Jiles v. United Parcel Service, Inc. , 413 F. App'x 173 ( 2011 )

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 10-12640 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
Non-Argument Calendar FEBRUARY 7, 2011
________________________ JOHN LEY
CLERK
D.C. Docket No. 3:08-cv-01192-HLA-MCR
LORENZO JILES,
llllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
UNITED PARCEL SERVICE, INC.,
lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
________________________
(February 7, 2011)
Before BLACK, WILSON and MARTIN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Lorenzo Jiles appeals the dismissal of his complaint against his former
employer, United Parcel Service, Inc. (“UPS”), for interference and retaliation
under the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), 29 U.S.C. § 2615. The district
court granted UPS’s motion for judgment on the pleadings after concluding that
Jiles’s FMLA claims were barred under the doctrine of res judicata by Jiles’s
previous suit against UPS alleging race discrimination and retaliatory termination.
Jiles argues that the claims presented in the prior suit, Jiles v. United Parcel
Service, Inc., Case No. 3:07-cv-01115-HLA-MCR (M.D. Fla. Jun. 24, 2009)
(“Jiles I”), affirmed, 360 F. App’x 61 (11th Cir. 2010) (unpublished), did not arise
from the same nucleus of operative fact as his FMLA claims, and that even if they
did, his FMLA claims could not have been raised before the filing of the earlier
suit. After thorough review of the record and the parties’ briefs, we affirm.
We review de novo an order granting judgment on the pleadings.
Cunningham v. District Att’ys Office for Escambia Cnty., 592 F.3d 1237, 1255
(11th Cir. 2010). “Judgment on the pleadings is proper when no issues of material
fact exist, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law based on
the substance of the pleadings and any judicially noticed facts.” Id. (quotations
and citation omitted). We accept the facts presented in the complaint as true and
view them in the light most favorable to the nonmovant. Id. Dismissal is not
appropriate unless the complaint lacks sufficient factual matter to state a facially
plausible claim for relief that allows the court to draw a reasonable inference that
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the defendant is liable for the alleged misconduct. See Bell Atlantic Corp. v.
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556, 570, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1965, 1974 (2007).
Claims are precluded by res judicata if: (1) there is a judgment in the
earlier case that was rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction; (2) the
judgment in the earlier case is on the merits; (3) both cases involve the same
parties; and (4) both cases involve the same cause of action. O’Connor v. PCA
Family Health Plan, Inc., 200 F.3d 1349, 1355 (11th Cir. 2000). Cases are
considered to involve the same claims and cause of action if they arise “out of the
same nucleus of operative fact.” Id. (quotations and citations omitted). A court
may take judicial notice of another court’s orders to recognize judicial action or
the litigation’s subject matter. In re Delta Resources, Inc., 54 F.3d 722, 725 (11th
Cir. 1995).
Jiles first argues that his FMLA claims do not arise from the same nucleus
of operative fact or involve the same factual predicates as his earlier race
discrimination and retaliatory termination claims. We disagree. In his previous
suit, Jiles asserted that he was terminated because of his race in April 2006, but
that he was reinstated after he contested that termination decision. He claimed that
he was then suspended in December 2006, and later terminated on January 17,
2007 in retaliation for his earlier complaint of race discrimination. In this case,
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Jiles claims that he was suspended in December 2006 and wrongfully terminated
on January 17, 2007 because UPS incorrectly calculated his FMLA leave. The
district court correctly concluded that “the claims in Jiles I and Jiles II involve
[UPS’s] alleged conduct leading up to [Jiles’s] January 2007 termination.” See
O’Connor, 200 F.3d at 1355 (“Because O’Connor’s FMLA claim and her other
discrimination claims all issue from a single event, namely, the termination of her
employment, we conclude res judicata bars O’Connor’s second suit.”); see also
Mpoyo v. Litton Electro-Optical Sys., 430 F.3d 985, 987 (9th Cir. 2005)
(“Because both sets of Mpoyo’s claims arise from Litton’s conduct while Mpoyo
was an employee and specifically from the events leading to his termination, his
claims relate to the same set of facts.”). Therefore Jiles’s claims “all relate to the
termination of [his] employment and should have been brought together.”
O’Connor, 200 F.3d at 1356.1
Jiles argues that he could not have brought all of his claims together
because he only learned that UPS had miscalculated his FMLA leave through a
deposition taken during discovery in Jiles I. As such, Jiles argues that the delayed
1
We also reject Jiles’s argument that res judicata should not bar his FMLA claims
because the judgment in Jiles I did not include his claim of retaliation based on his alleged
December 2006 suspension. In granting summary judgment for UPS in that case, the district
court considered Jiles’s argument “that he was placed on leave in December 2006 and ultimately
permanently terminated in January 2007 in retaliation for participating in a protected activity.”
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discovery doctrine should apply to prevent his FMLA claims from being barred by
res judicata. “The delayed discovery rule prevents a cause of action from
accruing until the plaintiff either knows or reasonably should know of the act
giving rise to the cause of action.” Trustmark Ins. Co. v. ESLU, Inc., 299 F.3d
1265, 1271 (11th Cir. 2002). In the previous case, Jiles acknowledged that he had
been told in November 2006 that his FMLA leave had expired.2 Jiles talked to his
manager about the exhaustion of his FMLA leave, but the manager did nothing in
response. But as the district court observed, Jiles “does not explain why he did not
investigate further after his manager did nothing.” The delayed discovery rule
does not save Jiles’s FMLA claims from preclusion because Jiles “was not obliged
to wait for discovery available after filing suit” before investigating his FMLA
claims, and he has “not explain[ed] why [he] did not attempt to investigate the
claims earlier.” Id. “Rather, this is a situation in which [Jiles] failed to
investigate [his] claims in a timely manner in order to present them in the first
litigation.” Id.
We conclude that Jiles’s FMLA claims are barred by res judicata, and that
the district court therefore did not err in granting UPS’s motion for judgment on
2
In his brief, Jiles admits that UPS “advised [him] that he had exhausted all available
FMLA leave” when it suspended him on December 5, 2006.
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the pleadings.
AFFIRMED.
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