## Facts

- Maribel Mendoza Golden worked for El Pollazo Parrillero.
- An assistant manager sexually harassed Mendoza Golden at work when customers were not present.
- Mendoza Golden complained to the restaurant’s manager, but the manager failed to intervene or stop the misconduct.
- Mendoza Golden filed a complaint with the regional office of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.
- The regional office failed to investigate Mendoza Golden’s complaint.
- After the manager learned that Mendoza Golden had gone to the Ministry, the restaurant fired her.
- The National Inspection Board of the Labor Ministry ordered an investigation into the regional office’s mishandling of the complaint.
- The National Inspection Board then brought an action against El Pollazo Parrillero in small claims court addressing workplace obligations, including whether the employer had ignored Ministry warnings and failed to adopt and enforce sexual-harassment policies and procedures.
- El Pollazo Parrillero was absolved from liability in that small-claims case after showing it had taken remedial measures and had adopted and communicated anti-harassment policies and procedures to employees.
- Mendoza Golden filed a separate action against El Pollazo Parrillero seeking damages, including notification expenses, bonuses and other amounts allegedly owed to her, wages from the time of dismissal through final judgment, and moral damages.
- El Pollazo Parrillero did not answer Mendoza Golden’s complaint, and the trial court entered a damages award against the employer.
- The appellate court upheld the damages award.
- Before the Costa Rica Supreme Court, El Pollazo Parrillero argued that the earlier small-claims judgment in its favor barred Mendoza Golden’s damages action under res judicata.

## Issues

1. Does res judicata bar an employee’s damages action when the employer previously obtained a judgment in its favor in a small-claims enforcement case brought by the Labor Ministry’s inspection authority concerning workplace anti-harassment measures?
2. Were the parties, object of the claims, and cause of action sufficiently identical between the two proceedings to preclude Mendoza Golden’s suit?

## Decision

- The Costa Rica Supreme Court rejected El Pollazo Parrillero’s res judicata argument.
- The Court held that the earlier small-claims enforcement proceeding did not bar Mendoza Golden’s separate damages action.
- The Court left in place the judgment awarding Mendoza Golden monetary relief, including moral damages.

## Legal Principles

- Res judicata requires identity between the two matters, including identity of parties, the object (relief sought), and the cause (basis of the claim).
- A Labor Ministry inspection/enforcement action directed at workplace compliance is not the same dispute as an individual worker’s action seeking personal compensation for harassment-related harm and retaliatory dismissal.
- A difference in plaintiffs (state inspection authority versus the employee) generally defeats the “same parties” requirement for res judicata in later private damages litigation.
- A difference in remedies (workplace-policy compliance and related regulatory consequences versus back wages, employment-related payments, and moral damages) defeats identity of the object.
- Post-complaint remedial measures and adoption of internal policies may affect regulatory exposure in an enforcement case but do not erase a worker’s separate claim for damages based on past misconduct and termination.

## Conclusion

In *Maribel Mendoza Golden v. El Pollazo Parrillero*, the Costa Rica Supreme Court held that an employer could not use a prior small-claims judgment obtained in a Labor Ministry inspection action to block a later, separate employee lawsuit for monetary relief arising from sexual harassment and retaliatory firing, because the two proceedings involved different parties and sought different relief based on different claims.


Maribel Mendoza Golden v. El Pollazo Parrillero, Res. No. 325, Exped. No. 99-00146-0461-LA (2003)