Kay Freeman v. Beech Aircraft Corp.
| Decision Date | 30 September 1983 |
| Docket Number | 80-11-0120,83-LW-1988,80-11-0119,80-11-0121 |
| Parties | KAY FREEMAN, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. BEECH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee. CASE |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
William H. Wimsatt, Lynn L. Mullins, Magana, Cathcart, McCarthy & Pierry, 1801 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 810, Los Angeles California 90067, and George H. Elliott, Rathman, Elliott & Boyd Law Firm, 406 First National Bank Building, Middletown, Ohio 45042, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Michael R. Gallagher, Alton L. Stephens, Joseph W. Pappalardo, Gallagher, Sharp, Fulton & Norman, Sixth Floor, Bulkley Building, Cleveland, Ohio 44115, and Stephen J. Brewer, Fiehrer, Brewer & Cooney, 723 Dayton Street, Hamilton, Ohio 45011, for Defendant-Appellee.
This case arose out of an airplane crash on February 3, 1973, involving a Beech Model 95 twin-engine Travel Air aircraft. The plaintiffs are the Administrators of the Estates of Michael Freeman, Dwight Conley and John Keeton, three of the four men killed in the accident.®1¯ The appeal herein was initiated upon a jury verdict in favor of the defendant-appellee ("Beech"), the manufacturer of the airplane, in each of three consolidated products liability claims for wrongful death.
Footnote 1 The fourth man killed, James Beer, is not a party to this action.
The first assignment of error is as follows:
THE TRIAL COURT ERRED TO THE PREJUDICE OF PLAINTIFFS IN DENYING PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT, OVER OBJECTION, ON THE ISSUE OF DEFECTIVE DESIGN AS A RESULT OF A PRIOR JUDGMENT AGAINST DEFENDANT BEECH IN A CALIFORNIA CASE.
With respect to this issue, supplemental briefs were submitted in order to address the effect of the case of Goodson v. McDonough Power Equipment, Inc. (1983), 2 Ohio 3d 193, 443 N.E.2d 978, released on January 5, 1983, on the case sub judice.
Essentially, Beech argues that Goodson is dispositive of appellants' first assignment of error. Appellants argue that Hicks v. DeLaCruz (1977), 52 Ohio St. 2d 71, 369 N.E.2d 776, ratified by the court in Goodson, should be applied to preclude the relitigation of the design defect issue. For the reasons discussed below, we do not find appellants' argument to be persuasive.
The doctrine of res judicata is that an existing final judgment rendered on the merits, without fraud or collusion, by a court of competent jurisdiction, is conclusive of rights, questions and facts in issue, as to the parties and their privies, in all other actions in the same or any other judicial tribunal of competent jurisdiction. Norwood v. McDonald (1943), 142 Ohio St. 299, 52 N.E.2d 67; 46 Am Jur 2d 558, Judgments ] 394. Res judicata literally means "a matter adjudged" and the entire cause of action is said to "merge" into the judgment, where the plaintiff was victorious in a prior action, so that the plaintiff cannot recover again on the same cause of action. Whitehead v. General Telephone Co. (1969), 20 Ohio St. 2d 108, 112, 254 N.E.2d 10. Conversely, if the defendant was successful in the prior action, the plaintiff is said to be "barred" from recovering on the same cause of action in a subsequent action. Whitehead, supra.
The term "estoppel" appears in Mansker v. Dealers Transport Co. (1953), 160 Ohio St. 255, 116 N.E.2d 3, where the court held that a judgment in a prior action operates as an "estoppel" in a second action between the same parties with regard to the relitigation of controlling points or questions actually determined in the first action. This was called an "estoppel by judgment." Mansker, supra, at 260. Recently, the court has picked up the modern terminology in describing that aspect of the res judicata which precludes relitigation of particular issues as "collateral estoppel" or "issue preclusion" used either "offensively" or defensively.®2¯ See, Whitehead, supra.
Footnote 2 Defensive use occurs where a stranger to the prior judgment seeks to prevent a party who lost in the prior proceeding from arguing in the present case an issue decided in the previous action. Offensive use, at issue in the case sub judice , occurs when the plaintiff, a stranger to the prior judgment, seeks to prevent the defendant from relitigating an issue he litigated unsuccessfully in the prior case.
Historically, the traditional rule was that the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel would only apply where the parties to both the prior case and the current case were the same.®3¯ Under this "mutuality" rule, if a judgment could not be effective as res judicata against a person, that person could not avail himself of the adjudication and contend that it is to be used as res judicata against others. 46 Am Jur 2d 673, Judgments ] 521.
Footnote 3 The term "parties", as used in the mutuality rule, includes those "in privity" with the actual named parties. Nationwide Ins. Co. v. Steigerwalt (1970), 21 Ohio St. 2d 87, 255 N.E.2d 570.
Ohio has long followed the mutuality rule and has consistently maintained that in order to apply the doctrine of res judicata there must be a complete identity of both issues and parties. Lessee of Lore v. Truman (1859), 10 Ohio St. 45; Hixon v. Ogg (1895), 53 Ohio St. 361, 42 N.E.32; Norwood, supra ; Mansker, supra ; Whitehead, supra ; Goodson, supra. See also, Trautwein v. Sorgenfrei (1979), 58 Ohio St. 2d 493, 391 N.E.2d 326; First National Bank of Cincinnati v. Berkshire Life Ins. Co. (1964), 176 Ohio St. 395, 199 N.E.2d 863; Schimke v. Early (1962), 173 Ohio St. 521, 184 N.E.2d 209; State ex rel. Ohio Water Service Co. v. Mahoning Balley Sanitary District (1959), 169 Ohio St. 31, 157 N.E.2d 116; Taylor v. Monroe (1952), 158 Ohio St. 266, 109 N.E.2d 271; Quinn v. Leroy (1928), 118 Ohio St. 48, 160 N.E. 453.
There has been considerable criticism of the mutuality rule in recent years and various jurisdictions have significantly eroded or entirely discarded the principle. See, 31 ALR3d 1044, "Mutuality Of Estoppel As Prerequisite Of Availability Of Collateral Estoppel To A Stranger To The Judgment." However, the Ohio Supreme Court recently affirmed the mutuality rule in Goodson, surpa, holding in the first paragraph of the syllabus, that:
In Ohio, the general rule is that mutuality of parties is a requisite to collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion. As a general principle, collateral estoppel operates only where all of the parties to the present proceeding were bound by the prior judgment. A judgment, in order to preclude either party from relitigating an issue, must be preclusiye upon both. A prior judgment estops a party, or a person in privity with him, from subsequently relitigating the identical issue raised in the prior action.
In Goodson, the parents of a four year-old child brought an action against the manufacturer of a lawn mower alleging, inter alia, the negligent design of the mower. The trial court found that a previous judgment against the manufacturer precluded the relitigation of both the design defect issue and the causation issue and granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability. The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment insofar as it precluded the parties from relitigating the design defect issue, but held that summary judgment was improper on the issue of enhancement of injury.
The Supreme Court, in reversing the Court of Appeals on the question of the application of collateral estoppel to the design defect issue, initially reaffirmed the mutuality principle.
If a judgment cannot be effective as res judicata against a particular person, he cannot avail himself of the adjudication and contend that it is available against others, as between them and himself.
Indeed, the extremely broad language of the syllabus in Goodson would seem to preclude the appellants' argument as it states that:
2. In the absence of mutuality there may be no issue preclusion in the relitigation of design issues relating to a mass-produced product, especially when the former adjudication arose out of a separate underlying incident.
However, the court indicated that it "might" accept the offensive use of collateral estoppel in design defect cases, Goodson, at 203, and that it was "currently entertain[ing]" the thought of abandoning the principle of mutuality. Goodson at 202. The court further stated that the standards underlying Parklane Hosiery Co., Inc. v. Shore (1979), 439 U.S. 322, 326, 99 S.Ct. 645 and those set forth in the Restatement of Judgments 2d, Section 27, Comment c, would be used in applying collateral estoppel to design defect cases. Goodson, supra.
The court in Goodson did not base its decision, however, on the lack of mutuality of parties. Rather the court determined that "the appellees would not be reasonably able to show the requisite 'identity of issues' for the application of nonmutual collateral estoppel." Goodson, at 204. The court noted that there were "two totally separate accidents, with two different models of a riding lawn mower manufactured in different years by appellant manufacturer." Goodson, at 203. The court attached "critical importance" to:
. . . the differing trial techniques and appellate determinations that would have been made by legal counsel in the prior case if it had been known that the judgment would have been utilized in subsequent cases to estop a defense on the question of liability.
This analysis becomes pertinent in light of the court's reaffirmance of Hicks v. DeLaCruz, supra, in Goodson. In Hicks, a non-party to ...
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