Lumpkin v. Jordan
Court of Appeal of California
57 Cal. Rptr. 2d 303 (1996)
After Lumpkin (plaintiff), a human rights commissioner, publicly called for homosexuals to be put to death, Mayor Jordan (defendant) removed him from the commission; Lumpkin's federal § 1983 suit was rejected on summary judgment because his removal was for legitimate secular reasons, and while that federal ruling was on appeal, Lumpkin refiled a parallel state-law discrimination claim under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act. The trial court sustained the defendants' demurrer based on collateral estoppel from the federal ruling, and Lumpkin appealed.
Whether, if an issue is finally and necessarily decided as part of a federal claim, collateral estoppel bars a plaintiff from subsequently bringing a state law claim based on the same issue.