Wozniak v. DuPage County, 87-1030

• Decision Date: 21 April 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-1030,87-1030
• Citation: 845 F.2d 677
• Parties: Roger B. WOZNIAK and Shirley M. Wozniak, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. COUNTY OF DuPAGE, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 677

845 F.2d 677

Roger B. WOZNIAK and Shirley M. Wozniak, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. COUNTY OF DuPAGE, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 87-1030.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Nov. 6, 1987.

Decided April 21, 1988.

Heidi H. Katz, Fawell, James & Brooks, Naperville, Ill., for plaintiffs-appellants.

James R. Schirott, James G. Sotos and Charles E. Hervas, Schirott & Assoc., P.C., Itasca, Ill., for defendants-appellees.

Before POSNER and COFFEY, Circuit Judges, and NOLAND, Senior District Judge. ^*

COFFEY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs-appellants Roger and Shirley Wozniak appeal from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants. The court ruled that the Wozniaks were precluded from bringing their Section 1983 claim finding it was barred by res judicata and collateral estoppel principles. We affirm.

I.

In July of 1979, Roger and Shirley Wozniak contracted to purchase a two-acre parcel of land on Grace Street near the Village of Lombard in unincorporated DuPage County. The Wozniaks intended to build a home on a site zoned for single-family residences.

On July 27, 1979, Roger approached the DuPage County Planning and Zoning Department to inquire about the procedures for obtaining a building permit. Thomas Miller, a department employee, checked his records and told Roger that the lot was suitable for building subject to an acceptable percolation test for a septic system and a satisfactory grading and drainage plan. The Wozniaks completed the percolation test and submitted the required grading and drafting plans to the DuPage County Building Department to obtain an excavation permit.

On August 31, 1979, the Wozniaks received a copy of a letter from DuPage County Department of Public Works Drainage Engineer Homer Branch to David Van Vleck, the Zoning Administrator within the DuPage County Department of Public Works, indicating that the grading and drainage plan had been rejected because the Wozniaks' lot was in a flood plain or wetland. During the next month, the Wozniaks submitted additional engineering studies and met at various times with Branch, Van Vleck, and DuPage County Department of Public Works Superintendent David Loveland, in an effort to demonstrate that the property was not in a flood plain or wetland area and thus met all the County's requirements for the issuance of a permit. Nevertheless, the Department of Public Works reiterated its position to the Zoning and Planning Department in a letter signed by Branch recommending the denial of a permit stating that the lot was susceptible to flooding. The Zoning and Planning Department formally denied the excavation permit on November 2, 1979, and on review, the County's Planning and Zoning Committee affirmed the department's denial of the permit.

On December 12, 1979, Roger filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in DuPage County Circuit Court against the DuPage County Board of Supervisors, the DuPage County Zoning and Planning Department, and David Van Vleck seeking issuance of the excavation permit. The petition alleged that the failure of the defendant Van Vleck to issue the excavation permit was arbitrary, capricious, and without legal basis as the property was located neither in a flood plain nor a wetland as those terms are defined in the DuPage County zoning ordinance. The petition stated that the "exercise of power by the defendants has deprived the plaintiff of his property without due process of law in violation of his constitutional guarantee ... under the 5th and 14th amendments of the Constitution of the United States." Although the petition alleged that the defendants' refusal to issue the excavation permit had caused Roger to suffer great financial hardship, the sole relief requested was a declaration that Roger had a right to issuance of the permit and an order directing the defendants to issue the permit.

Following a trial on the merits, Circuit Court Judge William Black issued the following letter opinion:

"From the evidence and exhibits presented in open court, I make the following findings of fact:

1. that the only reason for the denial of the plaintiff's excavation and fill permit was Mr. Branch's conclusion that the subject property was in the flood plain based upon maps, site inspection, and complaints from the people in the area.

2. that the plaintiff's subject property is not within the flood plain as it is defined in the Zoning Ordinance (J-1(a) through (g) [ ) ].

3. that the plaintiffs exhausted their procedural administrative remedies by proceeding before the Planning, Building and Zoning committee on November 19, 1979.

That based upon the foregoing it is the Court's conclusion that the defendants have abused their discretion in not issuing the permit to the plaintiff and the writ of mandamus should issue to compel them to do so."

Pursuant to Judge Black's order, the Wozniaks again demanded that the building permit be issued on April 10, 1980 and were again refused. The permit was issued in May 1980.

The Wozniaks filed suit in federal court on November 2, 1982, naming as defendants the County of DuPage and its zoning department, Van Vleck, Branch, Loveland, and Miller, in addition to the Village of Lombard and its Planning Director Thomas Taylor. In their complaint, the Wozniaks allege that during August and September of 1979, while they were attempting to obtain the excavation permit from the County officials, those officials (namely Miller) informed the Village of Lombard officials (namely Taylor) of the Wozniaks' plans to build a home on the lot. According to the Wozniaks, Lombard officials had adopted a long-range plan to acquire additional land near Grace Street several years earlier in order to extend Grace Street through to Roosevelt Road, and the acquisition of a parcel of the Wozniaks' land was essential to those plans.

The Wozniaks claimed that after Taylor learned of their plans, he and other unnamed Lombard officials, pursuant to a pattern and practice established among the County officials, instructed other County Department Heads "to take any action they could to prevent plaintiffs from building on the subject property, or otherwise attempted to induce plaintiffs to deed, transfer or otherwise convey forty (40) feet of the subject property for use as a potential thorough fare [sic] even though Lombard had no present use of the land." The complaint alleges that these actions constituted a deprivation of property without due process and requests monetary damages. The complaint also includes two pendent state law counts alleging intentional infliction of mental distress.

The district court, relying on this court's decision in Hagee v. City of Evanston, 729 F.2d 510 (7th Cir.1984), granted summary judgment in favor of DuPage County and the individual defendants associated with the County (Van Vleck, Loveland, Branch, and Miller) on the grounds that the earlier mandamus suit barred the second suit by operation of res judicata. ¹ The court also granted summary judgment in favor of the Village of Lombard and Taylor based on collateral estoppel and dismissed the pendent state claim for want of jurisdiction.

II.

On appeal, the Wozniaks challenge the district court's conclusion that their Section 1983 claim against DuPage County and its officials is barred under the doctrine of res judicata. Under this doctrine, parties or their privies are barred from litigating not only matters that were in fact raised and decided in an earlier suit involving the same parties, but also all other matters that could have been raised in the earlier suit. Smith v. City of Chicago, 820 F.2d 916, 917 (7th Cir.1987). Res judicata is designed to ensure the finality of judicial decisions because it "encourages reliance on judicial decisions, bars vexatious litigation, and frees the courts to resolve other disputes." Brown v. Felsen, 442 U.S. 127, 131, 99 S.Ct. 2205, 2209, 60 L.Ed.2d 767 (1979).

The Wozniaks seek to avoid the application of this time-honored rule of law to their claim against DuPage County and its officials primarily by arguing that under the Illinois law of res judicata, their state and federal suits involve different causes of action. The Wozniaks correctly point out that under the full faith and credit statute, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1738, ² this court must apply the res judicata law of Illinois in determining the preclusive effect of a judgment rendered by an Illinois court. In Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 101 S.Ct. 411, 66 L.Ed.2d 308 (1980), the Supreme Court stated, "Congress has specifically required all federal courts to give preclusive effect to state-court judgments whenever the courts of the State from which the judgment emerged would do so." Id. at 96, 101 S.Ct. at 415. Thus, we must give the decision in the Wozniaks' state court suit the same preclusive effect--no more, no less--as would the Illinois courts. See Migra v. Warren City School District Board of Education, 465 U.S. 75, 104 S.Ct. 892, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984).

In Hagee v. City of Evanston, 729 F.2d 510 (7th Cir.1984), this court examined the Illinois law of res judicata in a fact situation strikingly similar to the one at hand. In Hagee, the plaintiffs brought suit in Cook County Circuit Court seeking to enjoin the city from interfering with the completion of the plaintiffs' construction project by revoking their building permit, and the court granted injunctive relief. Thereafter, the plaintiffs filed a Section 1983 action for damages in federal court, claiming the permit revocation deprived them of property without due process and constituted a taking in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

In analyzing the preclusive effect of an Illinois state court judgment as determined under res judicata principles as utilized in the Illinois courts, this court found that the Illinois cases fell into two basic groups: the "proof" approach, which focuses on the nature of the evidence...