Lambert

MEMORANDUM *

Richard Lambert, a former Correctional Officer with the Nevada Department of Corrections (“NDOC”), appeals from the District Court’s dismissal of his action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against three of his fellow Correctional Officers and the Director of the NDOC. Lambert alleged that defendants violated his First Amendment rights when they conspired to terminate him in retaliation for his speech about matters of public concern in the workplace, and that they deprived him of his Fourteenth Amendment right to Due Process when they conspired to give false testimony at his termination hearing before the Nevada State Personnel Commission (the “Commission”). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

Lambert’s claims for wrongful termination and deprivation of Due Process are precluded under the doctrine of res judicata. Where a state agency acts in a judicial capacity to resolve disputed issues of law and fact properly before it, and the parties have had an adequate opportunity to litigate those issues, federal courts must give the state agency’s fact-finding and legal determinations the same preclusive effect that they would have had if they were…