Hudson v. The Remington Paper Company

• Decision Date: 08 April 1905
• Docket Number: 13,947
• Citation: 80 P. 568,71 Kan. 300
• Parties: J. K. HUDSON v. THE REMINGTON PAPER COMPANY
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

80 P. 568

71 Kan. 300

J. K. HUDSON v. THE REMINGTON PAPER COMPANY

No. 13,947

Supreme Court of Kansas

April 8, 1905

Decided January, 1905.

Error from Shawnee district court; Z. T. HAZEN, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

RES JUDICATA--Judgment on One of Several Findings of Fact. Where the entry of judgment in an action involving several issues of fact recites a finding upon one of such issues that compels a judgment for the defendant, and is silent as to. the rest, there is no presumption that they have been passed on, and in the absence of some further showing they will be held open to inquiry in future litigation between the same! parties, based upon a different cause of action.

R. B Welch, Charles D. Welch, and W. R. Hazen, for plaintiff in error.

Quinton & Quinton, for defendant in error; E. S. Quinton, of counsel.

MASON J. All the Justices concurring.

OPINION

MASON, J.:

The Remington Paper Company held several notes executed to it by the Topeka Capital Company, a Kansas corporation. In April, 1897, it brought an action upon them and recovered a judgment. The defendant instituted proceedings in error in this court, but gave no bond to stay execution. During the pendency of the proceedings in error the plaintiff caused an execution to be issued, and upon its being returned unsatisfied began an action under the provisions of section 1192 of the General Statutes of 1889 (now repealed) against J. K. Hudson to charge him, as a stockholder in the Capital company, with the amount of the judgment. In August, 1899, the plaintiff obtained leave to amend its petition, and did so by setting out a number of separate counts, each based upon one of the notes on which its judgment had been rendered and containing allegations intended to permit a recovery under sections 1200 and 1204 of the General Statutes of 1889 (the latter of which is also now repealed), which authorized actions to be brought directly against stockholders upon debts owing by corporations that had ceased business for more than one year. Upon motion of the defendant, however, the court struck from the amended petition all such additional matter, requiring the plaintiff to stand upon its judgment and its remedy under the statute first cited.

In February, 1900, by a decision of this court, the judgment against the Capital company was reversed. (Capital Co. v. Remington , 61 Kan. 6, 59 P. 1062.) Such reversal was pleaded by Hudson in a supplemental answer filed in the action against him. That case being called for trial, it was admitted in open court that the allegations of the supplemental answer were true, findings were made that the judgment upon which the action was based had been reversed, and that plaintiff was not entitled to recover, and thereupon judgment was rendered for the defendant for costs. The plaintiff prosecuted error from this judgment, complaining of the ruling of the district court in refusing to allow it to change its action from one under section 1192, supra, to which a judgment and execution against the corporation were prerequisite, to one under sections 1200 and 1204, supra, based upon the notes as such, and the fact that the corporation had ceased active business. It was held, however (Remington v. Hudson, 64 Kan. 43, 67 P. 636), that the notes, being merged in the judgment, were no longer available for any purpose in their original character, and that having elected to proceed under section 1192 the plaintiff could not change its position and convert its proceeding into one under sections 1200 and 1204.

The plaintiff then began a new action under sections 1200 and 1204, declaring upon the notes, the cessation of business by the Capital company, and the defendant's ownership of stock therein. The defendant pleaded substantially the facts already recited. Prior to the trial the plaintiff, having in the meantime procured a new judgment on the notes against the corporation, set out that fact in a supplemental petition. Upon final hearing the plaintiff was given judgment, which it is the purpose of the present proceeding to review. Under various specifications of error two principal contentions are made: (1) That the plaintiff is precluded from resorting to the remedy under sections 1200 and 1204, now invoked, by having in the earlier proceedings elected to pursue the inconsistent remedy afforded by section 1192; (2) that the judgment rendered in the former action was a final adjudication of the matter sought to be litigated here.

So far as relates to the matter of estoppel by the prior election of an inconsistent remedy there is nothing to distinguish the present case from Thomas v. Remington, 67 Kan. 599 73 P. 909. Following the decision there made we hold that, although so long as the judgment stood that was rendered in favor of the Remington company against the Capital company the notes upon which it was based were by the principle of merger rendered unveiling as any part of a cause of action, and the attempt to enforce it through the provisions of section 1192 precluded recourse to sections 1200 and 1204, yet when the judgment was vacated the effect of the merger and of the election ceased, the notes were restored to vitality, and the plaintiff was reinvested with the privilege of choosing between the different methods of enforcing its claim. In this connection it is argued by plaintiff in error that to permit the plaintiff in an action brought upon the...