Rhodes v. Jones

• Decision Date: 22 November 1965
• Docket Number: No. 17927.,17927.
• Citation: 351 F.2d 884
• Parties: Paul RHODES, Appellant, v. Dwain L. JONES, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

351 F.2d 884 (1965)

Paul RHODES, Appellant, v. Dwain L. JONES, Appellee.

No. 17927.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

October 29, 1965.

Rehearing Denied November 22, 1965.

Paul Rhodes, pro se.

Richard H. Murray, of Oppenheimer, Hodgson, Brown, Wolff & Leach, St. Paul, Minn., for appellee.

Before VOGEL, MATTHES and RIDGE, Circuit Judges.

RIDGE, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, dismissing appellant's complaint by which he sought to enforce against appellee, Dwain L. Jones, a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Kansas, entered in personam against one Harry W. Edmondson. Appellee was not a party defendant to that Kansas litigation, nor has he ever been adjudged to be in privity thereto.

The bizarre circumstances giving rise to this litigation are so covered with Stygian fog, we shall not undertake to make a detailed statement thereof. We think it is sufficient to say that they commence in 1959, when appellant, a member of the Bar of the State of Nebraska, was first proceeded against for the crime of arson. During the pendency of that charge, appellant obtained a "Bench Warrant and Complaint" for the arrest of the State Judge before whom he had been arraigned. As a consequence, appellant and the County Court Judge by whom the "Bench Warrant" was issued, were convicted of contempt of court, and appellant was sentenced to nine (9) months' imprisonment in the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Upon completion of that sentence, appellant commenced a series of lawsuits against numerous judges and officials of the State of Nebraska, who, he asserted, had participated in his trial, conviction and imprisonment for contempt, alleging violation of civil and federal constitutional rights. The present action is the latest in the series of such litigation.

Prior to the commencement of the case at bar, appellant, in 1961, brought an action in United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, under the Federal Civil Rights Act, against a number of Nebraska judicial, quasi-judicial and law enforcement officers and their respective bonding companies. District Judge Van Pelt, of the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, in that case ruled that all of the defendants named in that action were immune from civil action for damages, for acts performed by them in the capacity of, and under the authority of, their respective offices, particularly in connection with the contempt proceeding in which appellant was convicted, ante. That judgment and decision was affirmed by this court. Rhodes v. Houston, 202 F.Supp. 624, aff'd per curiam 309 F.2d 959, cert. den. 372 U.S. 909, 83 S.Ct. 724, 9 L.Ed.2d 719 (1963).

Thereafter, in 1963, appellant filed two other suits in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, alleging substantially the same facts as in Houston, supra. The latter complaints were dismissed by District Judge Delehant, who, with his usual thorough analysis of fact and law, found and declared the defendants named in those actions to be immune from suit. Rhodes v. Meyer, et al., 225 F.Supp. 80, aff'd 8 Cir., 334 F. 2d 709, cert. den. 379 U.S. 915, 85 S.Ct. 263, 13 L.Ed.2d 186 (1964); Rhodes v. Van Steenberg, 225 F.Supp. 113, aff'd 8 Cir., 334 F.2d 709, cert. den. 379 U.S. 915, 85 S.Ct. 263, 13 L.Ed.2d 186 (1964). Appellee here was specifically joined and appeared as a party defendant in Rhodes v. Meyer, supra. During the pendency of that litigation, appellant initiated the instant action in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota. He also filed another suit, Rhodes v. Edmondson, T-3405, in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The latter action being against a former Nebraska prison guard whom Rhodes charged with conspiracy to deprive him of his civil and constitutional rights, the same as was alleged in the Nebraska federal cases above cited. In Edmondson, however, defendant defaulted and that case was submitted to a jury for the purpose of assessing damages. A judgment of $500.00 statutory damages, $225,000.00 actual damages, and $225,000.00 punitive damages, was awarded Rhodes. Other litigation, not pertinent to the present inquiry, form additional parts of the history of the circumstances hereinabove related, but they need not be reported in detail here. However, see State ex rel. Nebraska State Bar Ass'n v. Rhodes, 177 Neb. 650, 131 N.W.2d 118 (1964), where judgment of disbarment of appellant was affirmed, premised in part on the background here involved.

In the light of the foregoing, the first matter that should here be noted is that appellee in the present action was at all times pertinent a former Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Nebraska, who was named as a party and actively participated in the defense of Rhodes v. Houston, supra. He was joined as a defendant in that action and specifically found by Judge Delehant to be immune from suit on the claim appellant here asserts against him. Cf. 225 F.Supp., l.c. 107, which finding and determination was affirmed by this Court at 334 F.2d, l.c. 718.

As a consequence of that adjudicated matter, District Judge Devitt, of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, sustained appellee Jones' motion to dismiss appellant's first amended complaint as filed in the case at bar, with prejudice, on the grounds: (1) that the issues raised in this case have all been determined adversely to the plaintiff-appellant by the final decision of this Court as made in Rhodes v. Meyer, supra, and on the basis of that opinion ruled the facts here are now res judicata; (2) it was there also ruled that defendant-appellee is immune from the claims for civil damages as made by appellant in the case at bar, because it appears on the face of this record that appellee's activities of which appellant complains, were performed as a quasi-judicial officer of the State of Nebraska, and (3) the first amended complaint here considered fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

It is now contended by appellant that Judge Devitt erred in sustaining the defense of res judicata, ante, because (1) incorporation of state law claims in a civil rights suit "where no diversity of citizenship exists," cannot be res judicata to an action where such a claim is made and "diversity of citizenship does exist"; and (2) voluntary appearance in a civil rights suit where community of citizenship exists cannot bar, as res judicata, a suit based on state law where jurisdiction is invoked by reason of "diversity of citizenship."

Thus, tersely stated, it is appellant's contention that "the present action is not dependent on the Federal Civil Rights Act for jurisdiction of the District Court"; that federal jurisdiction over the instant action is invoked solely on the ground of "diversity of citizenship." Thus, he asserts, there is an aura of fact as to jurisdiction made against appellee in the instant case, which did not exist in the previous litigation by him in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska, above cited; and solely because of the existence of "difference of citizenship" res judicata is not applicable to the claim he here makes against appellee, Jones. That there is no merit to the contention appellant so makes is demonstrated by consideration of the following matter.

Determination of the applicability of the doctrine of res judicata in a given case only requires a showing: (a) that there has been a previous action between the same parties; (b) involving the same subject matter in which (c) a final judgment on the merits has been rendered with respect to the same cause of action. Cf. Engelhardt v. Bell & Howell Co., 327 F.2d 30, 32 (8 Cir., 1964).

A "cause of action" is a situation or state of facts which entitles a party to sustain an action and gives him the right to seek judicial interference in his behalf. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the word "claim" denotes the same thing, i. e. "the aggregate of operative facts which give rise to a right enforceable in the courts." Dery v. Wyer, 2 Cir., 265 F.2d 804, 807.

Concededly, the present complaint involves a defendant who was a party defendant in the prior action of Rhodes v. Meyer, et al., supra, disposition of which was made on the merits of the same claim as appellant here makes against appellee. Dismissal of the complaint in Meyer was based upon the inadequacy of the complaint to state a claim against all the defendants there joined, thus the determination as made in that case on the merits of the facts pleaded constitutes a judgment sufficient to involve the doctrine of res judicata as made by appellee here. Cf. Rhodes v. Meyer, supra, 334 F.2d l.c. 716 (1964); 2 Moore's Federal Practice, § 12.14, at page 2267. As noted by this court in Engelhardt v. Bell & Howell, supra, at 327 F.2d l.c. 32:

"The primary test for comparing causes of action has long been whether or not the primary right and duty, and the delict or wrong combined are the same in each action." (Citing Baltimore S.S. Co. v. Phillips, 274 U.S. 316, 47 S.Ct. 600, 71 L.Ed. 1069.)

It is apparent, upon comparison of the pleadings in the present action with the allegations made in Rhodes v. Meyer, supra, that appellant here urges the same primary wrong and deprivation of rights as he made in that prior litigation which was determined adversely to appellant with finality by this Court, supra. The allegation of jurisdiction, recitation of statutes cited, and constitutional provisions relied upon in the present complaint are, with one exception, the exact duplicate of the same allegations as made in the Meyer complaint, ante. In both instances, jurisdiction and the claim appellant here asserts against appellee are invoked under the provisions of 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1331 and 1343, and 42 U.S. C.A. §§ 1981...