City of Trussville v. Personnel Board of Jefferson County
Annotate this CaseThe City of Trussville ("the City") appealed a circuit court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Personnel Board of Jefferson County ("the Board") in the City's action seeking a judgment declaring that it had the authority to create and operate its own civil-service system. In 2018, the City requested that the Alabama attorney general issue an opinion regarding whether, once it had annexed land in St. Clair County, it was subject to being governed by the Board or could form its own civil- service system. The attorney general concluded that the City was not subject to the Board's civil-service system and, therefore, had the authority to establish its own civil-service system. However, the Alabama Supreme Court determined the attorney general did not consider what effect the settlement agreement, and the consent judgment ratifying that settlement agreement, entered in a 1991 action had on the question presented by the City for consideration. On April 23, 2019, the City passed Ordinance No. 2019-020-ADM, creating a civil-service system for City employees. The Board took the position that the City lacks the authority to form its own civil-service system and that the City is bound to continue under the jurisdiction of the Board. The Supreme Court was not persuaded by the legal grounds the City presented to support its appeal. The Court found the same cause of action was presented in both the 1991 action and here, and that the theory upon which the City sought to litigate the present action could have been litigated in the 1991 action, but was not. Accordingly, the City's present action was barred by the doctrine of res judicata.
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