Aldape v. Akins

• Decision Date: 10 August 1983
• Docket Number: No. 14254,14254
• Citation: Aldape v. Akins, 105 Idaho 254, 668 P.2d 130 (Idaho App. 1983)
• Parties: Elias ALDAPE, Jr., and Margaret Aldape, husband and wife, and Michael Jess Aldape and Conchita Aldape, husband and wife, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. Paul AKINS and Mary Akins, husband and wife, and Donald B. Nesbitt and Betty L. Nesbitt, husband and wife, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals

Page 130

668 P.2d 130

105 Idaho 254

Elias ALDAPE, Jr., and Margaret Aldape, husband and wife, and Michael Jess Aldape and Conchita Aldape, husband and wife, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. Paul AKINS and Mary Akins, husband and wife, and Donald B. Nesbitt and Betty L. Nesbitt, husband and wife, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 14254.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

Aug. 10, 1983.

Petition for Review Denied Oct. 5, 1983.

Thomas A. Miller and Joseph D. McCollum, Jr., of Hawley, Troxell, Ennis & Hawley, Boise, for appellant.

Kenneth L. Pursley and Kenneth L. Mallea of Givens, McDevitt, Pursley & Webb, Boise, for appellee.

BURNETT, Judge.

In this appeal we apply the doctrine of res judicata to a quiet title action. The case represents a second round of litigation over title to land lying between the present course of the Boise River and its former riverbed. All of the parties own real property along the river. Movement of the stream has increased the dry land occupied by the Aldape family, and has flooded property owned by the other parties.

The first round of litigation began when the Aldapes filed a quiet title action against numerous record owners, including defendants Akins and Nesbitt, asserting title to the occupied dry land upon a theory of adverse possession. The trial court decided, and the Supreme Court affirmed, that insofar as the Aldapes' claim pertained to property owned by Akins and Nesbitt, the elements of adverse possession had not been proven. See Aldape v. State, 98 Idaho 912, 575 P.2d 891 (1978) (herein termed Aldape I ). Thus, Akins and Nesbitt prevailed in round one.

In the second round, the Aldapes filed another quiet title action against Akins and Nesbitt. This time the Aldapes asserted title upon a theory of accretion. ¹ Akins and Nesbitt raised the defense of res judicata against this renewed challenge to their title. However, the district court allowed the case to be tried on the accretion theory, and eventually held in favor of the Aldapes. This appeal ensued. For reasons explained below, we reverse. Because our decision rests upon the doctrine of res judicata, we need not reach other issues raised on appeal concerning the theory of accretion.

I

Res judicata denotes "a thing or matter settled by judgment." BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 1174 (rev. 5th ed. 1979). The doctrine of res judicata precludes the relitigation of a matter previously adjudicated. Functionally, the doctrine has two components--claim preclusion and issue preclusion.

"[C]laim preclusion," or true res judicata ... treats a judgment, once rendered, as the full measure of relief to be accorded between the same parties on the same "claim" or "cause of action." * * * When the plaintiff obtains a judgment in his favor, his claim "merges" in the judgment; he may seek no further relief on that claim in a separate action. Conversely, when a judgment is rendered for a defendant, the plaintiff's claim is extinguished; the judgment then acts as a "bar." * * * Under these rules of claim preclusion, the effect of a judgment extends to the litigation of all issues relevant to the same claim between the same parties, whether or not raised at trial.

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[C]ollateral estoppel or "issue preclusion" ... bars the relitigation of issues actually adjudicated, and essential to the judgment, in a prior litigation between the same parties.... [T]he contested issue must have been litigated and necessary to the judgment earlier rendered.

Kaspar Wire Works, Inc. v. Leco Engineering & Machine, Inc., 575 F.2d 530, 535-36 (5th Cir.1978).

In the form of claim preclusion, the doctrine of res judicata serves three fundamental purposes. First, it "[preserves] the acceptability of judicial dispute resolution against the corrosive disrespect that would follow if the same matter were twice litigated to inconsistent results." 18 C. WRIGHT, A. MILLER & E. COOPER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 4403, at 12 (1981). Second, it serves the public interest in protecting the courts against the burdens of repetitious litigation; and third, it advances the private interest in repose from the harassment of repetitive claims. Id. at 13-16.

II

Before we examine claim preclusion in detail, an historical note is appropriate. The modern doctrine of res judicata, with its broad component of claim preclusion, has been a product of evolution. In the nineteenth century, res judicata simply precluded relitigation of the same cause of action. E.g., Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U.S. 351, 24 L.Ed. 195 (1876). At that time, each form of action at law was attended by a cluster of axiomatic rules, specific in content, mandatory in application, and largely insulated from the more flexible proceedings in equity. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the merger of law and equity caused the forms of civil actions to be less strictly distinguished from one another; and the concept of a "cause of action" lost its rigidity. When the RESTATEMENT OF JUDGMENTS (herein cited as the First Restatement) was prepared in 1942, the doctrine of res judicata was still expressed in terms of a cause of action, but it was further noted that a plaintiff who lost a lawsuit would not be permitted to try again on the basis of new evidence or a different legal theory. Neither could a losing defendant try again with a defense he had failed to interpose the first time. First Restatement, §§ 47-48, and "Introductory Note" at 157-61.

The First Restatement was consistent with a landmark Idaho case. In Joyce v. Murphy Land & Irrigation Co., 35 Idaho 549, 208 P. 241 (1922), our Supreme Court applied res judicata to an action seeking to enjoin a change in the place where water was diverted and used under a decreed water right. The decree had been entered in prior litigation involving the same water and the same parties or their predecessors in interest. The Supreme Court held that although the effect of a dam, which had changed the place of use, was not expressly determined in the first trial, the underlying claim of right to use the water had been considered and decided. The Court added:

We think the correct rule to be that in an action between the same parties upon the same claim or demand, the former adjudication concludes parties and privies not only as to every matter offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim but also as to every matter which might and should have been litigated in the first suit. [35 Idaho at 553, 208 P. at 242-43.]

The Joyce rule has been employed to bar plaintiffs from relitigating the same or similar claims in Houser v. Southern Idaho Pipe & Steel, Inc., 103 Idaho 441, 649 P.2d 1197 (1982); Ramseyer v. Ramseyer, 98 Idaho 554, 569 P.2d 358 (1977); and South Boise Water Co. v. McDonald, 50 Idaho 409, 296 P. 591 (1931). It has also been applied to defendants, barring in an action on a judgment any defenses that should or could have been raised in the prior action which produced the judgment. Tingwall v. King Hill Irrigation Dist., 66 Idaho 76, 155 P.2d 605 (1945).

Our Supreme Court has recognized the limits of the Joyce rule where matters raised in the second litigation were not ripe for adjudication in the prior action. See, e.g., Duthie v. Lewiston Gun Club, 104 Idaho ---, 663 P.2d 287 (1983); Gaige v. City of Boise, 91 Idaho 481, 425 P.2d 52 (1967). Moreover, the Supreme Court has carved out an apparent exception to the Joyce rule for cases in which mandamus and damages are sought as alternative or cumulative forms of relief. In Heaney v. Bd. of Trustees of Garden Valley School Dist. No. 71, 98 Idaho 900, 575 P.2d 498 (1978), the Court held that res judicata did not apply to a damage claim for wrongful discharge from public employment, which had been preceded by an unsuccessful mandamus action seeking reinstatement of such employment. The Supreme Court focused its analysis upon the special nature of mandamus proceedings, noting that mandamus is a "summary and expeditious writ to compel performance of an established duty.... The basis for seeking mandamus--that is, default in the performance of a duty--commonly will be apparent long before the fact and amount of damages can be established." 98 Idaho at 903, 575 P.2d at 501. The mandamus exception to the Joyce rule, articulated in Heaney, is consistent with the Idaho Supreme Court's prior decisions in Sutton v. Hunziker, 75 Idaho 395, 272 P.2d 1012 (1954), and Lawrence v. Corbeille, 32 Idaho 114, 178 P. 834 (1919).

However, even when the ripeness limitation and the mandamus exception are taken into account, it must be acknowledged that our Supreme Court has not been entirely consistent in its application of the Joyce rule. In Green v. Gough, 96 Idaho 927, 539 P.2d 280 (1975), the Court--employing the traditional formulation of a "cause of action"--held that res judicata would not apply to an action, seeking damages for breach of a contract, which had been preceded by an unsuccessful action between the same parties for rescission of the contract. The Court observed that the cases raised different issues and concluded that they arose from separate causes of action. Similarly, in Intermountain Food Equipment Co. v. Waller, 86 Idaho 94, 383 P.2d 612 (1963), the Supreme Court held that identity of issues litigated was one of the essentials of res judicata. The Court refused to apply the doctrine of res judicata to a claim and delivery action which had been preceded by a chattel mortgage foreclosure action concerning the same parties and the same personal property. See also Salvis v. Lawyer, 73 Idaho 469, 253 P.2d 589 (1953) and Marshall v. Underwood, 38 Idaho 464, 221 P. 1105 (1923) (declining to apply res judicata to cases involving the same claims but different issues).

The Idaho cases refusing to apply res judicata, unless there is an identity of issues, have failed to note the fundamental distinction between issue preclusion and claim preclusion. As noted earlier in this opinion, issue preclusion requires that the...