Trufant v. Air Force , 578 F. App'x 982 ( 2014 )


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  •        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
    United States Court of Appeals
    for the Federal Circuit
    ______________________
    CAROL A. TRUFANT,
    Petitioner,
    v.
    DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE,
    Respondent.
    ______________________
    2013-3168
    ______________________
    Petition for review of the Merit Systems Protection
    Board in No. DC0752920492-C-3.
    ______________________
    Decided: September 16, 2014
    ______________________
    CAROL A. TRUFANT, of Oakland, California, pro se.
    DOUGLAS G. EDELSCHICK, Trial Attorney, Commercial
    Litigation Branch, Civil Division, United States Depart-
    ment of Justice, of Washington, DC, for respondent. With
    him on the brief were STUART F. DELERY, Assistant Attor-
    ney General, BRYANT G. SNEE, Acting Director, and BRIAN
    A. MIZOGUCHI, Assistant Director.
    ______________________
    Before CHEN, MAYER, and LINN, Circuit Judges.
    2                                     TRUFANT   v. AIR FORCE
    PER CURIAM.
    Carol A. Trufant appeals a final order of the Merit
    Systems Protection Board (“board”) dismissing her appeal
    as barred by res judicata. See Trufant v. Dep’t of the Air
    Force, No. DC0752920492-C-3, 2013 MSPB LEXIS 3468
    (MSPB June 28, 2013). We affirm.
    BACKGROUND
    This is Trufant’s third appeal to this court. In 1992,
    Trufant was removed from her position as a clinical
    psychologist with the Air Force. After she appealed her
    removal to the board, the parties entered into a settle-
    ment agreement and the board subsequently dismissed
    her appeal with prejudice. See Trufant v. Dep’t of the Air
    Force, No. 93-3516, 
    1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 830
    , at *3 (Fed.
    Cir. Jan. 12, 1994) (“Trufant I”).
    In 1993, Trufant filed a petition for enforcement with
    the board, arguing that the settlement agreement was
    invalid. The board dismissed her petition and we af-
    firmed, concluding that her allegations were not “support-
    ed by credible evidence,” 
    id. at *6,
    and that her arguments
    were “wanting, self-serving, and frivolous,” 
    id. at *8.
         In April 2000, Trufant appealed to the board again,
    arguing that the Air Force was required by the terms of
    the settlement agreement to remove certain documents
    from her personnel file. The board dismissed her appeal
    and this court affirmed, stating that “[n]ot only does Ms.
    Trufant seek to relitigate matters previously decided, she
    also seeks in excess of one million dollars in damages,
    which is certainly frivolous.” Trufant v. Dep’t of the Air
    Force, 20 Fed. App’x 887, 889 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (“Trufant
    II”).
    In July 2012, Trufant filed a third petition for en-
    forcement with the board. She argued that the Air Force
    breached the settlement agreement by failing to remove
    documents from her personnel file. Specifically, she
    TRUFANT   v. AIR FORCE                                   3
    asserted that the Air Force should remove a performance
    evaluation from her personnel file and that “the rest of
    the material in that little beige flat file [should] be de-
    stroyed.” On June 28, 2013, the board affirmed an admin-
    istrative judge’s initial decision dismissing Trufant’s
    petition for enforcement as barred by res judicata.
    DISCUSSION
    The doctrine of res judicata serves to “relieve parties
    of the cost and vexation of multiple lawsuits, conserve
    judicial resources, and, by preventing inconsistent deci-
    sions, encourage reliance on adjudication.”       Allen v.
    McCurry, 
    449 U.S. 90
    , 94 (1980). Whether a claim is
    barred by res judicata is a question of law which we
    review de novo. Stearn v. Dep’t of the Navy, 
    280 F.3d 1376
    , 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2002); United Techs. Corp. v. Chro-
    malloy Gas Turbine Corp., 
    189 F.3d 1338
    , 1342-43 (Fed.
    Cir. 1999).
    On appeal, Trufant argues that “res judicata is over-
    ridden here” and that the board therefore erred in dis-
    missing her petition for enforcement. We disagree. “A
    final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the
    parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were
    or could have been raised in that action.” Federated Dep’t
    Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 
    452 U.S. 394
    , 398 (1981); see also
    Ford-Clifton v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, 
    661 F.3d 655
    ,
    660 (Fed. Cir. 2011); Carson v. Dep’t of Energy, 
    398 F.3d 1369
    , 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2005). Res judicata thus applies
    “not only as to every matter which was offered and re-
    ceived to sustain or defeat [a] claim or demand, but as to
    any other admissible matter which might have been
    offered for that purpose.” Salazar v. Buono, 
    559 U.S. 700
    ,
    713 (2010) (citations and internal quotation marks omit-
    ted); see Migra v. Warren City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 
    465 U.S. 75
    , 77 n.1 (1984) (“Claim preclusion refers to the
    effect of a judgment in foreclosing litigation of a matter
    4                                     TRUFANT   v. AIR FORCE
    that never has been litigated, because of a determination
    that it should have been advanced in an earlier suit.”).
    In her current appeal, Trufant challenges the validity
    of the 1992 settlement agreement with the Air Force and
    seeks the removal of certain documents from her person-
    nel file, arguing that those documents have prevented her
    from “gaining another federal job.” These claims are
    barred by res judicata because they were, or should have
    been, litigated in prior proceedings. See 
    Carson, 398 F.3d at 1375
    (concluding that the claims raised in an employ-
    ee’s second petition for enforcement were barred by res
    judicata since he “could have raised [his] retroactive
    reassignment and nonselection claims” in earlier proceed-
    ings before the board). Trufant has previously been
    afforded a full and fair opportunity to litigate issues
    surrounding the validity of the 1992 settlement agree-
    ment and the scope of the Air Force’s obligation to remove
    documents from her personnel file. See Trufant II, 20
    Fed. App’x at 889 (emphatically rejecting Trufant’s alle-
    gations that the Air Force was required to remove addi-
    tional documents from her personnel file); Trufant I, 
    1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 830
    , at *6-8 (affirming a board decision
    rejecting Trufant’s challenges to the 1992 settlement
    agreement).
    In both of her previous appeals to this court, we con-
    cluded that the claims asserted by Trufant were frivolous.
    See Trufant II, 20 Fed. App’x at 889; Trufant I, 1994 U.S.
    App. LEXIS 830, at *8. The claims here are likewise
    wholly without merit, advanced in an improper effort to
    revisit issues that were conclusively resolved in previous
    litigation. Trufant is reminded that she is under a con-
    tinuing obligation to seek permission from this court
    before bringing any future appeals, see Trufant II, 20 Fed.
    App’x at 889, and is advised that any future filing which
    we deem frivolous may result in the imposition of mone-
    tary sanctions.
    TRUFANT   v. AIR FORCE              5
    AFFIRMED