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Samour v. Louisiana Casino Cruises2/27/2002
By this appeal, the plaintiff contests a judgment sustaining peremptory exceptions raising the objections of res judicata and prescription and dismissing his suit with prejudice. For the following reasons, we affirm.
Louisiana Casino Cruise, Inc. (Casino Rouge) employed Craig Samour as Chief Engineer on board the M-V Casino Rouge. On January 10, 1995, Casino Rouge requested Samour submit to a "reasonable cause" drug test. The test results were positive, and Casino Rouge terminated Samour's employment.
Samour filed suit in federal court, asserting a violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, Jones Act negligence, and general maritime claims for unseaworthiness, maintenance and cure and wages. Samour's suit also asserted claims of libel and defamation pursuant to Louisiana state law. Both parties subsequently moved for summary judgment on the federal claims, and Casino Rouge requested dismissal of the state law claims. The magistrate judge recommended granting Casino Rouge's motion for summary judgment on all federal claims. He also recommended that the court decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims. The federal district court adopted these recommendations in their entirety. The United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed this decision without opinion.
Samour then filed suit in the Nineteenth Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge Parish asserting the state law claims of libel, slander, defamation, wrongful termination, and invasion of privacy. Casino Rouge filed peremptory exceptions raising the objections of res judicata and prescription. The trial court sustained these exceptions, dismissing Samour's claims. Samour appeals.
Samour asserts the trial court erred in finding his state law claims barred by res judicata. When a state court is required to determine the preclusive effects of a judgment rendered by a federal court exercising federal question jurisdiction, it is federal law of res judicata that must be applied. Reeder v. Succession of Palmer, 623 So.2d 1268 (La. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1165, 114 S.Ct. 1191, 127 L.Ed.2d 541 (1994).
Federal law embraces the broad usage of the phrase "res judicata" to include both claim preclusion (res judicata) and issue preclusion (collateral estoppel). See Stripling v. Jordan Prod. Co., 234 F.3d 863 (5th Cir. 2000); Levitt v. Univ. of Texas at El Paso, 847 F.2d 221 (5th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 984, 109 S.Ct. 536, 102 L.Ed.2d 567 (1988). Thus, res judicata viewed in this broad sense includes foreclosure of both relitigation of matters that have been previously litigated and litigation of matters that have never been litigated but should have been advanced in the earlier suit.
Casino Rouge asserts that Samour's state law claims are barred due to the final judgment rendered by the federal court. Reeder provides that where there is a federal claim that has enough substance to confer jurisdiction on the federal court, and there are pendent state law claims that derive from the same operative facts, the federal court has pendent jurisdiction over the state law claims. Reeder, 623 So.2d at 1272-1273. The power of the district court to hear pendent state claims is discretionary. United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966). Furthermore, Reeder states that, if the federal claims are pursued to a valid final judgment in federal court and the plaintiff failed to then assert his state law claim, the doctrine of res judicata prevents him from subsequently asserting the state claim in state court unless the federal court would not have had jurisdic
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