Carpenter v. Kenneth Thompson Builder, Inc.

• Citation: 186 So.3d 820
• Decision Date: 21 August 2014
• Docket Number: Nos. 2011–CT–01028–SCT,2011–CT–01033–SCT.,s. 2011–CT–01028–SCT
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: Jeanette CARPENTER v. KENNETH THOMPSON BUILDER, INC., Coastal Masonry, Pro Mow Lawn Care, Inc. and Capital Security Services, Inc. Jeanette Carpenter v. Kenneth Thompson Builder, Inc., Coastal Masonry, Pro Mow Lawn Care, Inc., Capital Security Services, Inc., Mallette Brothers Construction, Inc. and Mississippi Transportation Commission a/k/a Mississippi Department of Transportation.

186 So.3d 820

Jeanette CARPENTER

v.KENNETH THOMPSON BUILDER, INC., Coastal Masonry, Pro Mow Lawn Care, Inc. and Capital Security Services, Inc.

Jeanette Carpenter

v.Kenneth Thompson Builder, Inc., Coastal Masonry, Pro Mow Lawn Care, Inc., Capital Security Services, Inc., Mallette Brothers Construction, Inc. and Mississippi Transportation Commission a/k/a Mississippi Department of Transportation.

Nos. 2011–CT–01028–SCT

2011–CT–01033–SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Aug. 21, 2014.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 17, 2015.

A. Norris Hopkins, Jr., Gulfport, attorney for appellant.

Stephen G. Peresich, Johanna M. McMullan, Jackson, Patrick H. Zachary, Hattiesburg, Vicki D. Leggett, Mark D. Norton, Richard D. Norton, Edward C. Taylor, Kristi R. Brown, Gulfport, J. Stephen Wright, Ridgeland, T. Phillip Huskey, William E. Whitfield, III, Biloxi, Kara L. Lind, attorneys for appellees.

EN BANC.

CHANDLER

, Justice, for the Court:

¶ 1. We granted certiorari in this personal-injury negligence action to clarify state law on the doctrine of claim-splitting. After new defendants were identified during discovery on her original complaint, Plaintiff Jeanette Carpenter filed a motion to amend her complaint to include the newly discovered defendants. A hearing could not be scheduled in time for the trial court to approve the amendment before the expiration of the three-year statute of limitations. In an effort to avoid losing the opportunity to bring the new defendants into the litigation, Carpenter filed a second action before the statute of limitations ran, based on the exact same set of facts, in the same court, and naming the same new defendants named in the motion to amend. The trial court dismissed both cases. The cases were consolidated for purpose of appeal. We hold that Carpenter's procedural actions constituted impermissible claim-splitting as outlined by this Court in Wilner v. White, 929 So.2d 315 (Miss.2006)

. Therefore, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and affirm the judgments of the Jackson County Circuit Court.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

¶ 2. On August 15, 2007, Jeanette Carpenter tripped on some parking-lot striping tape at a welcome center on Interstate 10. The resulting fall caused injuries, including two broken wrists as well as lacerations and bruising to her face from the impact with the pavement.

¶ 3. On June 26, 2008, Carpenter filed a negligence suit against the Mississippi Department of Transportation and five John Does ("Carpenter I "). The case was assigned to Circuit Judge Kathy King Jackson. More than a year later, Carpenter moved to amend her complaint to add Mallette Brothers Construction, Inc., and J.L. McCool Contractors. Judge Jackson granted the motion. This first amended complaint was filed within the statute of limitations.

¶ 4. On March 4, 2010, Carpenter filed a second motion for leave to amend her complaint. This time, she sought to add Kenneth Thompson Builders ("KTB"), Coastal Masonry, Pro Mow Lawn Care, and Capital Security as defendants. At this time, Carpenter had been aware of the existence of these potential defendants (via interrogatory responses) for almost a year. Carpenter attempted to set a hearing on the motion before the statute of limitations expired on August 15, 2010, but the parties were not able to select a hearing date agreeable to all parties.¹ The court ultimately approved the second amended complaint on November 12, 2010, after the statute of limitations had run.

¶ 5. On July 22, 2010, prior to the statute-of-limitations deadline and in light of the likelihood that the amendment would not be granted before August 15, Carpenter filed a second complaint ("Carpenter II "), also in the Circuit Court of Jackson County, naming KTB, Coastal Masonry, Pro Mow Lawn Care, and Capital Security as defendants. This case was assigned to Circuit Judge Robert Krebs. Carpenter filed various motions to consolidate the cases. The motions to consolidate were never ruled on at the trial level.

¶ 6. KTB and the other new defendants filed motions to dismiss both cases. Judge Jackson granted the motion to dismiss Carpenter I on the ground that the second amended complaint was filed after the statute of limitations had run.² This order granting dismissal was entered June 27, 2011. Judge Krebs granted the motion to dismiss Carpenter II on the ground that the second complaint impermissibly split Carpenter's cause of action in violation of Wilner. This order granting dismissal was entered on June 28th, 2011.³

¶ 7. The Court of Appeals reversed both dismissals, rejecting the claim-splitting argument and finding that the two cases should be considered consolidated for purposes of remand. Jeanette Carpenter v. Kenneth Thompson Builder, et al., 186 So.3d 855, 2013 WL 2180136 (Miss.Ct.App.2013)

. The defendants appeal.

DISCUSSION

1. Standard of review

¶ 8. Typically, we review motions to dismiss under a de novo standard. Scaggs v. GPCH–GP, Inc., 931 So.2d 1274, 1275 (Miss.2006)

. While the question of whether the claim-splitting doctrine is applicable to a case is a question of law reviewed de novo, dismissals on the basis of the claim-splitting doctrine are made for the purpose of eliminating duplicative litigation and for docket control. See Kanciper v. Suffolk Co. Soc. for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Inc., 722 F.3d 88 (2d Cir.2013)

; Katz v. Gerardi, 655 F.3d 1212, 1217 (10th Cir.2011). Such dismissals are premised on the fact that the party in question is involved in a pending duplicative action in which the party's procedural and substantive due-process rights are being satisfied. Therefore, "[w]e will review for abuse of discretion when a [trial] court's ‘dismissal for claim-splitting was premised in significant measure on the ability of the district court to manage its own docket,’ and will reverse the [trial] court only if we find its judgment ‘exceeded the bounds of the rationally available choices given the facts and the applicable law in the case at hand.’ " Katz, 655 F.3d at 1217 (quoting Big Sky Network Canada, Ltd. v. Sichuan Provincial Gov't, 533 F.3d 1183, 1186 (10th Cir.2008) ).⁴

2. The doctrines of res judicata and claim-splitting

¶ 9. We agree with the circuit court that Carpenter II violated this state's long-standing prohibition on claim-splitting. Since a final judgment was entered dismissing the defendants with prejudice from Carpenter I before a final judgment was entered dismissing Carpenter II, we additionally find it appropriate to affirm the dismissal of Carpenter II on the ground of res judicata.

¶ 10. Claim-splitting has long been prohibited under Mississippi law and occurs when a plaintiff attempts to bring a duplicative action involving claims arising from a single body of operative facts against the same defendants. See Wilner v. White, 929 So.2d 315 (Miss.2006)

; Harrison v. Chandler–Sampson Ins., Inc., 891 So.2d 224, 234 (Miss.2005) ; Alexander v. Elzie, 621 So.2d 909, 910 (Miss.1992) ; Kimball v. Louisville and Nat'l R.R. Co., 94 Miss. 396, 48 So. 230 (1909).

¶ 11. "[P]laintiffs have no right to maintain two actions on the same subject in the same court, against the same defendant at the same time." Curtis v. Citibank, N.A., 226 F.3d 133, 139 (2nd Cir.2000)

. "The rule against claim-splitting requires a plaintiff to assert all of its causes of action arising from a common set of facts in one lawsuit. By spreading claims around in multiple lawsuits in other courts or before other judges, parties waste ‘scarce judicial resources' and undermine ‘the efficient and comprehensive disposition of cases.’ " Katz, 655 F.3d at 1217 (quoting Hartsel Springs Ranch of Colo., Inc. v. Bluegreen Corp., 296 F.3d 982, 985 (10th Cir.2002) ). "It is well-settled that a plaintiff may not use the tactic of filing two substantially identical complaints to expand the procedural rights he would have otherwise enjoyed." Hartsel, 296 F.3d at 990. "[T]he [United States] Supreme Court captured the general principle regarding claim-splitting:

When the pendency of a [previously filed] suit is set up to defeat another, the case must be the same. There must be the same parties, or, at least, such as represent the same interest; there must be the same rights asserted and the same relief prayed for; the relief must be founded upon the same facts, and the title, or essential basis, of the relief sought must be the same."

Katz, 655 F.3d at 1217

(quoting The Haytian Republic, 154 U.S. 118, 124, 14 S.Ct. 992, 38 L.Ed. 930 (1894) ).

¶ 12. Unlike the doctrine of res judicata, a final judgment is not required in order to apply a claim-splitting analysis; rather, the test is "whether the first suit, assuming it were final, would preclude the second suit. This makes sense, given that the claim-splitting rule exists to allow [trial] courts to manage their docket[s] and dispense with duplicative litigation." Katz, 655 F.3d at 1218–19

. In Katz, the Tenth Circuit held that "[t]he district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing the [plaintiff] from this case for claim splitting" where "[the plaintiff] filed two cases in the same district court, involving the same subject matter, seeking the same claims for relief against the same defendants." Id. at 1219.

¶ 13. This is not the first time we have provided an analysis of how Mississippi's prohibition on claim-splitting applies to the scenario at hand. Carpenter's procedural actions are identical to a scenario this Court expressly rejected in Wilner . Wilner, 929 So.2d at 320

. Wilner had filed a motion to amend her complaint to add new defendants. That motion was not approved by the trial court before the statute of limitations ran. On writ of certiorari, in holding that the Court of Appeals had found incorrectly that Wilner's amended complaint related back to the original complaint, saving it from the procedural bar, this Court also rejected the Court of Appeals' following hypothetical:

If Wilner had named the four new parties in a separate, original complaint,

...