Mark Manicki v. Brian Zeilmann and City of Ottawa

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

Mark Manicki brought a federal civil rights suit (42 U.S.C. § 1983) that the district judge dismissed as barred by res judicata, precipitating this appeal. Man- icki was in his one-year probationary period as a new police officer when he witnessed a fight between two other officers. In the ensuing criminal investigation he told investigators that one of the officers had started the fight. The police chief, defendant Zeilmann, wanted Manicki (or so the latter contends) to tell the investigators that both officers had been equally at fault, in the hope that this would ward…