Sherol Diruzza, AKA Sherl Janc v. County of Tehama Robert Heard Jerry Floyd

With this case, this court has inherited a rather complicated procedural history, comprising parallel litigation in state and federal tribunals situated in California. Today, we are asked to disentangle the threads woven by these separate court systems as they have independently sought to resolve the same core conflict. Specifically, our task in the current chapter of the dispute is to determine the combined preclusive effect, in federal court, of a California trial court judgment and the California appeals court decision affirming that judgment. Complicating the inquiry is that the state appellate opinion, while arriving at the same ultimate conclusion as the state trial court, employed different reasoning in doing so. We conclude that the holding of the California trial court has a collateral estoppel effect that precludes the plaintiff from continuing to pursue her action in federal court.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

At the root of all the court battles involved in this case is friction between Plaintiff/Appellant Sherol DiRuzza and certain members of the Sheriffs Department of Defendant/ Appellee Tehama County. Before her eventual discharge, DiRuzza was employed by the…