Buckles v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co.

• Decision Date: 02 January 1893
• Citation: 53 F. 566
• Parties: BUCKLES v. CHICAGO, M. & ST. P. RY. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri

53 F. 566

BUCKLES v. CHICAGO, M. & ST. P. RY. CO.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Missouri, Western Division.

January 2, 1893

Sherry & Hughes and W. M. Burris, for plaintiff.

Pratt ferry & Hagerman, for defendant.

PHILIPS District Judge.

On the 16th day of September, 1891, this court, on due consideration, in a written opinion, reported in 47 F. 424 sustained a motion by defendant, staying all further proceedings by the plaintiff in this action until she had paid the costs incurred in a former suit herein, in which she took a voluntary nonsuit. Now again comes the plaintiff, more than one year after judgment was entered on said motion, and after one regular term of this court has intervened, and presents her motion, asking to have the judgment on said motion vacated.

No reason is assigned for this motion of other facts than such as existed at the time of the hearing of the former motion and no fact is alleged of materiality, which was not known to plaintiff at the hearing of said first motion. She merely pleads poverty, and an inability to provide money sufficient to pay the costs made in her first litigation. She had her day in court on the merits, and she urges nothing now which she might not have urged against the granting of the first motion.

It is contended by her counsel that said motion of September, 1891 was merely incidental to the proceeding in the cause, and that the judgment thereon possesses none of the qualities of a final adjudication to prevent a renewal of the controversy on the original merits of the motion at any time. The general rule may be conceded to be that the principle of res adjudicata has no proper application to mere interlocutory motions. But the rule is too broadly stated if it be sought to apply it to every character of motion by name, regardless of the nature and scope of the motion in the particular case. The reason of the general rule is founded in the fact that the summary disposition of merely interlocutory motions does not admit of that deliberate consideration and investigation which are supposed to precede the rendition of more solemn judgments; and more especially for the reason that 'decisions on summary applications can never be thrown into the shape of a record, and become the subject of review in any other court. ' Where the reason of the rule does not exist, the rule itself ought not to be applied indifferently. As said in 2 Black, Judgm. § 691.

'Regard is now had less to the form of the proceeding, and more to the subject and condition of the decision. Further, there is a distinction to be noted between orders made upon motions respecting collateral questions arising in the course of a trial and final orders affecting substantial rights, and from which an appeal lies. The latter are res adjudicata, and binding upon the parties, unless reversed or modified by an appellate tribunal.'

So Freeman, in his work on...