Waldman v. Village of Kiryas Joel, et al.
| Decision Date | 01 August 1999 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 99-7830 |
| Citation | 207 F.3d 105 |
| Parties | (2nd Cir. 2000) JOSEPH WALDMAN; Plaintiff-Appellant; v. VILLAGE OF KIRYAS JOEL; ABRAHAM WIEDER; JACOB MITTELMAN; SOLOMON WERTZBERGER; YUDEL KAHAN; MENDEL SCHWIMMER; GEDALYE SZEGEDIN, in their official and individual capacities; Defendants-Appellees; MAYER HIRSCH; KIRYAS JOEL HOUSING AUTHORITY; MOSES NEUMAN, in his official and individual capacity; VAAD HAKIRYAH, of Kiryas Joel, Inc.; TOWN OF MONROE; ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS; ALEXANDER F. TREDWELL, Secretary of State, State of New York; Defendants |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Plaintiff-appellant, a village resident and a member of a dissident religious group, appeals from the district court's dismissal of his action to dissolve the village. The district court found the suit to be barred by res judicata. We affirm.
MICHAEL H. SUSSMAN, Goshen, N.Y. (Stephen Bergstein, Law Offices of Michael H. Sussman, on the brief), for Plaintiff-Appellant.
GERALD A. NOVACK, New York, N.Y. (Wendy E.D. Smith, Sean R. Sullivan, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP, Andrew S. Fisher, Fisher, Fisher & Berger, on the
brief), for Defendants-Appellees Village and Szegedin.
Dennis E.A. Lynch, Nyack, N.Y. (Dorfman, Lynch & Knoebel, on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees Wider, Mittelman, Wertzberger, Kahan, and Schwimmer.
Before: WINTER, Chief Judge, JACOBS, and CALABRESI, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff-appellant Joseph Waldman, a resident of the Village of Kiryas Joel ("Village" or "Kiryas Joel"), brought this suit accusing the Village of excessive entanglement with religion and seeking its dissolution. In a thorough opinion, the district court (Barrington D. Parker, Jr., Judge) concluded that Waldman's suit against defendants-appellees the Village and its officials was barred by res judicata as a result of a prior suit against the Village in which Waldman was a named plaintiff. See Waldman v. Village of Kiryas Joel, 39 F. Supp. 2d 370, 383 (S.D.N.Y. 1999). The district court held that, because this claim "arise[s] out of the same nucleus of operative facts" as the earlier suit and should have been brought together with the prior action, Waldman is currently barred from seeking the relief he now requests. Id. at 379. We affirm.
This case derives from an internal schism within the Hasidic Jewish community that makes up the bulk of Kiryas Joel. Waldman, a dissident within that religious community, accuses the Village of excessive entanglement with religion, arguing that the Village government is little more than an extension of the Congregation Yetev Lev ("Congregation"), the dominant religious body in the Village. The behavior Waldman alleges in his complaint is deeply troubling in that, if true, it describes a town in which public institutions are routinely being used as instruments of the dominant religious group and in which members of dissident groups are constantly subjected to threats and discrimination at the hands of their local government.
The present lawsuit does not, however, come to us without baggage. Waldman has been involved in two prior suits against the Village. In the first, filed in October 1995, Khal Charidim Kiryas Joel v. Village of Kiryas Joel, No. 95 Civ. 8378 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 10, 1997) (Rakoff, J.) ("Khal Charidim"), Waldman's brother, two other individuals, and Khal Charidim, a group in which Waldman played a leadership role, sued the Village claiming discrimination in the enforcement of the zoning code. In Khal Charidim, a group of dissidents asserted that they had sought to use a building owned by one of the plaintiffs for religious services, and that the Village had fined the building's owner more than $25,000 for violating various zoning provisions that had never before been enforced in Kiryas Joel. The dissidents' suit alleged denials of equal protection, free exercise, and freedom of assembly under the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution. The second suit was filed in January 1997 by Waldman, the Committee for the Well-Being of Kiryas Joel (a group led by Waldman), and two other individuals. That suit, Waldman v. Village of Kiryas Joel, No. 97 Civ. 74 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 9, 1997) (Rakoff, J.) ("Waldman I"), claimed violations of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Fair Housing Act as a result of discrimination by the Village in the provision of public housing.
Khal Charidim went to trial in March 1997. On the fifth day of the trial, the parties agreed to settle. One of the conditions of the settlement, however, was the dismissal with prejudice of Waldman I. Waldman agreed to the terms of the Khal Charidim settlement and both suits came to an end. Khal Charidim was terminated, with the district court exercising continuing jurisdiction to enforce the settlement terms, and Waldman I was dismissed with prejudice.
Waldman filed the instant suit in the Southern District of New York in October 1997. In it he sought a total dissolution of the Village. He also asked for damages and for an injunction against the location of the Village polling place on the property of the Congregation. The defendants moved for dismissal pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c) on the basis of res judicata. The district court granted that motion in part, finding that Khal Charidim and Waldman I each precluded Waldman from bringing his claim for the dissolution of the Village. The court, however, ultimately granted Waldman a permanent injunction against the location of the polling place for the Village on the property of the Congregation. Finally, the court dismissed without prejudice Waldman's action for damages (with the understanding that, if we reversed the district court on the issue of res judicata, the claim for damages would be reinstated, but that, if we affirmed, the dismissal without prejudice would be converted into dismissal with prejudice). On appeal, the only issue before us is whether Waldman's claim seeking the dissolution of the Village is barred by res judicata.
"Res judicata . . . makes a final, valid judgment conclusive on the parties, and those in privity with them, as to all matters, fact and law, [that] were or should have been adjudicated in the proceeding." 1B James Wm. Moore , Moore's Federal Practice 0.405[1], at III-7 (2d ed. 1996) (footnotes omitted) ("Moore's Federal Practice"). The district court held that Waldman should have brought this claim for the dissolution of the Village as part of the prior actions. It based this conclusion upon the preclusive effects of both Khal Charidim and Waldman I. In doing this, it specifically noted that Waldman I was, by itself, sufficient to bar Waldman's dissolution claim. See Waldman, 39 F. Supp. 2d at 381. Because we agree with the district court's assessment of Waldman I, we do not reach any of the issues concerning the possible preclusive effect of Khal Charidim.1
Waldman raises essentially two arguments against the position that his claim for dissolution of the Village should have been brought with Waldman I. First, he asserts that the current suit does not share a common nucleus of operative facts with the prior one. Second, he alleges that it would have been premature to request the dissolution of the Village in Waldman I in light of the facts that existed at the time.
In deciding whether a suit is barred by res judicata, "[i]t must first be determined that the second suit involves the same 'claim' - or 'nucleus of operative fact' - as the first suit." Interoceanica Corp. v. Sound Pilots, Inc., 107 F.3d 86, 90 (2d Cir. 1997) ). In Interoceanica, we identified three indicia as being crucial to this determination. "To ascertain whether two actions spring from the same 'transaction' or 'claim,' we look to whether the underlying facts are 'related in time, space, origin, or motivation, whether they form a convenient trial unit, and whether their treatment as a unit conforms to the parties' expectations . . . .'" Id. (quoting Restatement (Second) of Judgments 24(2) (1982)).
The district court found that Waldman's claim seeking the dissolution of the Village was based upon the same set of facts -- sufficiently related in time, space, origin, or motivation -- as Waldman I. It also concluded that Waldman's contentions that the Village "by its very existence" violates the Establishment Clause would have formed a convenient trial unit with the earlier action. Waldman argues that the district court erred, and that his present claim is based upon facts completely different from those upon which he relied in Waldman I. We agree with the district court.
In this case, Waldman asserts that the Village "was constituted and operates primarily to benefit a single religious sect." To support this statement, he points to a variety of events, almost all of which had occurred before the filing of Waldman I. Specifically, he alleges the following:
(1) The Village was created in 1977 to include only Satmar Hasidic residents.
(2) There has been a substantial overlap between the leadership in the Village and the Congregation.
(3) Dissidents have been expelled from the Congregation.
(4) Dissidents' children have been expelled from the parochial schools in the Village.
(5) Since 1989, prior approval by the Congregation has been required before new residents have been allowed to move into Kiryas Joel.
(6) Since 1989, a contribution to the Congregation has been required before the Village will issue any building permits.
(7) Dissidents have been denied access to public housing.
(8) Since 1989, the Village has allowed the Congregation to interfere with dissidents' voting rights (e....
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