Guy A. Fletcher v. Francis A. Perry. Rutland Buick Company, Inc. v. Francis A. Perry

• Decision Date: 04 February 1932
• Parties: GUY A. FLETCHER v. FRANCIS A. PERRY. RUTLAND BUICK COMPANY, INC. v. FRANCIS A. PERRY
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

158 A. 679

104 Vt. 229

GUY A. FLETCHER v. FRANCIS A. PERRY. RUTLAND BUICK COMPANY, INC. v. FRANCIS A. PERRY

Supreme Court of Vermont

February 4, 1932

January Term, 1932.

Judgment---Former Judgment as Bar to Subsequent Action---Estoppel by Verdict or Finding---Necessity That Estoppel Must Be Mutual---Privity---Bailment---Bailee's Right of Action for Injury to Subject of Bailment---Effect of Recovery of Full Damages by Bailee---Effect Where Bailee Recovers only to Extent of Possessory Interest---Rights of Bailee To Recover for Injury to Reversionary Interest---Res Judicata.

1. Former judgment is absolute bar to subsequent action only where parties, subject-matter, and causes of action are identical, or substantially so.

2. When some controlling fact or question material to determination of suit has been adjudicated by court of competent jurisdiction and is again at issue between same parties or their privies in subsequent suit, former adjudication properly presented will be conclusive of same fact or question in second suit, although two suits are not for same cause of action.

3. Under such circumstances, while there is no estoppel without judgment which confers upon finding contained in verdict sanction necessary to give it effect of res judicata estoppel is not by judgment, but by verdict or finding.

4. General rule is that estoppel must be mutual, and party will not be concluded by former judgment unless it would have protected him if other way, and benefit of judgment as estoppel upon adversary cannot be claimed unless party claiming estoppel would have been prejudiced by contrary decision of case.

5. No privity is created between parties because as litigants in two different suits they happen to be interested in proving or disproving same facts.

6. Bailee has special property in thing bailed, and may maintain action for injury to it, while in his possession, caused by negligence of third person, and may recover full amount of damages.

7. Bailee who recovers full damages for injury to bailed property while in his possession caused by negligence of third person, holds in trust for general owner whatever is recovered by bailee above his special interest.

8. Bailor who allows suit by bailee for full amount of damages to bailed property by negligence of third person to proceed to judgment, cannot afterwards sue for same injury; and judgment in favor of bailee is pleadable in bar to subsequent action by bailor.

9. Recovery by bailee in suit against third person for negligence to extent only of his possessory interest in bailed property is no bar to action by bailor for damages to his reversionary interest.

10. Recovery of damages by bailor for injuries to bailor's general property in thing bailed by negligence of third person, does not affect bailee in subsequent suit to recover for injury to his possessory right.

11. In ACTION OF TORT against bailee of automobile for damages sustained in automobile collision, previous judgment for bailor of automobile driven by defendant, in action by such bailor against plaintiff, held not pleadable as res judicata.

ACTION OF TORT in two cases for negligence against bailee of an automobile for damages sustained by reason of an automobile collision. Pleas, general denial, and three special pleas in bar. The defendant demurred to such pleas in bar. The two cases were tried together by the court at the September Term 1931, Rutland County, Sherburne, J., presiding. Plaintiff's demurrer in each case was sustained, and defendant's plea in bar held insufficient. The defendant excepted. The opinion states the case.

Judgment affirmed, and cause remanded with leave to defendant to apply.

Fenton Wing, Morse & Jeffords for the defendant.

Lawrence, Stafford & O'Brien for the plaintiffs.

Present: POWERS, C. J., SLACK, MOULTON, THOMPSON, and GRAHAM, JJ.

OPINION

MOULTON

These are two cases tried together, and each comes before us on defendant's exceptions to the sustaining of the demurrer to his pleas in bar. It has been stipulated that the complaints in the two actions are substantially identical, except as to the allegations of damage; that the pleas in bar, demurrers, and bills of exceptions are identical; and that such disposition as may be made of one applies with equal force to the other, the questions raised being identical in each case. The record, consisting of the complaint, pleas, demurrers, and bill of exceptions in the case of Rutland Buick Company, Inc. v. Francis A. Perry, is the one which has, by stipulation, been printed and submitted.

The complaint is in tort, and alleges that a Buick automobile, owned by the plaintiff and driven and operated by Harold Stafford, was damaged in a collision with a La Salle automobile driven and operated by the defendant, and that the accident was caused by the negligence of the defendant and without the fault of the plaintiff.

There are three pleas in bar, the allegations of which may be summarized as follows: Prior to the institution of the present action Harvey R. Kingsley, the owner of the La Salle automobile, brought suit against the Rutland Buick Co., Inc., Guy A. Fletcher, and Harold Stafford for the damage to it caused by this same accident, and recovered a judgment, which has not been reversed, annulled, or set aside, but is of full force and effect; that a controlling fact or question involved in that action was the negligence of the defendants therein in the operation of the Buick automobile, which after full trial and opportunity to be heard was decided adversely to them; that the same fact or question is material and controlling in the present case; that at the time of the accident the present defendant, Perry, was a bailee of the La Salle automobile, and as such was in privity with Kingsley, his bailor; and that therefore the present plaintiffs are barred and estopped from again litigating the question of their negligence.

The demurrer challenges the alleged conclusiveness of the judgment in Kingsley's action as a bar or estoppel in favor of the defendant in the present proceeding.

A former judgment is an absolute bar to a subsequent action only where the parties, the subject-matter, and the causes of action are identical, or substantially so. Blondin v. Brooks, 83 Vt. 472, 480, 76 A. 184; Gilley v. Jarvis, 94 Vt. 135, 137, 138, 109 A. 41; Cutler v. Jennings, 99 Vt. 85, 89, 130 A. 583. But when some controlling fact or question material to the determination of both suits has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction and is again at issue between the same parties or their privies, the former adjudication will, if properly presented, be conclusive of the same fact or question in the second suit, although the two suits are not for the same cause of action. See cases above cited. This is, technically speaking, an estoppel by verdict, because while there is no estoppel without the judgment which confers upon the finding contained in the verdict the sanction necessary to give it the effect of res judicata, the estoppel is not by the judgment, but by the verdict or finding. Spaulding, Admr. v. Mutual Life Ins. Co., 96 Vt. 67, 72, 117 A. 376.

Furthermore it is the general rule that an estoppel must be mutual, and therefore a party will not be concluded by a former judgment unless it would have been a protection to him if it had been the other way, and conversely no person can claim the benefit of a judgment as an estoppel upon his adversary unless he would have been prejudiced by a contrary decision of the case. Dunnett v. Shields & Conant, 97 Vt. 419, 431, 123 A. 626; Firestone Tire and...