Margarita Serna v. Eric Holder, Jr. , 559 F. App'x 234 ( 2014 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 13-1424
MARGARITA V. SERNA,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
and
LINDA I. VALERINO; DORA M. ALVARADO; JEFFREY L. BOHN; TAM M.
WYATT,
Plaintiffs,
v.
ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., in his official capacity as United
States Attorney General,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Gerald Bruce Lee, District
Judge. (1:12-cv-00712-GBL-JFA)
Argued: January 29, 2014 Decided: March 6, 2014
Before WILKINSON, GREGORY, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Andrew Charles Simpson, ANDREW C. SIMPSON, P.C.,
Christiansted, Virgin Islands, for Appellant. Antonia Marie
Konkoly, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria,
Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: D.Z. Kaufman, KAUFMAN LAW
GROUP, PLLC, Vienna, Virginia, for Appellant. Kathleen M.
Kahoe, Acting United States Attorney, R. Joseph Sher, Deputy
Chief, Civil Division, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY,
Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
A year after a partial dismissal order in her first Title
VII suit, Margarita Serna filed another one -- alleging similar
acts of wrongdoing, encompassing roughly the same time period,
and advancing related legal theories. The district court
dismissed the suit, holding that its claims were precluded by
the final merits judgment in the first case. We now affirm.
I.
Margarita Serna is a Deputy United States Marshal with the
U.S. Marshals Service (USMS). In 2005, Serna filed an Equal
Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint against the USMS,
alleging discrimination. She filed additional complaints in
2005, 2007, and 2009, alleging various forms of discrimination,
a hostile work environment, and retaliation.
In December 2009, Serna filed her first lawsuit, alleging
that the USMS violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
by retaliating against her for submitting EEO complaints. She
amended the complaint in August 2010. The complaint had a broad
scope, alleging discrimination and a hostile work environment,
as well as numerous acts of retaliation in the several years
following Serna’s 2005 and 2007 EEO complaints.
In May 2011, the district court awarded the government
summary judgment on Serna’s retaliation claims. In July 2011,
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Serna and the government signed a settlement agreement on her
remaining claims. The agreement provided that Serna “agrees to
withdraw and quit for all time any and all claims, demands[,
etc.] . . . that were filed in this case or could have been
filed against the Attorney General . . . and further agrees to
waive, withdraw, and/or quit any and all claims, demands[,
etc.] . . . against the Attorney General . . . arising out of
transactions, occurrences or events which were, or could have
been, alleged or litigated in this case.” J.A. 59-60. However,
the agreement provided that it did “not affect [Serna’s]
participation as a plaintiff in the action captioned Linda I.
Valerino[] et[] al. v. Eric H. Holder, Jr.” J.A. 60.
The Valerino class action was brought by Serna and four
other USMS employees while Serna’s first lawsuit was pending.
The Valerino suit proceeded to discovery on allegations that the
USMS merit-selection process allowed managers to discriminate
against employees on the basis of gender and retaliate against
them if they filed EEO complaints. Serna was both an individual
plaintiff and a proposed class representative. In addition to
class-wide claims, Serna made individual allegations of
discrimination and retaliation. The district court ultimately
denied class certification and granted the government’s motion
for judgment on the pleadings. It directed each Valerino
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plaintiff to file an individual complaint containing the
plaintiff’s individual claims within 21 days.
Serna timely filed her amended complaint in this case, her
second individual lawsuit, in July 2012. The complaint in the
second lawsuit was based on alleged retaliation against Serna in
the USMS merit-selection system after Serna’s 2005 and later EEO
complaints, including in the 2009-2010 timeframe not explicitly
addressed by the amended complaint in the first lawsuit.
Specifically, Serna alleged: (1) disparate treatment, (2)
disparate impact, (3) a denial of a temporary duty assignment to
the USMS internal-affairs division, (4) a denial of a permanent
promotion to be Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal for the District of
Hawaii, and (5) a denial of promotion to Investigator in the
USMS Office of Inspections.
The government moved to dismiss the case on several
grounds, including that the settlement agreement in the first
lawsuit precluded the second lawsuit. The parties held oral
argument, after which the government, in a sur-reply, argued
that Serna was also barred from bringing the second lawsuit by
the final summary-judgment order dismissing her retaliation
claims in the first suit. The district court agreed that
Serna’s claims were independently barred by the final judgment
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as well as the settlement agreement in the first lawsuit. 1 Serna
now appeals.
II.
Under the doctrine of claim preclusion (often referred to
as res judicata), “a prior judgment bars the relitigation of
claims that were raised or could have been raised in the prior
litigation.” Pittston Co. v. United States, 199 F.3d 694, 704
(4th Cir. 1999). Claim preclusion serves a variety of purposes.
It protects litigants against repetitive litigation, and it
conserves judicial resources. See Laurel Sand & Gravel, Inc. v.
Wilson, 519 F.3d 156, 161-62 (4th Cir. 2008). More broadly, it
increases confidence in the judicial system by avoiding
inconsistent results and ensuring that private disputes have
final, settled outcomes. 18 Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal
Practice and Procedure § 4403, at 23-24, 26-27 (2d ed. 2002).
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Serna complains that the district court erred in
considering an argument raised by the government in a sur-reply
and independently taking judicial notice of the record in the
first lawsuit. However, Serna has had the opportunity to fully
brief this court on the relevant issues. Thus, assuming
arguendo that the lower court procedurally erred in how it
addressed the first lawsuit’s claim-preclusive effects, remand
on that ground would be unnecessary.
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A prior claim precludes a later one if three conditions are
satisfied:
1) the prior judgment was final and on the merits, and
rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction in
accordance with the requirements of due process; 2)
the parties are identical, or in privity, in the two
actions; and, 3) the claims in the second matter are
based upon the same cause of action involved in the
earlier proceeding.
Pittston, 199 F.3d at 704 (quoting In re Varat Enters., Inc., 81
F.3d 1310, 1315 (4th Cir. 1996)) (internal quotation marks
omitted). We review the district court’s application of claim
preclusion de novo. Pueschel v. United States, 369 F.3d 345,
354 (4th Cir. 2004).
Here, the first two elements of claim preclusion are
plainly satisfied. No one disputes that the first lawsuit ended
with a final judgment on the merits. The district court granted
summary judgment to the government because no genuine issue of
material fact existed as to the merits of Serna’s Title VII
retaliation claims. In addition, the parties’ voluntary
dismissal with prejudice following the settlement agreement “is
a valid, final judgment on the merits,” Kenny v. Quigg, 820 F.2d
665, 669 (4th Cir. 1987), and thus has potential claim-
preclusive effect to the extent intended by the parties, see
United States ex rel. May v. Purdue Pharma L.P., 737 F.3d 908,
913-14 (4th Cir. 2013). As to the identity of the parties, both
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lawsuits involved Serna and the Attorney General as plaintiff
and defendant, respectively.
Only the third element -– whether the causes of action are
identical -- is thus at issue. This inquiry turns on “whether
the claim presented in the new litigation ‘arises out of the
same transaction or series of transactions as the claim resolved
by the prior judgment.’” Pittston, 199 F.3d 694 at 704 (quoting
Harnett v. Billman, 800 F.2d 1308, 1313 (4th Cir. 1986)). “The
expression ‘transaction’ in the claim preclusion context
‘connotes a natural grouping or common nucleus of operative
facts.’” Id. (quoting Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 24
cmt. b (1982)). Determining whether claims are based on the
same cause of action is a fact-bound and practical task, and
“[a]mong the factors to be considered . . . ‘are [the claims’]
relatedness in time, space, origin, or motivation, and whether,
taken together, they form a convenient unit for trial
purposes.’” Id. (quoting Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 24
cmt. b.).
Of particular importance to this case, we focus on the
“core of operative facts” for the plaintiff’s claims and causes
of actions, not the legal labels attached to them, when applying
the transactional approach to claim preclusion. Pueschel, 369
F.3d at 355 (quoting In re Varat, 81 F.3d at 1316) (internal
quotation marks omitted). “Were we to focus on the claims
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asserted in each suit, we would allow parties to frustrate the
goals of [claim preclusion] through artful pleading and claim
splitting given that ‘[a] single cause of action can manifest
itself into an outpouring of different claims, based variously
on federal statutes, state statutes, and the common law.’” Id.
(quoting Kale v. Combined Ins. Co. of Am., 924 F.2d 1161, 1166
(1st Cir. 1991)).
For several reasons, we are persuaded that Serna’s two
lawsuits were based on the same cause of action. First, they
were similar in scope and subject matter. Both suits concerned
the same type of wrongdoing: employment discrimination. Both
alleged the same category of adverse-employment action:
retaliation after the filing of EEO complaints. Both described
similar injuries: denial of promotion, transfer, and temporary
duty assignment. And both involved the 2005-2008 period during
which much of the alleged retaliation occurred.
Second, the language of the amended complaint in the first
lawsuit encompassed, at least in part, Serna’s allegations in
her second suit. Serna broadly alleged retaliation “designed to
punish [her] for seeking redress for the violation of her civil
rights.” J.A. 148. She repeatedly characterized the list of
adverse employment actions against her as “without limitation.”
J.A. 137, 139. The injuries Serna identified as a result of the
retaliations included “lost promotions . . . and future lost
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promotions,” J.A. 148, and the wrongdoing she described was not
limited to her immediate supervisors, but rather extended to
USMS management practices more broadly.
Given that one of the purposes of claim preclusion is to
encourage plaintiffs to bring all related claims in the same
lawsuit, it is relevant to our inquiry that Serna could have
brought in her first lawsuit all the claims she alleged in her
second. As the district court found, all of the adverse
employment actions Serna alleged in her second lawsuit had
likely come to pass prior to the filing of the amended complaint
in her first lawsuit in August 2010, and certainly before she
and the government voluntarily dismissed the case in August
2011. Although Serna protests that, prior to discovery in the
Valerino case and the outcome of her Freedom of Information Act
requests, she did not have the information necessary to support
the allegations in the second lawsuit, her lack of knowledge of
a potential claim does not determine the claim-preclusion
inquiry; what matters is that the claim itself existed at the
time of the first lawsuit. See Harnett, 800 F.2d at 1313; see
also Keith v. Aldridge, 900 F.2d 736, 740 n.5 (4th Cir. 1990)
(“For [claim preclusion] purposes, . . . it is the existence of
the claim, not awareness of it, that controls.”). In addition,
although Serna argues that confidentiality issues in the first
lawsuit made it impracticable to include her later claims, she
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never attempted to bring those claims in the earlier suit and
test whether they could not in fact be litigated there.
To be sure, the two complaints do not literally allege the
exact same thing. Serna is correct that the “gist” of her first
lawsuit was the conduct of her immediate supervisors, Br. of
Appellant at 12, whereas the second lawsuit alleged systemic
problems with the USMS’s merit-selection process. And while the
language of the amended complaint in the first suit was limited
to that of individual Title VII violations, the complaint in the
second suit described statistical disparities in treatment and
impact, as well as patterns and practices of retaliatory
activity. As explained above, however, the legal labels used in
the complaints do not govern the claim-preclusion inquiry; what
matters is that the causes of action in the two lawsuits were
the same. Thus, whatever differences of emphasis may exist
between the two lawsuits do not suffice to defeat claim
preclusion, which is intended to prevent the sort of dribbling
of claims from earlier lawsuits to later ones that occurred
here.
Finally, there is the issue of the settlement agreement,
which, as noted above, has claim-preclusive effect to the extent
contemplated by the terms of the agreement. Serna and the
government take markedly different views of the agreement’s
scope. The government points to the language that precludes
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“any and all claims, demands[, etc.] . . . against the Attorney
General . . . arising out of transactions, occurrences or events
which were, or could have been, alleged or litigated in this
case.” Serna, by contrast, notes that the agreement explicitly
does “not affect [Serna’]s participation as a plaintiff in the
action captioned Linda I. Valerino[] et[] al. v. Eric H. Holder
Jr.” Serna argues that the claims in her second lawsuit were
simply the individual claims she raised as a proposed class
representative in the Valerino class action and that, since her
individual claims were necessary for her to participate as a
class representative, the settlement agreement could not have
been intended to preclude those claims.
While a sufficiently clear agreement between the parties
could have operated as a waiver of any defense of claim
preclusion arising out of the first lawsuit, the intention of
the parties in executing this particular settlement agreement is
too murky. Thus, the ordinary principles of claim preclusion
apply, and the affirmative defense remained one that the
defendant was able to assert successfully. See Keith, 900 F.2d
at 741 (“If the parties intended to foreclose through agreement
litigation of a claim, assertion of that claim in a later suit,
whether or not formally presented in the earlier action, is
precluded. Claim preclusion will not apply, however, if the
parties intended to settle only one part of a single claim and
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intended to leave another part open for future litigation.”)
(citation omitted).
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that Serna’s second
lawsuit was barred by the claim-preclusive effects of her first
one. The district court’s judgment is therefore affirmed.
AFFIRMED
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