Adams v. Davies

• Decision Date: 19 February 1945
• Docket Number: 6777
• Citation: 107 Utah 579,156 P.2d 207
• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Parties: ADAMS et al v. DAVIES et al

156 P.2d 207

107 Utah 579

ADAMS et al v. DAVIES et al

No. 6777

Supreme Court of Utah

February 19, 1945

Appeal from District Court, Third District, Salt Lake County George A. Faust, Judge.

Action by Charles E. Adams and another against Frederick W. Davies and another for rent and partition. Judgment for defendants and plaintiffs appeal.

Affirmed.

Irvine Skeen & Thurman, of Salt Lake City, for appellants.

Fabian, Clendenin, Moffat & Mabey, of Salt Lake City, for respondents.

Larson, Chief Justice. McDonough, Turner, Wade, and Wolfe, JJ., concur.

OPINION

Larson, Chief Justice.

While the factual situation involved is rather complex, there is but one question presented on this appeal.

In February, 1933, Charles Adams, and Lillian Taylor, plaintiffs, and Florence Davies, brother and sisters, were owners, as tenants in common of the lands involved in this action, subject to a mortgage held by defendant Frederick W. Davies, husband of Florence. The Davieses were occupying the premises as tenants. In February of that year Davies brought suit, designated as No. 51032, against the aforementioned owners, to foreclose his mortgage. Adams and Taylor answered and counterclaimed against Davies for rent in arrears sufficient to more than offset the mortgage note. The action was tried in 1934, and appeal was taken to this court. The opinion of this court in May 1936 (Davies v. Davies, 89 Utah 257, 57 P. 2d 355) remanded the cause to the trial court with directions, the effect of which was to enter a judgment for plaintiff with decree of foreclosure. In 1937, before such judgment was entered, plaintiffs herein commenced an action in the District Court, denominated as No. 60470, to recover a judgment for $ 550 for rental of the premises since the date of the trial of the foreclosure action in the District Court in 1934, and set the same off against the mortgage judgment, and to restrain Davies from taking further proceedings in case No. 51032, the foreclosure suit until determination of this second suit, No. 60470. To this action for rent Davies counterclaimed for taxes paid and improvements made on the property in excess of any amount they may be found to owe as rental. On August 22, 1938, the District Court pursuant to the opinion of this court in the foreclosure action (No. 51032) determined the matter therein and entered a decree in favor of Davies, the mortgagee, for $ 802.23, and entered decree of foreclosure, and issued an order of sale. The pleading in the rental suit, No. 60470, was subsequently amended to bring the issues of rents versus improvements and taxes up to date of trial in September 1940. In the pleadings no issue was raised as to the legality of the foreclosure judgment; no plea was made to renew the judgment; there was no prayer for another judgment in lieu of, or based upon the foreclosure judgment; it was not an issue raised or to be adjudicated in the action. Plaintiffs themselves pleaded that Davies had a judgment for foreclosure of mortgage and sale of the land, and asked that sale be forestalled pending determination of the amount Davies owed for rent, and that such amount be offset as a payment on the foreclosure judgment before sale be had thereunder. Davies put in issue his liability for rent, and a counterclaim for improvements made and taxes paid. No issue was made in the foreclosure, so any judgment entered therein could not affect the existence or validity of a judgment in foreclosure, except by a finding of an amount due from Davies over all his other claims sufficient to satisfy the mortgage judgment in full. In October 1940, the trial court entered judgment in the rent action No. 60470. In entering that judgment the court made a Finding of Fact that Davies had a judgment for $ 802.23, in the mortgage suit, No. 51032, and was entitled to a foreclosure and sale of the premises, under the judgment. It also made Findings of Fact to the effect that Davies owed plaintiffs in the rent action No. 60470, the sum of $ 1527.99, as rent on the mortgaged premises, but was entitled to an offset for improvements and taxes in the sum of $ 1957.14. It entered Conclusions of Law to the effect that Davies was entitled to an order of sale and sale of the lands under his mortgage foreclosure judgment, cause No. 51032; and also to a judgment in the rent action No. 60470, for $ 429.15, which was a lien on the property. Judgment was entered for $ 1231.38, being the sum of both the foreclosure judgment and the judgment in the rent action, which judgment was declared a lien on the property. In May, 1941, the property was sold under the foreclosure decree and bought in by Davies for the mortgage judgment and costs. In April, 1942, the present action, denominated No. 68158, was commenced to recover rental on the premises from an unfixed beginning date until the time of filing the action, and for partition of the property. No reference was made in the complaint to any prior judgment. Davies' answer pleaded title and ownership by virtue of a sheriff's deed issued under a mortgage foreclosure judgment against plaintiffs. In reply by way of denying Davies' title, plaintiffs alleged the fact of the foreclosure judgment, also prosecution of the rental action No. 60470, and the judgment therein, and asserted that the foreclosure judgment was merged in the rental judgment and thereby extinguished. Upon trial of this action, the pleadings, findings of fact, conclusions of law and judgment in No. 60470 were by stipulation put in evidence. Plaintiffs herein contended that because what is called a decree, but in reality is a judgment in the rent action included the amount of the foreclosure judgment, such judgment was merged in the judgment in the rent action, and was extinguished, and Davies lost his rights thereunder. This results, so plaintiffs contend, in the sheriff's deed on foreclosure sale being void because the judgment under which the sale might be held had then been merged in another and later judgment for money only. In the instant case the trial court specifically found that the two judgments were not merged and gave judgment that Frederick W. Davies, was the sole and absolute owner of the property in dispute. Plaintiffs appeal.

Thus there is presented the single question -- did the foreclosure judgment merge with the judgment in the rent action?

A judgment or decree duly entered, establishes in the most authentic form, that which had theretofore been in dispute, or unsettled or uncertain. It resolves the differences and decides the disputes between the parties, and makes the mostconclusive and enduring record thereof. This record concludes the matter and fixes the rights and liabilities of the parties as to the matters submitted to the court for decision. All previous claims are resolved in this determination and are said to merge or unify in this new, definite, certain and positive pronouncement and record of rights of the parties. Since the parties submitted to the court the resolution of their disputes and the determination of their rights and liabilities, that resolution when entered as a judgment conclusively binds them. Such questions may not again be litigated; they have been adjudicated for all time, and are fused into the judgment or decree. As the English court said in Biddleson v. Whitel, 1 W. Black. 507, they "are drowned in the judgment" and are thereafter functus officio. This doctrine is founded upon a desire to promote justice, and should be carried no further than the ends of justice require. Wyoming Bldg. & Loan Ass'n v. Mills Const. Co., 38 Wyo. 515, 269 P. 45, 60 A. L. R. 418. Judgments take the place of the cause of action, and are the only admissible criterion of its existence, scope and effect. A number of reasons have been assigned for this rule. The early decisions generally said that a superior right covers an inferior right, and that a judgment is a higher right or security than the cause of action upon which it is founded. See Annotation, 8 Ann. Cas. 314. Other courts have placed it upon the ground that the assertion before the law of both the original cause of action and of the judgment thereon would be vexatious to one party, no benefit to the other, and an encouragement to litigation. Gray v. Richmond Bicycle Co., 167 N.Y. 348, 60 N.E. 663, 82 Ann. St. R. 720; Rockwell v. District Ct., 17 Colo. 118, 29 P. 454, 31 Am. St. Rep. 265. It has also been sustained upon the ground that the party seeking the judgment must have intended and elected to change the nature of his claim to a judgment, and is therefore bound thereby. Clark v. Glos, 180 Ill. 556, 54 N.E. 631, 72 Am. St. Rep. 223; Heckemann v. Young, 134 N.Y. 170, 31 N.E. 513, 30 Am. St. Rep. 655. More recently it has been largely supported on the ground that public policy does not tolerate the practice that a matter once adjudicated should again be the subject of judicial inquiry. Southern Pac. R. Co. v United States, 168 U.S. 1, 18 S.Ct. 18, 42 L.Ed. 355; Huntley v. Holt, 59 Conn. 102, 22 A. 34, 21 Am. St. Rep. 71; La Rue v. Kempf, 186 Mo.App. 57, 171 S.W. 588; Sly v. Hunt, 159 Mass. 151, 34 N.E. 187, 21 L. R. A. 680, 38 Am. St. Rep. 403; Freeman on Judgments, 5th Ed. Vol. II, 1318.

With this as the basis upon which the doctrine of merger is bedded, does the instant case meet the requirements for merging one judgment into another? The cases are in conflict but the majority of jurisdictions hold that a judgment is not extinguished, when being used as a cause of action, it grows into another judgment of equal degree. Griswold v. Hill, C. C. N.Y., Fed. Cas. No. 5,836, 2 Paine 492; Lilly-Brackett Co. v. Sonnemann, 163 Cal. 632, 126 P. 483, Ann. Cas. 1914A, 364 and note, 42 L.R.A., N.S., 360, and note. In Springs v. Pharr, 131 N.C....