Gonzalez v. Gonzalez

• Citation: 413 So.2d 97
• Decision Date: 13 April 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-1199,81-1199
• Court: Court of Appeal of Florida (US)
• Parties: Stephen GONZALEZ and United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company, Appellants, v. Lawrence GONZALEZ, Appellee.

Page 97

413 So.2d 97

Stephen GONZALEZ and United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company, Appellants, v. Lawrence GONZALEZ, Appellee.

No. 81-1199.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Third District.

April 13, 1982.

Rehearing Denied May 10, 1982.

Carey, Dwyer, Cole, Selwood & Bernard and Michael C. Spring and Anthony L. Pietrofesa, Miami, for appellants.

Phillip Freidin, Claudia B. Greenberg, Miami, for appellee.

Before DANIEL S. PEARSON, FERGUSON and JORGENSON, JJ.

DANIEL S. PEARSON, Judge.

Stephen Gonzalez and United States Fidelity & Guaranty appeal from a summary judgment on liability granted in favor of Lawrence Gonzalez, the plaintiff below. The appellants contend that the trial court's determination that Stephen was negligent and thus liable derives from an incorrect application of the doctrine of collateral estoppel. We agree with this contention and reverse.

On February 17, 1977, Lawrence Gonzalez was involved in an accident while riding in a car driven by his brother, Stephen Gonzalez. The car collided with a van owned by the United States and operated by a United States Marshal. Stephen and Lawrence Gonzalez as co-plaintiffs sued the United States Government in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act, Title 28 U.S.C. Section 1346. The federal court held that the United States, through its employee, was not guilty of negligence which proximately caused the accident. The action was dismissed on the merits against the Gonzalezes. Lawrence Gonzalez then sued Stephen Gonzalez in state court for injuries arising from that accident. The trial court determined that Stephen Gonzalez was to some degree negligent and granted Lawrence's motion for partial summary judgment. It arrived at this conclusion by deductively reasoning that since the record is clear and uncontradicted that Lawrence was not negligent and the accident was not unavoidable; and since the federal court finding collaterally estops Stephen from claiming that the driver of the Government van was negligent; ergo, Stephen was negligent. The deduction, of course, is sound only if collateral estoppel applies.

In Florida, however, a party who asserts the doctrine of collateral estoppel must show, inter alia, that the issue was fully litigated between the parties. Mobil Oil Corporation v. Shevin, 354 So.2d 372 (Fla.1977). As this court so recently and clearly stated in Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Company v. Robinson, 389 So.2d 1084, 1085 (Fla.3d DCA 1980):

"It is a prerequisite to the application of the doctrine of collateral estoppel or estoppel by judgment that the issue which is sought to be foreclosed by the result of earlier litigation has been decided in an action 'between' the parties in the later case. Mobil Oil Corp. v. Shevin, 354 So.2d 372, 374 (Fla.1977); Zurich Ins. Co. v. Bartlett, 352 So.2d 921, 922 (Fla.2d DCA 1977), cert. denied, 359 So.2d 1210 (Fla.1978). This means, as the court said in Rader v. Otis Elevator Co., 327 So.2d 857, 858 (Fla. 1st DCA 1976), cert. denied, 336 So.2d 602 (Fla.1976), that 'estoppel must be predicated on a judgment between adversaries.' [emphasis in Southern Bell ]. It is obvious that this element did not exist under the facts of this case. While Robinson and Southern Bell were aligned together in the county court as adversaries of Suarez, they were in no sense adversaries of each other. Hence, we hold, in accordance with the overwhelming weight of authority on the identical question, that the outcome of the earlier case has no effect on the present one...." (footnotes and concluding citations omitted).

Similarly, while Stephen and Lawrence were aligned in the federal court as adversaries of the United States Government, they were in no sense adversaries of each other. Therefore, as in Robinson, the outcome of the earlier litigation has no effect on the present case. ¹

We add two further comments. First, the argument made in the dissent that a party should not be able to controvert a judicially determined fact does not distinguish this case from Robinson, but, instead, is an argument to do away with the rule requiring that that fact be determined between adversaries. This we are bound not to do. Second, the dissenter is concerned that a refusal to apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel would permit the defendant to point to an "empty chair," contend that the Government driver's negligence caused the accident, and possibly obtain a result inconsistent with the result in the federal case. This, again, is simply an argument against the rule in Robinson. It is true that a verdict for Stephen will mean that Lawrence recovers from neither driver. While that may disturb the dissenter, we think that is a far better result than relieving Lawrence Gonzalez of the burden of now proving his brother's negligence when Lawrence's testimony in the federal lawsuit, obviously designed to further his and Stephen's unsuccessful action against the Government, was that Stephen was totally free from fault. ² If Lawrence has tears, they are those of the crocodile. ³

Reversed and remanded.

FERGUSON, Judge (dissenting).

The majority refuses to apply collateral estoppel to the facts of this case, holding that the doctrine requires that there be a mutuality of parties in both actions, ⁴ and further that the parties in both actions must be adversaries. ⁵ This seems to be the law in Florida as developed in the District Courts of Appeal. However, in this case the law has been mechanically misapplied and perfectly illustrates the proverbial collision of reason and an abstract rule. I dissent because I believe reason should prevail.

Both Stephen and Lawrence brought suit against the United States government in federal court. The federal court, after an extensive finding of facts held that as between the parties, Stephen and Lawrence as plaintiffs and the United States government as defendant, "the plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden of demonstrating by a greater weight of the evidence that [United States government] was guilty of negligence which caused the accident...." ⁶

The majority holds that the doctrine of collateral estoppel doesn't apply and Stephen should be allowed to assert as a defense in the suit brought against him in the State court by Lawrence, that the negligence of Putnam, operator of the government vehicle, caused the accident--precisely what has been judicially determined to the contrary in a court of competent jurisdiction where Stephen and the United States government were adversaries. The unreasonable conclusion that is now a distinct possibility is that Lawrence, who was injured while riding as a passenger in a vehicle operated by Stephen where the accident was the result of the negligence of either Stephen or Putnam as operator of the government vehicle, will not recover as against Stephen or the United States government. The majority is not troubled by the prospect of inconsistent judgments or the fact that the issue of government liability was fully litigated between adverse parties, but concludes it more important that Lawrence, for his presumed crocodilian motives in filing suit against the United States government in the first action, should take nothing by this second action.

The facts of those cases which gave rise to Florida's rule that collateral estoppel may be asserted only by parties who were adversaries of each other in a prior action, upon careful analysis, are different from the facts of this case. The concern of those cases and the rationale for limiting the use of collateral estoppel to adverse parties is that fairness requires both parties in the second action be bound by the judgment adverse to the party who fully litigated the issue in a prior suit. See 1B Moore's Federal Practice, § 0.412 (1980 ed.); Parklane Hosiery Company v. Shore, supra at note 1, and Annotation at 58 L.Ed.2d 938. See also Annot., 31 A.L.R.3d, supra at note 1. The rule in Mobil Oil Corporation v. Shevin, 354 So.2d 372 (Fla.1977) as stated by the majority is that a party who asserts the doctrine of collateral estoppel must show that the issue was fully litigated between the parties. Both Lawrence and Stephen were parties in the prior suit, both were adverse to the United States government, both fully litigated the issue of government liability and, unlike the situation in the cases cited by the majority, both are bound by the judicial determination of non-liability of the government for the accident. (B and C sue A, held: A not negligent to B or C; B sues C asserting that C should be estopped from claiming that A was the cause of injury to B). Lawrence is bound by the judicial determination that the government is not liable for the accident. Stephen is bound by the judicial determination that the government is not liable for the accident. Federal court records will forever show that the government was not the proximate cause of either Lawrence's or Stephen's injuries. Yet, the rule of this case is that Lawrence alone is bound and that Stephen may claim in a court of competent jurisdiction that the government did cause Lawrence's injuries.

No such rule emerges from the cases cited by the majority. In Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Company v. Robinson, 389 So.2d 1084 (Fla.3d DCA 1980), the plaintiff does not attempt to assert the determination of liability as between himself and a party who was adverse to himself and a co-plaintiff in a prior action. The plaintiff in Southern Bell, supra, could not on the grounds of estoppel assert that the liability of a prior co-defendant to a prior plaintiff proves liability of that co-defendant to himself. (B sues A and C obtaining judgment against C based on negligence, A sues C claiming damages arising from same acts of negligence, held: A may not assert that C's liability to B conclusively proves C's liability to A). Similarly in Zurich Insurance Company v. Bartlett, 352...