1145, 121 S.Ct. 1082, 148 L.Ed.2d 958 (2001). Claim preclusion applies where there is: "(1) a final decision on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction; (2) a subsequent action between the same parties or their `privies;' (3) an issue in the subsequent action which was litigated or should have been litigated in the prior action; and (4) an identity of the causes of action." Becherer v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 193 F.3d 415, 422 (6th Cir.1999).

Appellants make three arguments for why claim preclusion should not apply in this case. First, they argue that there was no final decision on the merits in the prior proceeding. Second, they argue that the same parties were not before the court in the prior proceeding. Third, they argue that their constitutional due process claims, brought as a separate cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, have never been decided by a prior court of competent jurisdiction.

A. Final Decision on the Merits

Appellants argue that a final decision was not made in United States v. 399.02 Acres of Land because they have since discovered new evidence supporting their claim. This is not a valid basis for dismissing the claim preclusive effect of the district court's prior final judgment on the merits of an identical cause of action. In United States v. 399.02 Acres of Land, the district court conducted a full and fair evidentiary hearing, at which at least some of the appellants were represented by counsel, and presented evidence and testimony. The Saylors also filed objections to the magistrate judge's report and recommendation prior to the district court's final ruling. The fact that appellants' new evidence might change the outcome of the case does not affect application of claim preclusion doctrine. Harrington, 649 F.2d at 440 (holding that "[a] mere showing that the second litigation, if allowed to proceed, would produce a different result" is not sufficient to exempt a case from res judicata principles).

B. Same Parties or their Privies

Only four of the ten instant plaintiffs appeared at the 1990 hearing that constituted the basis of the district court's decision in United States v. 399.02 Acres of Land. Normally, a judgment is not claim preclusive as to non-parties. Provident Tradesmens Bank & Trust Co. v. Patterson, 390 U.S. 102, 88 S.Ct. 733, 19 L.Ed.2d 936 (1968). The six absent plaintiffs are all the heirs of Arvil Asher, Alice Asher's son. Arvil Asher was not present at the 1990 hearing. Arvil's heirs claim that they were not in privity with their fellow heirs of Alice Asher and therefore United States v. 399.02 Acres of Land cannot bar their present claims against the United States.

This argument is without merit. In the context of claim preclusion, "[p]rivity... means a successor in interest to the party, one who controlled the earlier action, or one whose interests were adequately represented." Sanders Confectionery Prods., Inc. v. Heller, 973 F.2d 474, 481 (6th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1079, 113 S.Ct. 1046, 122 L.Ed.2d 355 (1993). See also Hardy v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 681 F.2d 334, 338 (5th Cir. 1982). Even if the descendants of Arvil Asher are not directly successors in interest to the parties actually present at the 1990 hearing, their interests were adequately represented. Arvil's heirs' interest in the land is based on precisely the same claim rejected on the merits by the district court in the prior action — namely, that the 1933 conveyance is invalid because Alice Asher's children were not given proper legal notice of the action adjudicating the lien against their mother's property. There is not one fact that distinguishes Arvil's heirs' claim from the claim of their aunt, uncle and cousins. Because all the appellants' interests are identical, all were adequately represented by the four...