Faulkner v. Caledonia County Fair Ass'n, 03-433.

• Decision Date: 17 December 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-433.,03-433.
• Citation: 869 A.2d 103
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court
• Parties: Dorrie L. FAULKNER v. CALEDONIA COUNTY FAIR ASSOCIATION and MARC'S AMUSEMENT CO., INC.

869 A.2d 103

Dorrie L. FAULKNER v. CALEDONIA COUNTY FAIR ASSOCIATION and MARC'S AMUSEMENT CO., INC.

No. 03-433.

Supreme Court of Vermont.

December 17, 2004.

Motion for Reargument Denied January 31, 2005.

Jan Peter Dembinski of Jan Peter Dembinski, P.L.C., Woodstock, and Herbert G. Ogden of Liccardi Crawford & Ogden, P.C., Rutland, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

John Paul Faignant of Miller Faignant & Behrens, P.C., Rutland, for Defendants-Appellees.

Present: AMESTOY, C.J.,¹ DOOLEY,² JOHNSON, SKOGLUND and REIBER, JJ.

SKOGLUND, J.

¶ 1. In this personal injury action, plaintiff appeals the Caledonia Superior Court's August 28, 2003 decision granting defendants' motion to dismiss. Plaintiff argues on appeal that this action is sufficiently distinct from the lawsuit she filed, and eventually won, for injuries sustained as a result of the same occurrence giving rise to her current lawsuit. Because we agree with the trial court that the doctrine of claim preclusion bars plaintiff from relitigating the personal injury claims she pressed in her first lawsuit, we affirm.

¶ 2. The parties do not contest the relevant facts. In 1991, plaintiff sustained injuries when a large metal panel struck her head while she was on an amusement ride at the Caledonia County Fair run by defendant Caledonia County Fair Association (County Fair). In 1994, plaintiff sued the operator of the ride, defendant Marc's Amusement Co., Inc. (Marc's), for damages resulting from her head injuries. In 1995, the U.S. District Court rendered a verdict in her favor for $5,000, and she successfully collected that amount.

¶ 3. On November 12, 1999, plaintiff suffered her first grand mal seizure. On April 5, 2000, her treating physician diagnosed her with epilepsy and determined that the 1991 head injury was the proximate cause of the epilepsy. In November 2002, plaintiff sued both defendants, seeking damages for the epilepsy that allegedly resulted from the 1991 injury. Defendants jointly filed a motion to dismiss in May 2003.

¶ 4. In the decision currently on appeal, the trial court granted defendants' motion to dismiss on two grounds. First, the court agreed with defendants that plaintiff's epilepsy claim was barred by the doctrine of claim preclusion,³ because plaintiff's current claim differs from her 1994 claim only in that she currently alleges a more serious injury to her head. Further, the court held that its ruling applied to both defendants (even though plaintiff sued only Marc's in her first action) because they were in privity. Second, the trial court found that plaintiff's claim was time-barred under 12 V.S.A. § 512(4).⁴ Plaintiff then filed this appeal.

¶ 5. In reviewing a trial court's grant of a motion to dismiss, this Court accepts as true "all factual allegations pleaded in the complaint" and draws "all reasonable inferences from those facts." Gilman v. Maine Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 2003 VT 55, ¶ 14, 175 Vt. 554, 830 A.2d 71 (mem.). "[W]hether preclusion applies to a given set of facts is a question of law, which we review de novo." In re Cent. Vt. Pub. Serv. Corp., 172 Vt. 14, 19, 769 A.2d 668, 673 (2001) [hereinafter In re CVPSC].

¶ 6. As a preliminary matter, we note that plaintiff does not challenge the trial court's conclusion that, by virtue of the indemnity obligation and the unity of interests between them, privity exists between the two defendants for claim preclusion purposes. See In re Dunnett, 172 Vt. 196, 203 n. *, 776 A.2d 406, 412 n. * (2001) (stating that this Court will not address issues on appeal that are not briefed). Although plaintiff notes that in her first suit she sued Marc's and that in the present suit she is suing Marc's and the County Fair, she presents no argument or authority to suggest that the trial court's conclusion was incorrect. Therefore, the trial court correctly concluded that if claim preclusion barred plaintiff's claim against Marc's, it also barred her claim against the County Fair.

¶ 7. The crux of plaintiff's argument is that the trial court erred in applying claim preclusion because the cause of action in her current lawsuit is distinct from her prior lawsuit. However, as the trial court correctly explained, "plaintiff is pursuing the identical case she pursued in 1994 except that she is alleging that the injury to her head was more serious."

¶ 8. Under the doctrine of claim preclusion, a final judgment in previous litigation bars subsequent litigation if the parties, subject matter, and cause(s) of action in both matters are the same or substantially identical. Pomfret Farms Ltd. P'ship v. Pomfret Assocs., 174 Vt. 280, 284, 811 A.2d 655, 659 (2002). The doctrine applies both to claims that were or should have been litigated in the prior proceeding. In re CVPSC, 172 Vt. at 20, 769 A.2d at 673. Claim preclusion flows from the fundamental precept that a final judgment on the merits "`puts an end to the cause of action, which cannot again be brought into litigation between the parties upon any ground whatever.'" Nevada v. United States, 463 U.S. 110, 130, 103 S.Ct. 2906, 77 L.Ed.2d 509 (1983) (quoting Comm'r v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591, 597, 68 S.Ct. 715, 92 L.Ed. 898 (1948)).

¶ 9. The doctrine of claim preclusion advances the efficient and fair administration of justice because it serves "(1) to conserve the resources of courts and litigants by protecting them against piecemeal or repetitive litigation; (2) to prevent vexatious litigation; (3) to promote the finality of judgments and encourage reliance on judicial decisions; and (4) to decrease the chances of inconsistent adjudication." In re CVPSC, 172 Vt. at 20, 769 A.2d at 673. By furthering these objectives, the doctrine

ensures "the very object for which civil courts have been established, which is to secure the peace and repose of society by the settlement of matters capable of judicial determination. Its enforcement is essential to the maintenance of social order; for, the aid of judicial tribunals would not be invoked ... if ... conclusiveness did not attend the judgments of such tribunals."

Nevada, 463 U.S. at 129, 103 S.Ct. 2906 (quoting S. Pac. R.R. v. United States, 168 U.S. 1, 49, 18 S.Ct. 18, 42 L.Ed. 355 (1897)); see also Russell v. Atkins, 165 Vt. 176, 179, 679 A.2d 333, 335 (1996) (recognizing that "[r]es judicata is intended to protect the courts and the parties from the burden of relitigation").

¶ 10. The policies underlying the doctrine of claim preclusion are so fundamental to our precedent-based legal system that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to recognize "public policy" and "simple justice" as rationales for avoiding the doctrine's strict application. Federated Dep't Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S. 394, 401-02, 101 S.Ct. 2424, 69 L.Ed.2d 103 (1981); see also 18 Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 4415, at 379 (2d ed.2002) (noting that Federated Department Stores"virtually extinguishes the prospect that a general fairness exception will be engrafted on claim-preclusion rules"). As the Supreme Court stated, "`[s]imple justice' is achieved when a complex body of law developed over a period of years is evenhandedly applied." Federated Dep't Stores, 452 U.S. at 401, 101 S.Ct. 2424. The Court also observed that" `[p]ublic policy dictates that there be an end of litigation; that those who have contested an issue shall be bound by the result of the contest, and that matters once tried shall be considered forever settled as between the parties.'" Id. (quoting Baldwin v. Traveling Men's Ass'n, 283 U.S. 522, 525, 51 S.Ct. 517, 75 L.Ed. 1244 (1931)). As a result, claim preclusion generally will not yield to the equities of a particular case: "The doctrine of res judicata serves vital public interests beyond any individual judge's ad hoc determination of the equities in a particular case. There is simply `no principle of law or equity which sanctions the rejection by a federal court of the salutary principle of res judicata.'" Id. (quoting Heiser v. Woodruff, 327 U.S. 726, 733, 66 S.Ct. 853, 90 L.Ed. 970 (1946)).

¶ 11. With these considerations in mind, we turn to the question of whether plaintiff's current lawsuit articulates a new claim, or attempts to relitigate the claim concluded by her prior lawsuit. In determining whether two causes of action are sufficiently similar for claim preclusion purposes, this Court has focused on whether the same evidence will support both of them. See, e.g., State v. Dann, 167 Vt. 119, 125, 702 A.2d 105, 109 (1997) ("For the purposes of claim preclusion, two causes of action are the same if they can be supported by the same evidence."); Am. Trucking Ass'ns v. Conway, 152 Vt. 363, 370, 566 A.2d 1323, 1328 (1989) ("This Court has previously characterized causes of action as the same for purposes of claim preclusion where `the same evidence will support the action in both instances.'" (quoting Hill v. Grandey, 132 Vt. 460, 463, 321 A.2d 28, 31 (1974))). This approach tracks the first Restatement of Judgments, which deemed causes of action the same for claim preclusion purposes "if the evidence needed to sustain the second action would have sustained the first action." Restatement of Judgments § 61 (1942).

¶ 12. As the U.S. Supreme Court has noted, however, "[d]efinitions of what constitutes the `same cause of action' have not remained static over time." Nevada, 463 U.S. at 130,103 S.Ct. 2906. Indeed, the trend has been toward a broader approach, embodied in the Restatement (Second) of Judgments, requiring a plaintiff to address in one lawsuit all injuries emanating from "all or any part of the transaction, or series of connected transactions, out of which the action arose." Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 24(1)(1982) [hereinafter Restatement (Second)]; see also 18 Wright et al., supra, § 4407 n. 22 (observing that "[t]oo many states have adopted the Restatement test to provide a complete list" and collecting examples); Note, Claim Preclusion in Modern Latent Disease...