Haley v. Breeze

• Decision Date: 21 March 1892
• Parties: HALEY v. BREEZE, County Treasurer
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

144 U.S. 130

12 S.Ct. 836

36 L.Ed. 373

HALEY v. BREEZE, County Treasurer.

March 21, 1892.

The grounds of the decision by the state supreme court will appear from the following extracts from the opinion: 'The record discloses that the appellee, Haley, has instituted and prosecuted two injunction suits against the appellant for the accomplishment of the same purpose, to wit, to prevent him from enforcing, as county treasurer of Routt county, the collection of taxes assessed against the personal property of the appellee therein for the year 1884, by distraint and sale of a portion of the same. The first suit was brought and prosecuted in the district court of Clear Creek county, and the present action in the district court of Pitkin county. The complaint in the former case stated substantially the same grounds for enjoining the collection of these taxes as that filed in the latter case; the principal ground being the invalidity of the assessment. Additional grounds for equitable relief are alleged in the present complaint. but they all existed at the time of the former action, and it is not even alleged that they were unknown to the appellee at the time the original suit was pending.

'The doctrine of the authorities is that, when a complainant in equity brings his suit, he must present to the court all the grounds then existing for its support. He is not at liberty to present a portion of the grounds upon which his claim for equitable relief depends in one suit, and, if that fail, to present the rest in another action. The former adjudication is held to be conclusive, in a subsequent proceeding between the same parties, as to every matter properly involved, and which might have been raised and determined in it. Ruegger v. Railroad Co., 103 Ill. 456; Kurtz v. Carr, 105 Ind. 574, 5 N. E. Rep. 692; Stark v. Starr, 94 U. S. 477.

'A copy of the complaint filed by said Haley in the former suit was set out in the answer in this cause, showing the identity of the causes of action of the relief sought, of the parties, and that they prosecuted and defended in the same character; and it is therein averred that this court, by its opinion and judgment of April 30, 1887, (13 Pac. Rep. 913,) pronounced in that case, held the said assessment to be valid, and that the injunction proceedings could not be maintained, which former adjudication is alleged to be a complete bar to the present action. This answer stands untraversed, and the fact, therefore, of a former adjudication of the same subject-matter between the same parties is decisive, not only of this appeal, but of this action. It appears from the record that there was a full and complete adjudication in the original suit of the validity of these taxes, and that the authority of the appellant, as treasurer of Routt county, to enforce their collection, was therein sustained. There was therefore no warrant of law for granting this second injunction to restrain him from the performance of that duty. The point so strongly insisted upon by counsel for appellee, that the subject-matter of the original injunction proceedings, and the judgment of this court therein, could not be legally interposed as an estoppel to this second suit, for the reason that the same constituted new matter, and was therefore inadmissible under the rules of chancery...