Washington Court of Appeals: PLRA Dismissal of Prisoner’s Federal Suit Is Not Res Judicata Barring State Tort Claims
On March 19, 2024, the Court of Appeals of Washington, Division II, held that a state prisoner’s tort claims are not barred in state court even if federal claims arising from the same facts are dismissed in federal court; so long as dismissal was merely procedural and not based on the merits, the Court said, the claims were not barred by res judicata—the doctrine preventing courts from relitigating claims that have already been decided.
State Department of Corrections (DOC) prisoner Michael Denton filed suit pro se in federal court for the Western District of Washington in January 2018, accusing Washington State Penitentiary (WSP) officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 of violating his civil rights. By neglecting his medical and mental health treatment, he said that they left him at risk of self-harm and then punished him for his mental illness and retaliated when he filed grievances.
The district court appointed pro bono counsel from attorney Darryl Parker of Civil Rights Justice Center, PLLC, in Seattle. It then dismissed all Denton’s claims as meritless except one—that DOC failed to protect him from self-harm. But that claim was dismissed, too, when the district court found Denton failed to complete the WSP grievance process, running afoul of the requirement to exhaust administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e. Denton appealed, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal on March 30, 2023. See: Denton v. Thrasher, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 7543 (9th Cir.).
Meanwhile Parker also filed suit for Denton in state superior court for Thurston County in 2020, accusing the same Defendants of state-law torts arising from the same facts. After the federal court dismissed Denton’s case, Defendants asked the state court to do the same, arguing that the claims were barred by res judicata.
Parker countered that dismissal of Denton’s federal claims was procedural under PLRA, so it was not barred by res judicata, since the district court never adjudicated its merits. But the Superior Court disagreed and granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss. On Denton’s behalf, Parker timely appealed.
The Court of Appeals reversed the decision, agreeing that res judicata was no bar to claims whose merits were never decided. Because the federal court’s dismissal of Denton’s self-harm claim “was based entirely on exhaustion, it is not considered ‘on the merits’ and therefore did not have a res judicata effect,” the Court said. It also rejected DOC’s argument that the effect of the federal court dismissal was the same as one based on the merits since Denton was past the statutory time limit to file new claims. “[T]he question as to whether Denton has remaining administrative avenues has nothing to do with whether the district court’s judgment was a final judgment for res judicata purposes,” the Court declared.
Moreover, it allowed Denton’s other claims to proceed in state court. True they “involve impropriety in the same setting under the same set of circumstances” as those claims that the federal court dismissed; however, the Court continued, judgment in Denton’s favor on the state tort claims would not impair any of the DOC Defendants’ rights or interests established when the federal court determined “that his claims against them were too general.”
Finally the Court found no “concurrence of identity” in the causes of action that Denton raised in state and federal court because the two suits do not allege infringement of the same rights. His federal claims sought to “protect rights afforded by the constitution,” the Court explained, “whereas tort liability arises from violations of duties of care.” Just as ordinary medical malpractice does not rise to deliberate indifference that violates the Fourteenth Amendment because the plaintiff is a prisoner, “Denton’s state tort claims do not automatically imply that his constitutional rights have been violated just because he was a prisoner and the defendants were state officials.”
Accordingly, dismissal of Denton’s state tort claims was reversed and his case remanded for further proceedings. Since the superior court had also denied Denton’s request to file an amended complaint, the Court instructed it to consider that motion on remand. Given Denton’s documented mental illness, Parker is to be commended for his efforts advancing the prisoner’s claims; if they are even half-true, he has endured years of torment by his captors. See: Denton v. State, 2024 Wash. App. LEXIS 518 (Wash. Ct. App. 2024) (unpublished).