Lumpkin

Reverend Eugene Lumpkin, Jr. (Reverend Lumpkin) appeals after Mayor Frank Jordan (Mayor Jordan) and the City and County of San Francisco (the City) successfully demurred to his complaint. The trial court concluded that the issues raised by Reverend Lumpkin’s complaint had been fully litigated in a prior federal action involving the same parties and, therefore, that Reverend Lumpkin was collaterally estopped from relitigating them. Reverend Lumpkin contends that the record fails to establish that the identical issues were necessarily decided in the prior federal action. He further argues that the trial court abused its discretion in applying collateral estoppel to this case. We affirm.

Background

This case concerns the alleged unlawful removal of Reverend Lumpkin from the City’s human rights commission (the Commission). The events leading up to Reverend Lumpkin’s removal are not in dispute. On August 13, 1992, Mayor Jordan, then mayor of the City, appointed Reverend Lumpkin to serve as a member of the Commission. At the time of his appointment, Reverend Lumpkin was a Baptist minister who served as pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Mayor Jordan and Reverend Lump-kin…