Lane v. Williams, 12457
| Decision Date | 05 October 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 12457,12457 |
| Citation | 144 S.E.2d 234,150 W.Va. 96 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | Marshallene LANE et al. v. Roy WILLIAMS et al. |
Syllabus by the Court
Plaintiffs in a civil action are not precluded, on the basis of res judicata or estoppel, from maintaining a second action against persons who were defendants in a former action, or who are in privity with parties defendant in the former action, where the causes of action alleged in the two actions are different and where none of the matters in issue in the second action were adjudicated in the former action.
H. D. Rollins, Charleston, for appellants.
Boyce Griffith, Alum Creek, George A. Daugherty, Charleston, for appellees.
This case is before the Court on appeal from a final judgment of the Circuit Court of Lincoln County entered on January 5, 1965, in a civil action in which the plaintiffs, Marshallene Lane, Gladys Johnson, Faye Conner, Mary Jane Gerhart, Thomas Dugan, Linda Tincher, Jack Dugan and James Dugan, seek to have an adjudication that they are the rightful owners of a portion of a tract of land conveyed to M. J. Banks by the Board of Education of Lincoln County by a deed dated November 6, 1958. The tract is question was subsequently conveyed by M. J. Banks to defendants, Roy Williams and Alice Williams, husband and wife, and thereafter it was conveyed by Roy Williams and Alice Williams to defendants, Azil Pauley and Vada Pauley.
In an answer filed by the defendants Azil Pauley and Vada Pauley, they assert (1) that they are the owners in fee simple of the land in controversy; (2) that the plaintiffs are precluded, on the basis of the doctrine of res judicata, from having the relief sought by them; and (3) that they hold valid title to the land by adverse possession.
By its final judgment, the circuit court sustained the plea of res judicata and dismissed the action at the cost of the plaintiffs. The single question presented for decision on this appeal is whether the trial court correctly sustained the plea of res judicata. The case was submitted for decision in the trial court and in this Court on the pleadings and upon an undisputed state of facts embodied in a written stipulation made by counsel. A brief review of the pertinent facts is necessary in order to present properly the basic question before the Court for decision.
In 1894, Victoria A. Burdette and S. P. Burdette, her husband, for a consideration of $25.00, conveyed a lot containing three-fourths of an acre from a tract of forty acres to the Board of Education of Washington District of Lincoln County as a site on which a public school building was subsequently erected. At that time there was in effect in this state a statute which provided that, upon discontinuance of such a school, the 'grantor or his heirs' were entitled to a reconveyance of the school lot upon payment to the board of education of the sum of money received by the grantor as consideration for the original conveyance to the board of education. The school on this site was discontinued in 1957, and the school lot was sold at public auction and conveyed to M. J. Banks.
A former action, the one which is alleged to form the basis of res judicata, was instituted by the present owners of the residue of the forty-acre tract in order to require a reconveyance to them of the former school lot. Defendants in that action were the Board of Education of Lincoln County, M. J. Banks, Roy Williams and Alice Williams. The conveyance from Roy Williams and Alice Williams to Azil Pauley and Vada Pauley was made after the former action was terminated by final adjudication. The trial court held in favor of the defendants in the former action. Upon appeal by the plaintiffs, this Court held that the plaintiffs in that action, though the owners of the residue of the forty-acre tract, were not 'the grantor or his heirs' within the meaning of the statute in effect when the original conveyance was made to the board of education by Victoria A. Burdette and her husband and that, therefore, the plaintiffs were not entitled to a reconveyance of the school lot under the provisions of the statute. The opinion of the Court in the former case, Lane v. Board of Education of Lincoln County, is reported in 147 W.Va. 737, 131 S.E.2d 165, to which reference is here made for a more detailed statement of the facts which furnished the basis for both the former action and the case now before the Court for decision.
After the former case was decided by this Court, a new action, the one involved in this appeal, was instituted. In this case the plaintiffs are the same as in the former action and are successors in title to and owners of the residue of the forty-acre tract from which Victoria A. Burdette and husband conveyed the school lot to the board of education. The sole defendants in the present case are Roy Williams, Alice Williams, Azil Pauley and Vada Pauley.
In the present case, the plaintiffs do not seek a reconveyance of the three-fourths of an acre which was formerly a school lot. Obviously they recognize that, under this Court's prior decision, they have no standing to require a reconveyance of the school lot pursuant to the statute which was in effect when it was originally conveyed. The Board of Education of Lincoln County, as successor of the Board of Education of Washington District, has not been made a party to the second action. No claim is made by the plaintiffs in this action to any part of the former school lot. In the present case the plaintiffs assert that the Board of Education of Lincoln County conveyed to M. J. Banks in 1958 a considerable portion of the residue of the forty-acre tract which belongs to the plaintiffs and which was not at any time a part of the school lot.
Counsel for the defendants, on this appeal, apparently does not contend that the cause of action in the present case is the same as that which was involved in the former case. Rather he contends that the plaintiffs properly could have litigated in the former action the matters presently in issue and that, therefore, the plaintiffs are estopped to assert such matters in the present case. We believe that such contention cannot be sustained under applicable legal principles.
It appears from an order of the trial court entered pursuant to a pre-trial hearing in the present case that all parties agree that in its deed to M. J. Banks, the Board of Education of Lincoln County conveyed by metes and bounds a portion, but not all, of the school lot originally conveyed by Victoria A. Burdette and husband; and that, by the same deed, the board of education also undertook to convey to M. J. Banks by metes and bounds a considerable portion of the residue of the forty-acre tract owned by the plaintiffs. It is obvious, therefore, that the present case involves different parties defendant, a different parcel of land and a different basis of recovery asserted by the plaintiffs. The former action was predicated on a right created by statute. That statute is not involved in the present case. In the former action, there was no adjudication of the case on its merits. There was no adjudication in the former action of any of the matters in issue in the present case, and, under the issues defined by the pleadings, there could not properly have been an adjudication in the former case of any of the matters in issue in the instant case. We are of the opinion, therefore, that the cause of action asserted by the plaintiffs in the second action, the present case, is wholly different from that asserted by them in the former action.
This Court has recognized a technical distinction, quite generally overlooked, between a situation in which the cause of action is the same in both the former case and in the...
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