Crum v. Rea

• Decision Date: 14 February 1896
• Docket Number: 1,795
• Citation: 42 N.E. 1033,14 Ind.App. 379
• Parties: CRUM v. REA
• Court: Indiana Appellate Court

42 N.E. 1033

14 Ind.App. 379

CRUM v. REA

No. 1,795

Court of Appeals of Indiana

February 14, 1896

From the Henry Circuit Court.

Judgment reversed, with instructions to grant appellant's 384 motion for a new trial, and with leave to appellee to amend his first paragraph of answer if he so desires.

A Rogers, for appellant.

J Brown and W. A. Brown, for appellee.

OPINION

ROSS, J.

the first specification of error assigned in this court questions the sufficiency of the first paragraph of the answer, which omitting the caption, reads as follows:

"The defendant for answer to complaint says: Par. 1. That on the 26th day of January, 1894, in an action then pending in the Henry Circuit Court of the State of Indiana by the plaintiff against the defendant, in which plaintiff alleged the same facts as are stated in the complaint in this action and that final judgment was rendered in said cause on the day above mentioned."

It is insisted by counsel for appellant that the answer is insufficient as a plea of former adjudication. A plea of former adjudication, in order to be good, must show that the matters in controversy in the action in which the plea is interposed are the same as actually were or that might have been determined in the former action. Columbus, etc., R. R. Co. v. Watson, 26 Ind. 50; Kramer v. Matthews, 68 Ind. 172.

Is the allegation that in another action between the same parties, the same facts were alleged that are alleged in the case at bar, equivalent to an allegation that in the former action the cause of action was the same as that alleged in the complaint to which the answer is addressed?

In pleading a former adjudication it is necessary to allege with reasonable certainty, (1) that an action was commenced between the same parties or their privies; (2) that the subject-matter of that action was the same as that embraced in the action to which the plea is addressed; (3) that a final judgment was rendered in the former action; that is, it must be a final settlement of the matter in issue between the parties.

In Wells on Res Adjudicata, section 14, it is said: "The thing demanded must be the same, the demand must be founded upon the same cause of action, the demand must be between the same parties and found by them against each other in the same quality."

In Kitts v. Willson, 140 Ind. 604, 39 N.E. 313, the court says: "But before the rule of former adjudication can be invoked it must appear that the thing demanded was the same; that the demand was founded upon the same cause of action, that it was between the same parties and found for one of them against the other in the same quality."

Of course the plea is not always limited to the issues actually made and the facts proven and passed upon, but may, in certain cases, go to any and all issues or facts which might properly have been made and decided in that action. Parker v. Obenchain, 140 Ind. 211, 39 N.E. 869.

In McFadden v. Ross, 108 Ind. 512, 8 N.E. 161, it was said: "The proposition that the judgment of a court having jurisdiction of the parties and of the subject-matter, is conclusive, has become a settled maxim of the law. This, however, means nothing more than that such judgment is conclusive upon all questions which were, or might have been litigated and determined within the issues before the court. Neither reason nor authority lends any support to the view, that because suitors have submitted certain designated matters to the consideration of a court, the tribunal is thereby authorized to determine any other matter in which the parties may be interested, whether it be involved in the pending litigation or not. 'Persons by becoming suitors do not place themselves for all purposes under the control of the court, and it is only over those particular interests which they choose to draw in question, that a power of judicial decision arises.'" Beaver v. Irwin, 6 Ind.App. 285, 33 N.E. 462.

In Jones...