The Court Just Dismissed My Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit, So Now I'll Refile the Same Case Under the New Jersey Civil Rights Act – NOT So Fast!

The Appellate Division recently ruled that a civil rights plaintiff cannot get two bites at the same apple. In Paszkowski v. Roxbury Township Police Department, A-1169-14T1 (decided on May 25, 2016), the plaintiff brought a federal action against a public entity alleging violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“Section 1983”) and the New Jersey Civil Rights Act (“NJCRA”). The District Court granted the defense’s motion to dismiss and held that the federal complaint failed to plead facts establishing a federal constitutional violation. Specifically, the District Court held that the defendant was entitled to qualified immunity.

The District Court, however, declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s state law claims, which included the NJCRA claims. Those state law claims were dismissed without prejudice. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed.

While the federal appeal was pending, the plaintiff filed a state law-based civil complaint against the defendants in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division. In this new complaint, the plaintiff put forth the same facts that had been included in the federal complaint and the same NJCRA state law claims over which the federal district court had declined to assume jurisdiction.

The municipal defendants moved to dismiss the state court complaint pursuant to the doctrine of collateral estoppel. The Law Division granted that motion, holding that since both New Jersey law and federal law use the same standard for determining qualified immunity, the doctrine of collateral estoppel barred the state law claims. Thus, the Law Division dismissed the plaintiff’s complaint with prejudice. On appeal, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court’s ruling.

Collateral estoppel, which is also referred to as issue preclusion, bars re-litigation of any issue that was actually determined in a prior action, generally between the same parties, involving a different claim or cause of action. Collateral estoppel applies when a party can show: (1) the identical issue was decided in a prior adjudication; (2) there was a final judgment on the merits; (3) the party against whom the bar is asserted was a party or in privy with a party to the prior adjudication; and (4) the party against whom the bar is asserted had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue in question.

On the appeal in Paszkowski, the issue argued for preclusion was qualified immunity. The doctrine of qualified immunity extends to actions under both Section 1983 and the NJCRA. It is an affirmative defense that shields police officers from personal liability for civil rights violations when acting under color of law in performance of official duties.

The Appellate Division found the qualified immunity analysis to be the same under both federal and state law. Thus, because the issues were found to be identical, fully litigated on the merits in the District Court, and between the same parties, all elements of collateral estoppel applied. Therefore, the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court’s ruling that the state law claims were barred by collateral estoppel.

The takeaway is that in order for collateral estoppel to apply, the same facts and allegations that gave rise to the federal lawsuit must underlie the NJCRA claim. If the state law-based civil right at issue involves a different right upon a distinct set of facts, or deals with an “attempt” to violate that right, the state-based cause of action may still survive. The NJCRA is a dynamic statute that borrows from Section 1983, but it is meant to fill gaps and provide more civil rights protections than some other laws. That being said, I foresee more cases like this being dissected by our appellate courts, in an effort to determine the limits of collateral estoppel between federal and state civil rights cases.