Johnson v. Bagby, 43280

• Decision Date: 01 February 1965
• Docket Number: No. 43280,43280
• Citation: 252 Miss. 125,171 So.2d 327
• Parties: Mildred C. JOHNSON v. James E. BAGBY.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 327

171 So.2d 327

252 Miss. 125

Mildred C. JOHNSON v. James E. BAGBY.

No. 43280.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Feb. 1, 1965.

Gerald E. Braddock, Prewitt & Bullard, Vicksburg, for appellant.

Vollor & Thames, Vicksburg, for appellee.

BRADY, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment rendered in the Circuit Court of Warren County forever dismissing with prejudice the cause of action of the appellant. The judgment was rendered upon the sustaining of pleas in bar of collateral estoppel and res judicata filed by the appellee and the overruling of motions to strike the pleas in bar or parts thereof by the appellant. The pleas in bar were predicated upon a judgment, for property damages to his automobile, obtained by the father of the appellee in a former suit against the appellant in the County Court of Warren County.

The record discloses the following pertinent facts: On December 22, 1961 a car operated by the appellee collided almost head on with a car operated by the appellant. The car appellee was driving belonged to his father, James E. Bagby, Sr., hereinafter designated Bagby, Sr. This accident occurred on Highway 61 south of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The appellee, then fifteen years of age, had obtained a driver's license by having his parents sign his application therefor in compliance with the statutory requirements of the Mississippi Code Annotated section 8096 (1956). The appellant sustained lacerations and cuts on her forehead and her scalp, requiring up to a hundred stitches, and also contusions and bruises to her body. The automobiles of the appellant and appellee's father were considerably damaged by the collision.

On February 16, 1962 James E. Bagby, Sr., the owner of the automobile which was driven by his son, filed a declaration in the County Court of Warren County against the appellant, alleging that it was her negligence that proximately caused the collision and the damage to his automobile.

On March 30, 1962 Mrs. Johnson, defendant below, appellant here, answered, denying liability and alleging that the collision was caused by the negligence of James E. Bagby, Jr., hereinafter designated appellee or Bagby, Jr. The case was tried on the issue of whether the appellant's negligence proximately caused the collision, and the trial court held as a matter of law that appellant's negligence proximately caused the collision. Bagby, Sr. was granted a peremptory instruction, requiring the jury to determine the amount of damages due the plaintiff, Bagby, Sr., from the appellant. Bagby, Sr. had sued for $3,000 actual and punitive damages. The proof of actual damages amounting to $685 offered by Bagby, Sr. was undisputed by the appellant, and a verdict of $250 was rendered by the jury in the county court against the appellant. The record of the county court clearly shows that the plaintiff Bagby, Sr., was not entitled to a peremptory instruction because the proof clearly raised serious issues of fact as to whether the appellant's negligence or the negligence of Bagby, Sr.'s son, the appellee in the case at bar, was the sole and proximate cause of the collision.

On December 18, 1962 a judgment for $250 in favor of plaintiff, Bagby, Sr., was entered against the appellant, from which no appeal was prosecuted, and is now final.

On March 19, 1963, almost three months subsequent to the judgment against the appellant in the county court, the appellant filed her declaration in the Circuit Court of Warren County charging the appellee, Bagby, Jr., with the negligent operation of his father's automobile, which proximately caused the appellant's personal injures and property damage.

After obtaining additional time within which to plead, and in order to get the record in the county court case, the appellee, James E. Bagby, Jr., on June 10, 1963, filed his answer denying the accusation and alleging that the collision was caused by appellant's negligence. Appellee nor only answered denying liability but alleged further (1) that his father, James E. Bagby, was liable for any of his negligence under said section 8096 because his father had signed the appellee's driver's license application; and (2) that the issue of whether he or the appellant had caused the collision had been fully litigated in a former action by Bagby, Sr. in the County Court of Warren County, and there this question had finally and forever been determined against the appellant. The appellee introduced as Exhibit 'B', and as part of his answer, the record of the county court case. He pled estoppel, collateral estoppel, and res judicata.

On the same date that the appellee, his son, filed an answer to the appellant's declaration, Bagby, Sr., without obtaining the court's permission to do so, also filed an answer by virtue of his having been served with a process for his minor son and because, under section 8096, supra, he alleges that he is liable for any negligence of which his son might be found guilty, and therefore was entitled to answer as a defendant. The answer of Bagby, Sr. set up the same facts and defenses as the answer of his son, the appellee. The matter was not disposed of on its merits but was dismissed on pleas in bar filed by the appellee in his answer. The circuit court overruled a motion to strike, filed by the appellant, which challenged the legal sufficiency of the appellee's pleas of collateral estoppel and res judicata, and the motion of the appellant to eliminate any reference to the county court case and to strike completely the answer of Bagby, Sr.

The circuit court, having sustained the pleas in bar of collateral estoppel and res judicata of appellee, thereby impliedly overruled appellant's motions to strike. A final judgment was entered in favor of the appellee and the cause was dismissed with prejudice.

Three errors are assigned by the appellant:

I. The Lower Court improperly sustained the plea or plea in bar of res judicata and/or collateral estoppel set up in Appellee's Answer.

II. The Lower Court erred in overruling Appellant's Motion to strike portions of Appellee's Answer for reason of immateriality.

III. The Lower Court erred in overruling Appellant's Motion to strike in its entirety the Answer filed by James E. Bagby, Sr.

The three errors which appellant assigns to have been committed by the circuit court can be considered together since they are all interrelated. Moreover, if the motions to strike portions of the appellee's answer and all of the answer of Bagby, Sr. should have been sustained, it follows that appellee's pleas of res judicata and collateral estoppel should not have been sustained, and vice versa.

The decision of this case turns upon two simple questions: First, was the lower court correct in sustaining appellee's plea of collateral estoppel, and second, was the plea of res judicata likewise properly sustained.

This Court, as is true is other jurisdictions, has relaxed somewhat the application of the doctrine of res judicata by enabling litigants to use the doctrine of collateral estoppel, but there are still certain basic requirements which this Court has held must be present and operating before the doctrine of collateral estoppel can be applied as a bar to a subsequent action based upon a judgment in a former case.

This Court, speaking through Justice Ethridge, pointed out in Garraway v. Retail Credit Co., 244 Miss. 376, 141 So.2d 727 (1962), that '[c]ollateral estoppel is a doctrine which operates, following a final judgment, to establish conclusively a matter of fact or law for the purposes of a later lawsuit on a different cause of action between the parties to the original action.' Here is presented the first basic requirement essential for the operation of collateral estoppel, which is that the parties to the original action must be the same parties to the subsequent action. In collateral estoppel we have relaxed the rule under res judicata and we have permitted a different cause of action to be litigated between the parties, but up to this time we still hold that it is necessary that the parties to the subsequent action must be the same as those in the prior action. Appellee urges forcefully in his brief that this rule is subject to limitations and, in support thereof, urges that certain exceptions should relax the requirement that the parties be the same in the subsequent action as they were in the first action. Under his first proposition appellee contends that these exceptions relate to the relationship of indemnitor-indemnitee and urges for the most part in his erudite and fluent brief that, because of derivative liability on the part of Bagby, Sr., collateral estoppel should be permitted to operate as a bar without the necessity of having identical parties in both suits. The appellee also contends, under his second proposition, that even though the appellee was not a party to the prior suit, he should nevertheless be permitted to rely upon collateral estoppel for the reason that the same issue which is now sought to be relitigated in the case at bar had formerly been adjudicated against the appellant.

We consider now the first exception urged by appellee, namely, that since Bagby, Sr., was the indemnitor of the appellee, collateral estoppel should operate in behalf of the appellee. Appellee's major premise is fallacious because there is a complete absence of an indemnitor-indemnitee relationship between Bagby, Sr. and his son, the appellee. The indemnitor-indemnitee relationship which exists in the case at bar is one between Bagby, Sr. and the motoring public in general who may become involved in an accident because of the appellee's negligence....