Hatchitt v. United States

• Decision Date: 12 December 1946
• Docket Number: No. 11205.,11205.
• Citation: 158 F.2d 754
• Parties: HATCHITT v. UNITED STATES (two cases).
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

158 F.2d 754 (1946)

HATCHITT v. UNITED STATES (two cases).

No. 11205.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

December 12, 1946.

John W. Preston, Oliver O. Clark, David D. Sallee and Robert A. Smith, all of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellants, Hatchitt.

David L. Bazelon, Asst. Atty. Gen., Roger P. Marquis and Dwight D. Doty, Attys., Dept. of Justice, all of Washington, D. C., and Eugene D. Williams, Sp. Asst. to the Atty. Gen., for appellee.

Before GARRECHT, MATHEWS and HEALY, Circuit Judges.

GARRECHT, Circuit Judge.

Consolidated by stipulation of the parties, these two appeals present the sole question of whether or not a defense of res judicata shall apply.

Each of the appellants is a duly enrolled and recognized member of the Palm Springs or Agua Caliente Band of Mission Indians of California. In each of the above entitled actions the respective plaintiff sought a judgment decreeing that on June 21, 1923, the United States of America allotted certain lands to her, and that she is entitled to an allotment trust patent to such lands.

In the third defense contained in its answer, the appellee pleaded, as a bar to the appellants' respective actions, the judgments of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, Central Division, in the cases of Viola Juanita Hatchitt v. United States of America, No. 1209-Y Eq., and Juana Saturnino Hatchitt, No. 1208-Y Eq., which were consolidated with an action of similar nature entitled Genevieve P. St. Marie v. United States of America, No. 918-Y Eq. These cases were decided adversely to the appellants and the other plaintiffs. See St. Marie v. United States, D. C., 24 F.Supp. 237, affirmed 9 Cir., 108 F.2d 876, certiorari denied for the reason that application therefor was not made within the time provided by law, 311 U.S. 652, 61 S.Ct. 35, 85 L.Ed. 417.

The appellee pleaded in the above-mentioned third defense that the judgments in the St. Marie and consolidated cases, including those involving the claims of the appellants, were final, binding and conclusive upon the parties to the present actions, and were res judicata as to all matters alleged in the present complaints. The court below granted the appellee's motions for summary judgments of dismissal, from which judgments the present appeals were taken.

In the earlier actions, which for convenience will be referred to as the St. Marie cases, the same parties and the same lands, among others, were involved as in the instant cases. And in each set of cases, the plaintiffs based their respective claims upon schedules and certificates of selections for allotment issued by the same special allotting officer of the Office of Indian Affairs, Harry E. Wadsworth.

The appellants summarize their position in the present actions as follows: "A suit to declare the right to an allotment of land under one set of proceedings, and a suit to declare the right to an allotment under a different set of proceedings and regulations do not necessarily create the same estate or cause of action."

The facts in this case are fully set forth in the St. Marie cases, supra; in Arenas v. United States, 322 U.S. 419, 64 S.Ct. 1090, 88 L.Ed. 1363; in Arenas v. United States, D.C., 60 F.Supp. 411; and, finally, in United States v. Arenas, D.C., 158 F.2d 730, decided by this court on this day.

It would serve no useful purpose, therefore, to restate the facts once again. It will suffice to point out here that the claims of the plaintiffs, including the present appellants, in the St. Marie cases were based upon certificates of selections for allotment and a schedule prepared by Wadsworth in 1927. The claims in the instant actions are bottomed upon certificates issued and a schedule compiled by Wadsworth in 1923, purporting to allot identically the same lands to the appellants herein as were set aside for them in 1927.

It is well settled that a valid and final judgment may be successfully pleaded in bar against any subsequent action between the same parties dealing with the same right as to the same res. That the muniment of right in each case is different does not militate against the application of the rule, so long as the general type of right in the identical res is the same. In the instant case, the appellants are asserting the same type of right — namely, the right as allotees of Indian land — to the identical tracts claimed by them in the St. Marie cases, although their claims in the present actions are grounded upon different certificates and schedules from those invoked by them in the earlier litigation.

In the leading case of Northern Pacific R. v. Slaght, 205 U.S. 122, 130-132, 133, 27 S.Ct. 442, 445, 51 L.Ed. 738, the court said:

"The question as to such judgment when pleaded in bar of another action will be necessarily its legal identity with such action. The general rule of the extent of the bar is not only what was pleaded or litigated, but what could have been pleaded or litigated. There is a difference between the effect of a judgment as a bar against the prosecution of a second action for the same claim or demand, and its effect as an estoppel in another action between the same parties upon another claim or demand cases cited, and a distinction between personal actions and real actions is useful to observe. Herman, Estoppel, § 92. It is there said: `Although there may be several different claims for the same thing, there can be only one right of property in it; therefore, when a cause of action has resulted in favor of the defendant, when the plaintiff claims the property of a certain thing there can be no other action maintained against the same party for the same property, for that would be to renew the question already decided; for the single question in litigation was whether the property belonged to the plaintiff or not; and it is of no importance that the plaintiff failed to set up all his rights upon which his cause of action could have been maintained; it is sufficient that it might have been litigated.'

"In United States v. California & Oregon Land Co., 192 U.S. 355, 24 S.Ct. 266, 48 L.Ed. 476, this principle was applied. In that case a decree rendered upon a bill in equity brought under an act of Congress to have patents for land declared void, as forfeited, and to establish the title of the United States to the land, was held to be a bar to a subsequent bill brought against the same defendants to recover the same land, on the ground that it was excepted from the original grant as an Indian reservation. And, speaking of the two suits, we said, by Mr. Justice Holmes: `The best that can be said, apart from the act just quoted, to distinguish the two suits, is that now the United States puts forward a new ground for its prayer. Formerly it sought to avoid the patents by way of forfeiture. Now it seeks the same conclusion by a different means; that is to say, by evidence that the lands originally were excepted from the grant. But in this, as in the former suit, it seeks to establish its own title to the fee.' And further: `But the whole tendency of our decisions is to require a plaintiff to try his whole cause of action and his whole case at one time. He cannot even split up his claim cases cited; and, a fortiori, he cannot divide the grounds of recovery.'

* * * * * *

"In other words, plaintiff in error, as successor of the Spokane & Palouse Railway Company, again asserts title to the very property that was the subject of the other suit, the source of title, only, being different. If this may be done, how often may...