Terris v. County of Santa Barbara CA2/6 ( 2023 )

Filed 8/14/23 Terris v. County of Santa Barbara CA2/6
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not
certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has
not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION SIX
SHAWN TERRIS, 2d Civ. No. B320665
(Super. Ct. No. 21CV03350)
Plaintiff and Appellant, (Santa Barbara County)
v.
COUNTY OF SANTA
BARBARA,
Defendant and Respondent.
Shawn Terris appeals a judgment following the sustaining
of a demurrer without leave to amend on her petition for writ of
mandate against the County of Santa Barbara (County). She is
challenging the County’s termination of her employment. Terris
had filed a prior wrongful termination action against the County.
(Terris v. County of Santa Barbara (2018) 20 Cal.App.5th 551(Terris I).) The County prevailed in Terris I and that case is
final.
We conclude, among other things, that the trial court
properly sustained the demurrer without leave to amend. This
current action is barred by the res judicata/collateral estoppel
doctrine and the statute of limitations. We affirm.
FACTS
Terris I
In 2009, Terris was a County employee. She received a
layoff notice. She “exercised her right to remain employed by
displacing or ‘bump[ing]’ a person in another position.” (Terris I,
supra, 20 Cal.App.5th at p. 553.) The County assistant human
resources director granted that request but determined Terris
was not qualified for the position. Terris was laid off. (Id. at
p. 554.) Terris filed a complaint with the County’s Civil Service
Commission (Commission). She claimed the County violated her
seniority rights and discriminated against her “ ‘for exercising
her rights as a County employee, as an elected Santa Barbara
County Employees Retirement Board Trustee, and for filing a
Claim Against Public Entity.’ ” (Ibid.)
The Commission ruled it could decide the lawfulness of
Terris’s employment termination. But it could not decide her
discrimination claims “because she had not exhausted her
administrative remedy of filing a discrimination complaint with
the Equal Employment Opportunity Office (EEO).” (Terris I,
supra, 20 Cal.App.5th at p. 554.)
Terris elected not to file an EEO complaint, but she
requested the Commission to decide the lawfulness of her
employment termination. (Terris I, supra, 20 Cal.App.5th at
p. 554.) The Commission subsequently ruled that the layoff was
authorized and that the County complied with all the legal
requirements to terminate her employment. (Ibid.)
Terris filed a wrongful termination and employment
discrimination action against the County. She alleged: 1) the
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County terminated her to “prevent her from holding an elected
office as a retirement board trustee”; 2) it “interfered with her
political activity as a retirement board trustee”; and 3) it
retaliated against her “for lawful complaints she had made.”
(Terris I, supra, 20 Cal.App.5th at p. 554.) The trial court
granted the County’s motion for summary judgment. It ruled
Terris did not exhaust her administrative remedies to raise these
three claims. (Ibid.)
Terris also included a cause of action alleging her
employment termination constituted unlawful discrimination
under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA).
(Gov. Code, § 12940 et seq.) The trial court ruled there was “no
triable issue of fact on her FEHA cause of action.” (Terris I,
supra, 20 Cal.App.5th at p. 554.) We affirmed. (Id. at p. 560.)
We held the court correctly found Terris failed to exhaust her
administrative remedies.
We also concluded: 1) Terris’s claim that she was a victim
of a discriminatory layoff by the County was not true; 2) two
County employees initiated the process that caused Terris’s
layoff; 3) Terris “admitted that those individuals had not
‘discriminated’ against her ‘in any way’ ”; 4) Terris “admitted that
she had ‘no evidence’ of sexual orientation discrimination within
the year prior to filing the [Department of Fair Employment and
Housing] claim”; 5) the County had a budget shortfall of nearly
$11 million dollars and it had a “nondiscriminatory reason for
initiating layoffs”; 6) Terris admitted the County had an
“ ‘extreme budget crisis’ ” and it was a “difficult decision” to
determine who should be laid off; 7) the County Board of
Supervisors approved the budget that authorized the layoffs and
Terris “[did] not claim the supervisors were biased”; and 8) Terris
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did not meet her burden to “show ‘any wrongful act.’ ” (Terris I,
supra, B268849 [nonpub. part of par.pub. opn.], some italics
added.) The California Supreme Court denied review on May 23,
2018.
The Current Case (Terris II)
On December 11, 2018, Terris filed “an EEO complaint
with the County.” She claimed the County did not investigate
that complaint.
On August 20, 2021, Terris filed a petition for writ of
mandate against the County. In her first cause of action, she
sought an order requiring the County to “investigate the EEO
complaint.” The gravamen of this pleading is that: 1) the trial
court in Terris I erred by granting summary judgment and by
ruling that Terris had to file an EEO complaint to litigate her
retaliation claims; and 2) the court erred by finding she had
failed to exhaust her administrative remedies. Terris alleges she
is entitled to a determination on her EEO retaliation claims.
In her second cause of action, Terris sought damages
because the trial court “summarily dismissed [her] claims” in
Terris I when it entered a summary judgment against her. She
alleges it was an “arbitrary and capricious ruling,” and
consequently the “Fourteenth Amendment has been violated.”
The County filed a demurrer claiming this new action was
barred by the res judicata/collateral estoppel doctrine. The trial
court sustained the demurrer without leave to amend. It found,
among other things, that the petition’s first cause of action was
barred by collateral estoppel because it “arises out of events
which were also the subject of a prior action between” Terris and
the County and were previously resolved against Terris in
Terris I.
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The trial court ruled the second cause of action did not
state a cause of action against the County. It said, “The apparent
basis for this claim . . . appears to be action by the trial court and
not action by the County.” The action was also barred by the res
judicata/collateral estoppel doctrine because it challenges the
“correctness of the trial court’s judgment in Terris I [which] is
exactly what was litigated on appeal in Terris I.” The court found
the action was also barred by the running of the statute of
limitations. It denied Terris’s motion for reconsideration.1
Sustaining the Demurrer – Res Judicata/Collateral Estoppel
The trial court correctly sustained the demurrer because
this action is barred by the res judicata/collateral estoppel
doctrine.
“We have sometimes described ‘res judicata’ as synonymous
with claim preclusion, while reserving the term ‘collateral
estoppel’ for issue preclusion.” (DKN Holdings LLC v. Faerber
(2015) 61 Cal.4th 813, 824.) “Claim preclusion ‘prevents
relitigation of the same cause of action in a second suit between
the same parties or parties in privity with them.’ [Citation.]
Claim preclusion arises if a second suit involves (1) the same
cause of action (2) between the same parties (3) after a final
judgment on the merits in the first suit. [Citations.] If claim
preclusion is established, it operates to bar relitigation of the
claim altogether.” (Ibid.) “Issue preclusion prohibits the
relitigation of issues argued and decided in a previous case, even
if the second suit raises different causes of action.” (Ibid.)
“The prior final judgment on the merits settles issues which
were not only actually litigated but every issue that might have
been raised and litigated in the first action.” (Merry v. Coast
1 We grant the County’s motion to augment the record.
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Community College Dist. (1979) 97 Cal.App.3d 214, 222.) “The
bar applies if the cause of action could have been brought,
whether or not it was actually asserted or decided in the first
lawsuit.” (Ivanoff v. Bank of America, N.A. (2017) 9 Cal.App.5th
719, 727.) “The doctrine promotes judicial economy and avoids
piecemeal litigation by preventing a plaintiff from ‘ “ ‘splitting a
single cause of action or relitigat[ing] the same cause of action on
a different legal theory or for different relief.’ ” ’ ” (Ibid.)
Here the trial court correctly found Terris was attempting
to relitigate her prior wrongful termination lawsuit (Terris I)
against the County. The court found: 1) “This action is between
the same parties as in Terris I”; 2) “In Terris I, the parties
litigated the issues of whether an EEO Complaint was necessary
and of whether Terris’s underlying claims were barred by Terris’s
decision not to file an EEO Complaint”; and 3) “The trial court
determined, and the Terris I court affirmed, that an EEO
Complaint was required, that Terris had elected not to file an
EEO Complaint, and therefore Terris’s underlying claims were
barred.” (Italics added.)
Terris’s counsel told the trial court that this new case
would show she was wrongfully terminated in 2009. He said,
“The thrust of this petition is that Ms. Terris should have been
entitled to show that she was the victim of political payback,
essentially, for her activities as a Trustee on the County Board of
Retirement and for political activities . . . .’ ” But she raised this
claim in Terris I and we rejected it.
Terris’s claim that the Commission unfairly prevented her
from litigating her EEO retaliation claims is not true. The
Commission advised her it could not decide her EEO claims
because she did not file an EEO complaint. But she had the
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opportunity to file the EEO complaint and have the Commission
decide those claims. The Commission offered Terris the right to
continue the hearing so that her EEO claims and other claims
could be heard together. (Terris I, supra, 20 Cal.App.5th at
p. 559.)
But Terris and her counsel elected not to file an EEO
complaint and told the Commission to proceed without it. Terris
had an adequate administrative remedy. She could have
subpoenaed witnesses on the three retaliation claims, and the
Commission had the authority to reinstate her and award
backpay and attorney fees if she prevailed. (Terris I, supra, 20
Cal.App.5th at pp. 555-556, 559.) Terris I held, “[P]laintiff is
barred from raising issues in court that could have been raised,
but were not, in the administrative proceeding involving
employment termination.” (Id. at p. 559; see also Basurto v.
Inperial Irrigation Dist. (2012) 211 Cal.App.4th 866, 888.) That
“precludes” her “ ‘ “from litigating those issues again.” ’ ”
(Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco v. Countrywide
Financial Corp. (2013) 214 Cal.App.4th 1520, 1527; Merry v.
Coast Community College Dist., supra, 97 Cal.App.3d at p. 222.)
Terris’s claim that applying the exhaustion of
administrative remedies doctrine violates her Fourteenth
Amendment rights is without merit. She voluntarily elected to
abandon her claims, and this new denial of due process claim
does not excuse her failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
(Los Globos Corp. v. City of Los Angeles (2017) 17 Cal.App.5th
627, 635; Edgren v. Regents of University of California (1984) 158
Cal.App.3d 515, 522; Roth v. City of Los Angeles (1975) 53
Cal.App.3d 679, 687.)
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Moreover, Terris I rejected the underlying factual basis for
her claims. Terris claimed County Executive Officer Michael
Brown discriminated against her and caused her layoff. But in
Terris I, we held: 1) People other than Brown were the ones who
“initiated the process that ultimately caused her layoff”; 2) “Terris
admitted that [those two individuals] had not ‘discriminated’
against her ‘in any way’ ”; and 3) Terris did not show “ ‘any
wrongful act.’ ” (Terris I, supra, B268849 [nonpub. part of
par.pub. opn.], some italics added.) These findings are binding on
her notwithstanding her current action alleging violation of her
federal constitutional rights. (University of Tennessee v. Elliott
(1986) 478 U.S. 788, 797-799.)
Because Terris was not prevented from litigating her three
retaliation claims, and because we concluded her termination
was lawful and not discriminatory, her current claims are barred.
(Basurto v. Imperial Irrigation Dist., supra, 211 Cal.App.4th at
pp. 888-889.) “Having chosen to ‘put all her eggs in one basket,’
[in Terris I] she cannot come back years later and add others.”
(Takahashi v. Board of Education (1988) 202 Cal.App.3d 1464,
1481.)
The trial court also correctly ruled res judicata barred
Terris’s second cause of action. It said, “The correctness of the
trial court’s judgment in Terris I is exactly what was litigated on
appeal in Terris I.” She may not relitigate it (Merry v. Coast
Community College Dist., supra, 97 Cal.App.3d at p. 222), or file
another action against the same defendant involving the same
termination by using a different pleading label and new legal
theories. (Ivanoff v. Bank of America, N.A., supra, 9 Cal.App.5th
at p. 727.) Because Terris I held Terris may not litigate the
claims she is now pursuing, her current action is an “improper
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collateral attack” on that decision. (Ernst v. Municipal Court
(1980) 104 Cal.App.3d 710, 715.)
Statute of Limitations
The trial court also correctly ruled this action is barred by
the statute of limitations. The County Civil Service Rules
provide, in relevant part, “No action or proceeding shall be
brought . . . unless such action or proceeding is commenced and
served within one hundred (100) days after such cause of action
or complaint first arose.” (Italics added.) Terris’s 2009
termination date initiates the running of the limitations period.
(Romano v. Rockwell Internat., Inc. (1996) 14 Cal.4th 479, 501,
503.)
Terris’s EEO complaint was not filed until 2018, and this
petition was not filed until August 2021. This new action is time-
barred. (Norgart v. Upjohn Co., supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 397.) All
other statutes of limitations have run. (Prue v. Brady Co./San
Diego, Inc. (2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 1367, 1382 [statute of
limitations for “wrongful termination in violation of public policy”
is two years]; Javor v. Taggart (2002) 98 Cal.App.4th 795, 803
[statute of limitations for a federal civil rights [42 U.S.C 1983]
claim is one year], overruled on other grounds by Leon v. County
of Riverside (2023)14 Cal.5th 910, 931.) Terris may not attempt
to revive a barred claim, because when the statute of limitations
has run, defendants “may rely upon it in conducting their
affairs.” (Quarry v. Doe I (2012) 53 Cal.4th 945, 957.)
Failure to State a Cause of Action
The trial court also correctly ruled that the second cause of
action does not state a valid cause of action against the County.
The gravamen of the pleading is that the trial court’s granting of
summary judgment in Terris I violated her Fourteenth
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Amendment rights. Terris seeks damages. But she does not
have a cause of action for damages against the trial court.
“Judicial immunity from a civil action for monetary damages is
absolute.” (Soliz v. Williams (1999) 74 Cal.App.4th 577, 586,
italics added.) This immunity shields judges from liability for
damage suits for the alleged violation of constitutional rights
under the Civil Rights Act. (42 U.S.C § 1983; Butz v. Economou
(1978) 438 U.S. 478, 509; Sellars v. Procunier (9th Cir. 1981) 641
F.2d 1295, 1299.) Moreover, her pleading does not contain an
allegation that Terris filed a claim against the County for
damages before filing this action. “[F]ailure to timely present a
claim for money or damages to a public entity bars a plaintiff
from filing a lawsuit against that entity.” (State of California v.
Superior Court (Bodde) (2004) 32 Cal.4th 1234, 1239.)
Not Granting Leave to Amend
Terris claims the trial court erred by not granting leave to
amend. But she has not shown an abuse of discretion.
(Czajkowski v. Haskell & White, LLP (2012) 208 Cal.App.4th 166,
173.) Her counsel did not file a written opposition to the
demurrer. They also did not file a proposed amended pleading.
Denying a Request to Continue the Demurrer Hearing
Terris contends the trial court erred by denying a request
to continue the hearing on the demurrer. A trial court has wide
discretion in deciding whether to grant a continuance. (Muller v.
Tanner (1969) 2 Cal.App.3d 446, 457.)
Terris claims her counsel was unable to attend the hearing
because of illness. But she was represented at that hearing by
attorney Lawrence LaRocca. He said Terris’s other counsel Raoul
Severo was “ill,” unable to attend, and more familiar with the
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case. But LaRocca addressed the merits. He said the petition
was filed “within” the “timeframe.”
In denying the request to continue, the trial court said,
“[T]here should have been a written response. And there wasn’t
one.” “I don’t really see what possible additional argument could
be made that could overcome the outcome of the prior action.”
There was no abuse of discretion.
Motion for Reconsideration
Terris filed a motion for reconsideration. Attorney Severo
appeared and briefly mentioned that the trial court had not
continued the demurrer hearing. But his main focus was that the
court signed a dismissal order while a motion for reconsideration
was pending.
The County objected to the motion because it was not
accompanied with a “declaration” and it did not show “new facts,
new law.”
The trial court denied the motion. It found the motion did
not contain the required declaration. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1008,
subd. (a).) Moreover, Terris’s counsel did not make a sufficient
showing on how he could amend the pleading to state a cause of
action. There was no error. We have reviewed Terris’s
remaining contentions and conclude she has not shown grounds
for reversal.
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DISPOSTION
The judgment is affirmed. Costs on appeal are awarded to
respondent.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED.
GILBERT, P. J.
We concur:
YEGAN, J.
BALTODANO, J.
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Colleen K. Sterne, Judge
Superior Court County of Santa Barbara
______________________________
Severo and Grenville Pridham for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Rachel Van Mullem, County Counsel, Barbara A. Carroll,
Deputy, for Respondent.
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