Drevaleva v. Glazer

Background

Tatyana Evgenievna Drevaleva filed an amended complaint concerning her employment disputes with the Department of Veterans Affairs. She alleged that she was denied leave to travel to Russia for fertility treatment, was fired from the Raymond G. Murphy Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New Mexico, and later was not hired at Veterans Affairs medical centers in Minneapolis and West Los Angeles.

The amended complaint asserted 14 causes of action, including claims under the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Federal Tort Claims Act, Title VII, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Rehabilitation Act, state law, and constitutional law. The claims named the Department of Veterans Affairs, the United States, agency officials and employees, the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs medical center, and Joseph Glazer. Drevaleva proceeded without a lawyer, and her application to proceed without paying court fees had previously been granted.

Legal standard

Because Drevaleva was proceeding without paying court fees, the court was required to screen her complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2). That statute requires dismissal of claims that are frivolous or malicious, fail to state a legally sufficient claim, or seek money from a defendant immune from such relief.

The court focused on res judicata, also called claim preclusion. This doctrine prevents a party from relitigating a claim when an earlier case involved the same claim, ended in a final judgment, and involved the same parties or parties legally connected to them. The court explained that claims generally arise from the same claim when they share a common set of operative facts and could conveniently have been tried together.

Analysis

The court found that claims based on Drevaleva’s New Mexico firing duplicated claims from an earlier related proceeding. Although that earlier case had been dismissed as a sanction for misconduct rather than after a decision on the evidence, the court held that the dismissal with prejudice operated as an adjudication on the merits under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41.

The court also found that claims concerning the Minneapolis hiring decision were barred by the earlier determination that the Merit Systems Protection Board was Drevaleva’s sole avenue for relief under the Civil Service Reform Act. The court stated that, although a dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction ordinarily does not bar a claim in a forum with proper jurisdiction, the prior determination of the jurisdictional issue was binding here. Claims concerning the West Los Angeles hiring decision were likewise barred by the prior dismissal of claims arising from that same hiring decision.

The court separately addressed claims against Carla Dunkelberger and Phil Johnson, as well as the fraud claim against the United States. Those claims were based on the same allegations raised in a prior related proceeding, which had been dismissed as frivolous under § 1915. The court held that the claims were barred, or alternatively were frivolous because they improperly repeated claims previously asserted against Veterans Affairs and its officials.

Although Joseph Glazer had not been named in the earlier cases, the court held that he was in privity with the federal defendants in those cases because he was a federal employee whose official duties were involved in the Minneapolis hiring decision. The court therefore concluded that the earlier judgment also barred Drevaleva’s claims against Glazer.

Disposition

The court dismissed with prejudice the claims against the United States, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs medical center, and Secretary McDonough that related to Drevaleva’s termination or refusal to hire. It dismissed with prejudice the claims against Dunkelberger and Johnson, the fraud claim against the United States, and all claims against Glazer.

Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice under 28 U.S.C. § 1915 and without leave to amend. The court denied all pending motions as moot because the entire case had been dismissed.