Alfrey v. Colbert

• Decision Date: 17 November 1914
• Docket Number: 3599.
• Citation: 144 P. 179,44 Okla. 246,1914 OK 549
• Parties: ALFREY v. COLBERT ET AL.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

144 P. 179

44 Okla. 246, 1914 OK 549

ALFREY v. COLBERT ET AL.

No. 3599.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

November 17, 1914

Syllabus by the Court.

In order to constitute a good plea of res judicata, the following elements should be apparent: First, the parties or their privies must be the same; second, the subject-matter of the action must be the same; third, the issues must be the same, and must relate to the same subject-matter; fourth, the capacities of the persons must be the same in reference to the subject-matter and to the issues between them--and where these elements are clearly apparent, the plea should be sustained.

A judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction delivered upon the merits of a cause is final and conclusive between the parties in a subsequent action upon the same cause, not only as to all matters actually litigated and determined in the former action, but also as to every ground of recovery or defense which might have been presented and determined therein.

When a former judgment is set up as a bar or estoppel, the question whether there is such an identity of the parties and of the subject-matter or cause of action as will support the plea of res judicata is a question of law for the court when it is determinable from an inspection of the record.

Commissioners' Opinion, Division No. 2. Error from District Court, Rogers County, T. L. Brown, Judge.

Injunction by R. J. Alfrey against Perry Colbert and another. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff brings error. Affirmed.

Jesse W. Watts and Chas. G. Watts, both of Wagoner, and Alvin F Molony, of Muskogee, for plaintiff in error.

Henry M. Brown and Robert F. Blair, both of Wagoner, for defendants in error.

HARRISON C.

This was an action by R. J. Alfrey against Perry Colbert, a Creek freedman, and his guardian, James A. Harris, to enjoin the sale of a portion of the lands allotted to such freedman which lands, upon petition of his guardian, had been ordered to be sold by the county court; the plaintiff alleging that he was the legal and equitable owner by virtue of a deed executed to him by Colbert July 10, 1906, and that the sale of such lands by order of court constituted a cloud on plaintiff's title. Wherefore he prayed that such sale be enjoined. The defendant Colbert, through his guardian Harris, answered plaintiff's petition by denying specifically every allegation not admitted, and filed a cross-petition against plaintiff setting up a former judgment and decree of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, wherein the rights of the plaintiff in error and Colbert to the tract of land in question were alleged to have been finally adjudicated, and praying for the dismissal of plaintiff's petition and for costs and damages, and that plaintiff be enjoined from further interfering with the disposition of Colbert's land. Plaintiff replied, admitting, in substance, that the decree of the federal court pleaded by defendant in his answer had the effect of adjudicating the rights between plaintiff and Colbert in reference to the land in question as evidenced by two former deeds, but contending that such decree did not have the effect of adjudicating the issues presented in the case at bar, for the reason that plaintiff had a later deed. When the cause came on for trial, defendant moved for judgment on the pleadings, which motion was sustained by the court on the theory that all rights between the plaintiff and Colbert in reference to the land in question had been determined by the United States District Court and on appeal by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (168 F. 231, 93 C. C. A. 517), and that the doctrine of res judicata was applicable, and from such judgment the plaintiff appeals.

Two material propositions are presented: First, whether the doctrine of res judicata was applicable under the state of the pleadings; second, whether the defendants were entitled to judgment on the pleadings.

The history of the facts involved and issues determined, both in the former judgment and decree and in the case at bar, is well stated in the finding of facts and decree of the trial court in this case as follows:

"Now on this 16th day of August, A. D. 1911, came on regularly to be heard the above-entitled cause upon the petition of plaintiff, the answer and cross-petition of defendants, and the reply thereto by plaintiff, and thereupon the plaintiff appeared by his attorney, Charles G. Watts, and the defendants appeared by their attorneys, Blair and Brown and all parties announced ready for trial; whereupon, the defendants, by permission of the court, filed their motion for judgment upon said pleadings; and the court, having heard the argument of counsel, and having read and fully considered and understood the authorities cited by them, is of the opinion that said motion is well taken and ought to be sustained.

The court further finds that the land described in plaintiff's petition--to wit, the south half of the northwest quarter, less 85/100 acres occupied as a right of way by the Kansas & Arkansas Valley Railway Company, and lots 5 and 6 of section 4, township 19, range 17 east of Indian base and meridian, lying and being in Rogers county, Okl.--was a part of the allotment of Perry Colbert, a citizen of the Creek Nation and enrolled on the freedman roll thereof; that on April 25, 1904, the plaintiff, together with one G. D. Carl, took a deed from defendant Perry Colbert, with covenants of general warranty to said lands; that on July 28, 1904, the said Perry Colbert, by his father and next friend, James Colbert, began an action in the United States Court for the Western District of the Indian Territory at Wagoner against the plaintiff herein and said G. D. Carl, to cancel and set aside said deed for the reason that the said Perry Colbert was a minor and was ignorant, uneducated, unable to read or write, and was of weak and feeble mind and memory, and that the consideration paid for said deed was grossly inadequate; that on November 21, 1905, the plaintiff herein and said G. D. Carl obtained another deed from said Perry Colbert to said land, containing covenants of general warranty; that plaintiff who was one of the defendants in that action, claimed to be the owner of said land under and by virtue of the deed first executed and under and by virtue of the deed last mentioned, and claimed all right, title, and interest in and to said land by virtue of said deeds, and also the right of possession

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