Vairrun Strickland v. CITY OF MARKHAM and ANTHONY MAZZIOTTA

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 24-3262
VAIRRUN S TRICKLAND,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
C ITY OF MARKHAM and
A NTHONY MAZZIOTTA ,
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:22-cv-01419 — John J. Tharp, Jr., Judge.
____________________
A RGUED NOVEMBER 18, 2025 — DECIDED J UNE 8, 2026
____________________
Before HAMILTON, ST . EVE , and K IRSCH , Circuit Judges.
P ER C URIAM. This appeal presents a new variation on a
recurring scenario that requires federal courts in Illinois to
split some fine hairs in the law of claim preclusion. A public
employee believed his employer had taken action against him
for unlawful reasons. He sought relief under both state and
federal law, including the federal Constitution, and in both
administrative proceedings and lawsuits. As we explain

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2 No. 24-3262
below, principles of claim preclusion block most of plaintiff’s
claims but not those under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964.
Plaintiff Vairrun Strickland, an African American man,
was fired from his job as a firefighter for the City of Markham,
Illinois. Strickland first sued in state court challenging the
administrative decision that led to his firing. He then filed this
federal lawsuit against the City of Markham and the Fire
Chief Anthony Mazziotta. This suit asserts civil rights claims
under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the Illinois
State Officials and Employees Ethics Act. Strickland then
voluntarily dismissed his lawsuit in state court. The federal
district court then concluded that this entire federal suit is
foreclosed by principles of claim preclusion based on the
adverse administrative ruling under Illinois law. The district
court granted summary judgment for the defendants on all
claims.
We affirm in part and vacate and remand in part. Federal
law treats a state court’s judgment and a decision in an
administrative proceeding differently for purposes of claim
preclusion. Because the district court overlooked this
threshold issue of federal law, it erred in entering summary
judgment on Strickland’s Title VII claims. But this distinction
does not alter the outcome on Strickland’s other claims, and
the district court otherwise correctly applied the Illinois law
of claim preclusion.
I. Factual and Procedural Background
Strickland worked as a firefighter for the City of Markham
Fire Department for over a decade. In 2020, the Equal

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No. 24-3262 3
Employment Opportunity Commission interviewed
Strickland during an investigation into discrimination claims
brought by a former firefighter. In the interview, Strickland
described race-based discrimination he had witnessed against
the former firefighter and how Chief Mazziotta had failed to
address it. Strickland alleged that after the interview, Chief
Mazziotta and the Department retaliated against him by
singling him out for minor disciplinary issues and denying
him a promotion.
In January 2021, the Department brought administrative
charges against Strickland. After hearings on the charges, the
Board of Fire and Police Commissioners terminated his
employment in April 2021, finding that Strickland had lied to
detectives during an arson investigation and had put
Department employees at risk by coming to work while
infected with COVID-19.
The next month, Strickland filed a lawsuit in state court
challenging the Board’s decision. The court remanded while
retaining jurisdiction over the case and instructed the Board
to enter an amended decision with additional information.
The Board did so and again discharged Strickland. After the
Board issued its amended decision in April 2022, Strickland
voluntarily dismissed his state-court lawsuit. He did not
otherwise seek direct review of the amended decision in state
court.
In the meantime, in March 2022, Strickland had already
filed this suit in federal court. Strickland alleged that the City
of Markham and Chief Mazziotta discriminated against him
based on race and retaliated against him in violation of Title
VII, see 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e–2 & 2000e–3, and Illinois state law,
see 5 ILCS 430/1, and denied him equal protection of the law

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4 No. 24-3262
in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, seeking relief
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
After Strickland voluntarily dismissed his suit in state
court, the City of Markham and Chief Mazziotta moved to
dismiss the federal complaint. The defendants argued that
Strickland’s claims were precluded by the outcomes of the
Board hearing and state-court suit. Under Rule 12(d), the
district court converted the defendants’ motions to dismiss
into motions for summary judgment, which was sensible
because the motions involved an affirmative defense and
evidence beyond the pleadings.
Applying 28 U.S.C. § 1738, the district court concluded
that Illinois claim preclusion principles barred Strickland’s
federal action. First, it determined that under Illinois law, the
Board’s decision was a final judgment on the merits because
the proceeding was judicial in nature and was not timely
challenged. Next, the court explained that although
Strickland’s state and federal suits asserted different theories
of relief, both actions shared an identity of the causes of action
because they arose from the same operative facts: Strickland’s
termination. There also was no dispute over an identity of
parties.
Finally, the court concluded that Strickland had a “full and
fair opportunity” to litigate his claims, as required by Illinois
law and general due process principles. Applying Welch v.
Johnson, 907 F.2d 714 (7th Cir. 1990), the district court
determined that Strickland could have raised the thrust of his
civil rights claims as defenses in the Board proceeding. The
court also explained that Strickland could have joined those
claims with his state suit challenging the Board’s decision if
he had not instead voluntarily dismissed the suit.

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No. 24-3262 5
II. Analysis
On appeal, Strickland argues that the district court’s
claim-preclusion analysis erred because it treated the Board’s
decision and the state-court lawsuit as equivalents. In Illinois,
the defense of claim preclusion has three primary elements:
(1) a final judgment on the merits rendered by a court of
competent jurisdiction; (2) an identity of cause of action; and
(3) an identity of parties. Village of Bartonville v. Lopez,
77 N.E.3d 639, 650 (Ill. 2017). Under general principles of due
process and equity, litigants are also entitled to a full and fair
opportunity to litigate their claims before preclusion applies.
Welch, 907 F.2d at 723; Nowak v. St. Rita High Sch., 757 N.E.2d
471, 478 (Ill. 2001). Strickland argues that the court improperly
rested the first element on the Board’s decision and resolved
the other questions based on the state suit. He maintains that
administrative proceedings and state-court judgments should
be evaluated differently for purposes of claim preclusion.
Strickland is partially correct that the administrative
proceedings and state litigation cannot be treated as
equivalents. The Supreme Court’s decisions on the federal
law of preclusion distinguish between state-court judgments
and administrative decisions, particularly as applied to Title
VII claims.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1738, federal courts must give full faith
and credit to the “judicial proceedings of any court” of a state.
This means federal courts apply the same preclusive effect to
a state court’s judgment as the state’s own courts would.
Walczak v. Chicago Bd. of Educ., 739 F.3d 1013, 1016 (7th Cir.
2014) (citations omitted). In University of Tennessee v. Elliott,
478 U.S. 788, 794 (1986), the Supreme Court recognized that
§ 1738 extends by its terms to only a state court’s judgment—

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6 No. 24-3262
not to “unreviewed” state administrative proceedings. Those
administrative proceedings receive preclusive effect at most
through federal common-law rules of preclusion. Id. (“…
Congress did not intend unreviewed state administrative
proceedings to have preclusive effect on Title VII claims.”).
The Court concluded that under federal common law,
administrative proceedings alone cannot preclude Title VII
claims. Id. at 796; see also Astoria Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n v.
Solimino, 501 U.S. 104, 110 (1991) (applying same reasoning to
Age Discrimination in Employment Act).
On the other hand, the Court held in Elliott, federal
common law permits unreviewed state administrative
proceedings to preclude claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and
similar civil rights statutes if the state agency was “acting in a
judicial capacity.” Elliott, 478 U.S. at 799, quoting United States
v. Utah Const. & Min. Co., 384 U.S. 394, 422 (1966). So at least
for Title VII claims, state administrative decisions have no
preclusive effect until the decision has been reviewed in state
court and culminated in a judgment that is then treated like
any other judgment. See Welch, 907 F.2d at 719. The district
court therefore erred by concluding that the Board’s decision,
standing alone “regardless of the subsequent dismissal,”
could preclude Strickland’s Title VII claim.
As for Strickland’s voluntary dismissal of his state court
suit, the district court correctly rejected the defendants’
arguments that this dismissal itself had any preclusive effect.
A voluntary dismissal in state court may, in principle, amount
to a state court’s judgment for purposes of § 1738. But § 1738
still requires federal courts to afford that judgment only the
same preclusive effect it would receive in the state’s courts.
See Brye v. Brakebush, 32 F.3d 1179, 1183–84 (7th Cir. 1994)

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No. 24-3262 7
(concluding voluntary dismissal was judgment of a court
under § 1738 and Elliott but not preclusive under Wisconsin
law).
Under Illinois law, voluntary dismissals should not be
treated as final judgments on the merits where there are no
claim-splitting concerns, see Richter v. Prairie Farms Dairy,
Inc., 53 N.E.3d 1, 14 (Ill. 2016), and the district court expressly
saw no such concerns here. Consistent with this principle,
this court has understood that a challenge to an
administrative proceeding voluntarily dismissed without
prejudice in Illinois court makes that proceeding effectively
“unreviewed” for purposes of Elliott. See Duggan v. Board of
Educ. of E. Chi. Heights, Dist. No. 169, 818 F.2d 1291, 1292, 1297
(7th Cir. 1987). Thus, (1) an unreviewed administrative
proceeding has no preclusive effect under § 1738, regardless
of what state law might say, and (2) Illinois state law does not
give preclusive effect to this voluntary dismissal. The district
court thus erred in dismissing Strickland’s Title VII claims on
claim preclusion grounds.
Although federal common law principles do not preclude
Strickland’s Title VII claims, they do give the findings of an
agency acting in a judicial capacity the same preclusive effect
they would receive in the state courts with respect to
Strickland’s § 1983 and state-law claims. See Elliott, 478 U.S.
at 799. As the district court recognized, Illinois law provides
that claim preclusion can apply to administrative decisions
where the proceeding is adjudicatory or quasi-judicial in
nature, and where the losing party fails to seek timely judicial
review of the decision. See Village of Bartonville, 77 N.E.3d
at 655.

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8 No. 24-3262
Strickland’s remaining arguments challenging the district
court’s application of Illinois law are without merit. He
maintains that the state and federal proceedings did not share
an identity of cause of action because he sought
administrative review of the Board’s decision in state court
and brought discrimination, retaliation, and equal protection
claims in federal court.
The district court correctly determined that, under Illinois
law, Strickland’s state administrative proceeding and federal
suits shared an identity of cause of action because both arose
from the facts surrounding Strickland’s termination. In
evaluating this element, Illinois courts use a “transactional
test” which is satisfied when two proceedings “arise from a
single group of operative facts, regardless of whether they
assert different theories of relief.” River Park, Inc. v. City of
Highland Park, 703 N.E.2d 883, 893 (Ill. 1998); see also Walczak,
739 F.3d at 1016–17 (citations omitted). It therefore does not
matter that Strickland raised different legal theories in court.
See Sapp v. Foxx, 106 F.4th 660, 666–67 (7th Cir. 2024).
To determine whether two cases encompass the same
cause of action, courts “pragmatically” consider similarities
in timing, scope, origin, or motivation of the actions. River
Park, Inc., 703 N.E.2d at 893, quoting Restatement (Second) of
Judgments § 24, at 196 (Am. Law Inst. 1982). Strickland
argued before the Board that he should not have been fired
and Chief Mazziotta was “out to get him.” And his federal
complaint alleges that he was wrongly fired based on Chief
Mazziotta’s discrimination and in retaliation for his protected
actions. The termination of Strickland’s employment is the
“underlying transaction” disputed in both proceedings. Hayes
v. City of Chicago, 670 F.3d 810, 814 (7th Cir. 2012).

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No. 24-3262 9
Finally, Strickland argues that he did not have a “full and
fair opportunity to litigate” his civil rights claims in the earlier
proceedings because he could not have brought those claims
before the Board itself. He notes that the Board is not a judicial
forum and has no jurisdiction over civil rights claims. He
objects to the district court’s reliance on Welch v. Johnson,
907 F.2d 714, to conclude otherwise and attempts to
distinguish it factually and procedurally.
The district court did not err when it concluded that
Strickland had a full and fair opportunity to litigate.
Strickland could have raised, but did not, the thrust of his
discrimination and retaliation claims as defenses in the Board
hearing. It is true that the Board did not have jurisdiction to
adjudicate the precise claims Strickland brought in his federal
action. But the same was true of the Civil Service Commission
in Welch, which was not empowered to adjudicate the
plaintiff’s civil rights claims. See 907 F.2d at 725. Consistent
with Welch, this court has recognized that a plaintiff’s failure
to raise a defense in an administrative hearing (that later
became a final judgment) precludes that plaintiff from raising
that claim offensively in a federal suit. See Abner v. Illinois
Dep’t of Transp., 674 F.3d 716, 719 (7th Cir. 2012); Hayes,
670 F.3d at 814–15 (collecting cases).
Regardless of what state law might have said about its
authority, the Board was not permitted to sustain a firing that
violated federal law. See White v. Elrod, 816 F.2d 1172, 1175
(7th Cir. 1987). At minimum, Strickland could have joined the
civil rights claims with a request for judicial review of the
administrative decision in a single suit. See Manley v. City of
Chicago, 236 F.3d 392, 397 (7th Cir. 2001). Because he instead
allowed the administrative decision to ripen into a final

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10 No. 24-3262
judgment on the merits by not challenging it in state court, his
§ 1983 and state law claims are barred by Illinois claim
preclusion principles incorporated by federal common-law
claim preclusion, even if not by § 1738.
For these reasons, we VACATE the judgment with respect
to Strickland’s Title VII claim, AFFIRM the balance of the
judgment, and REMAND for further proceedings.

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