Opinion
Case No. 00 C 6695.
September 25, 2002
ORDER
On October 27, 2000, plaintiff Tyrone Greer, a pro se litigant, filed this action against his former employer. His three-part amended complaint alleges that defendants Frank Horton and Board of Education of the City of Chicago ("Board") closed his teaching position on June 30, 1997 outside the time frame permitted by Illinois statute (Part I) and without the 14-day notice required under the Board's written policy (Part III). Greer also alleges that after Greer's February 19, 1998 conference concerning his union grievance, No. 97-09-073, defendant Paul Vallas "usurped the normal policy and practice of the Board" by personally ruling on the matter (Part II). (Am. Compl. ¶ 9.) Defendants move to dismiss on statute of limitations and res judicata grounds. Their argument that the present action is barred by res judicata is plainly correct, so the court expresses no opinion on the timeliness of Greer's claims.
Two prior cases filed in this district are relevant. In case number 98 C 5747, Greer alleged that the Board discriminated against him on the basis of gender when Frank Horton, the former principal of the school where Greer was employed, closed his teaching position in July 1997. A jury eventually rendered a verdict in favor of the lone defendant, the Board. See Greer v. Bd. of Educ., 267 F.3d 723 (7th Cir. 2001) (affirming verdict). In case number 99 C 7005, Greer alleged that agents of the Board retaliated against him for filing an EEOC charge of discrimination, citing, among other things, Vallas's alleged usurpation in March 1998 of the normal process with respect to grievance number 97-09-073. (Def.'s Mot. Dismiss, Ex. A ¶ 13(D).) On November 8, 2000, Judge Kocoras (the same judge who presided over the earlier case) granted the Board's motion for summary judgment. (Id. Ex. B.)
Res judicata is "designed to ensure the finality of federal judgments in order to encourage reliance on judicial decisions, bar vexatious litigation, and free courts to resolve other disputes" and prohibits a party from relitigating issues that could have been raised in an earlier action. Doe v. Allied-Signal, Inc., 985 F.2d 908, 913 (7th Cir. 1993). "For federal res judicata to apply, there must be (1) a final judgment on the merits in an earlier action; (2) an identity of the cause of action in both the earlier and the later suit; and (3) an identity of parties or privies in the two suits." Id. A jury verdict and summary judgment qualify as final judgments on the merits, so only the second and third elements are disputed.
"A claim has identity with a previously litigated matter if it emerges from the same core of operative facts as that earlier action." Brzostowski v. Laidlaw Waste Sys., Inc., 49 F.3d 337, 338-39 (7th Cir. 1995) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Although the legal elements of the procedural due process and state law claims Greer raises now are different than the elements of the discrimination and retaliation claims he pursued in the two previous cases, all of his claims derive from the same nuclei of operative fact: the closing of his teaching position in June or July of 1997 and the handling of his union grievance in February and March of 1998. The new action is therefore barred. See id.; see also Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 24 cmt.c (1982) ("That a number of different legal theories casting liability on an actor may apply to a given episode does not create multiple transactions and hence multiple claims. This remains true although the several legal theories depend on different shadings of the facts, or would emphasize different elements of the facts, or would call for different measures of liability or different kinds of relief.").
Finally, there is identity of parties or privies. Greer expressly sues Horton and Vallas in their official capacities and nothing in Greer's submissions suggests any theory under which Horton or Vallas could be held personally liable. The addition of official capacity claims does not take the present suit outside the preclusive scope of the suits brought against the Board alone. See Gray v. Lacke, 885 F.2d 399, 405 (7th Cir. 1989) (explaining that because "[s]uits against employees in their official capacities are essentially suits against the government entities for which they work . . . [,] in official-capacity suits, privity exists between government entities and their employees").
Accordingly, defendants' motion to dismiss Greer's complaint is granted.