Background
Dionne Pamon, proceeding pro se, filed a wrongful death suit against the United States Postal Service, the United States, the American Postal Workers Union, and a union steward. She alleged that the defendants hindered her Family Medical Leave Act request and engaged in fraud, causing her husband’s premature death. Pamon admitted the factual background was substantially analogous to a previous pending lawsuit she filed against the same parties. The district court dismissed the case, ruling that claims against the federal government were barred by sovereign immunity and claims against the union were barred by claim splitting.
The court’s reasoning
The Fifth Circuit agreed with the district court’s dismissal. Regarding the United States and the USPS, the court noted that dismissals based on sovereign immunity are jurisdictional and therefore must be without prejudice, not with prejudice. Regarding the union and the steward, the court held that the claim splitting doctrine applied because the parties were the same and the claims arose from the same nucleus of operative facts, regardless of the different legal theory asserted. The court clarified that the district court erred in dismissing the union claims with prejudice, as such dismissals should not preclude the plaintiff from asserting the claims in the pending first-filed suit.
What it means going forward
The plaintiff may reassert her claims against the union in her earlier-filed suit, and she may attempt to pursue her claims against the federal government in a court with proper jurisdiction after exhausting administrative remedies.
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