Benson v. Wanda Petroleum Co.

• Decision Date: 12 May 1971
• Docket Number: No. B--2473,B--2473
• Parties: Mrs. Lily BENSON, Individually and as Executrix of the Estate of Merrel Benson, deceased, Petitioner, v. WANDA PETROLEUM COMPANY, Respondent.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 361

468 S.W.2d 361

Mrs. Lily BENSON, Individually and as Executrix of the Estate of Merrel Benson, deceased, Petitioner, v. WANDA PETROLEUM COMPANY, Respondent.

No. B--2473.

Supreme Court of Texas.

May 12, 1971.

Huff & Bowers, Broadus A. Spivey, Lubbock, for petitioner.

Barrow, Bland & Rehmet, Vincent W. Rehmet, Houston, Morehead, Sharp, Tisdel & Gibbins, Bob Gibbins, Plainview, for respondent.

STEAKLEY, Justice.

The source of the problem here is a collision which occurred on October 29, 1967 in Eastland County, Texas, involving a tractor and trailer owned by Wanda Petroleum Company, respondent, and an automobile owned by Merrel Benson, now deceased, and his wife, Mrs. Lily Benson, which was being driven by Thurman C. Porter. A third party identified as Donald Chalk collided with the Benson vehicle following the initial collision. Separate suits for damages for personal injuries were filed against Wanda in the District Court of Eastland County by Mrs. Benson and by Mr. and Mrs. Porter. The suits were consolidated by the trial court and when called for trial Mrs. Benson took a voluntary non-suit. The trial jury in the Porter suit found Wanda and its driver free of negligence and found Porter guilty of acts of negligence which proximately caused the collision. A take nothing judgment was entered in favor of Wanda.

This suit for damages for personal injuries suffered by her and by her deceased husband was subsequently filed by Mrs. Benson in the District Court of Harris County against Wanda and Chalk. The trial court severed the suit against Chalk and rendered summary judgment in favor of Wanda upon the theory that the fact findings and judgment in the Porter suit were binding on Mrs. Benson. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed in the stated opinion that the Bensons and Porters were engaged in a joint enterprise as a matter of law, and hence were in privity; and that the Bensons rested under a secondary or derivative liability which must have been considered and determined in the Porter suit. 460 S.W.2d 453. We disagree and so reverse and remand.

The rule of collateral estoppel, or as sometimes phrased, estoppel by judgment, bars relitigation in a subsequent action upon a different cause of action of fact issues actually litigated and essential to a prior judgment. It has been said that the rule rests upon equitable principles and upon the broad principles of justice. Cauble v. Cauble, 2 S.W.2d 967 (Tex.Civ.App. 1927, writ dism'd). The rule is generally stated as binding a party and those in privity with him. See Kirby Lumber Corp. v. Southern Lumber Co., 145 Tex. 151, 196 S.W.2d 387 (1946); Cauble v. Cauble, supra; Evans v. McKay, 212 S.W. 680 (Tex.Civ.App.1919, writ dism'd); Smith v. Wood, 115 Ga.App. 265, 154 S.E.2d 646 (1967); 46 Am.Jur.2d, Judgments, § 394 (1969). Section 83 of the Restatement of Judgments (1942) states that a person who is not a party but who is in privity with the parties in an action terminating in a valid judgment is bound by the rules of res judicata. A comment to this section says in part: 'Privity is a word which expresses the idea that as to certain matters and in certain circumstances persons who are not parties to an action but who are connected with it in their interests are affected by the judgment with reference to interests involved in the action, as if they were parties. * * * The statement that a person is bound by * * * a judgment as a privy is a short method of stating that under the circumstances and for the purpose of the case at hand he is bound by * * * all or some of the rules of res judicata by way of merger, bar or collateral estoppel.' It has been emphasized that privity is not established by the mere fact that persons may happen to be interested in the same question or in proving the same state of facts. Coleman v. Bosworth, 180 Iowa 975, 164 N.W. 238 (1917); Smith v. Wood, supra. Also, that privity connotes those who are in law so connected with a party to the judgment as to have such an identity of interest that the party to the judgment represented the same legal right. Hixson v. Kansas City, 361 Mo. 1211, 239 S.W.2d 341 (1951); 46 Am.Jur.2d, Judgments, § 532 (1969). But it is also recognized that there is no generally prevailing definition of privity which can be automatically applied to all cases involving the doctrine of res judicata and the determination of who are privies requires careful examination into the circumstances of each case as it arises. 50 C.J.S. Judgments § 788 (1947); 46 Am.Jur.2d Judgments, § 532 (1969). In Kirby Lumber Corp. v. Southern Lumber Co., supra, privity was defined as meaning the mutual or successive relationship to the same rights of property; and it was said that persons are privy to a judgment whose succession to the rights of property therein adjudicated are derived through or under one or the other of the parties to the action, and which rights accrued subsequent to the commencement of the action. It has also been said that the Restatement definition corresponds to results generally reached by the courts, the elements of which are summarized in these words: '(t)he word 'privy' includes those who control an action although not parties to it * * *; those whose interests are represented by a party to the action * * *; successors in interests * * *.' Developments in the Law--Res Judicata, 65 Harv.L.Rev. 818, 856 (1952).

The rules of res judicata rest upon the policy of protecting a party from being twice...