Lucino Almeida Chantangco v. Eduardo Abaroa

• Decision Date: 28 November 1910
• Docket Number: No. 2,2
• Citation: 54 L.Ed. 1116,218 U.S. 476,31 S.Ct. 34
• Parties: LUCINO ALMEIDA CHANTANGCO and Enrique Lete, Plffs. in Err., v. EDUARDO ABAROA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

218 U.S. 476

31 S.Ct. 34

54 L.Ed. 1116

LUCINO ALMEIDA CHANTANGCO and Enrique Lete, Plffs. in Err.,

v EDUARDO ABAROA.

No. 2.

Submitted October 24, 1910.

Decided November 28, 1910.

Messrs. Aldis B. Browne, Alexander Britton, Evans Browne, and W. A. Kincaid for plaintiffs in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 477-479 intentionally omitted] No brief was filed for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice Lurton delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a writ of error to the supreme court of the Philippine Islands to review a judgment affirming a judgment of the court of the first instance in favor of the defendant.

The action was to recover indemnification of damages for the destruction of a storehouse and a stock of merchandise therein, valued at $58,473.49, Mexican, which the complaint alleged was 'burned maliciously or unlawfully by Eduardo Abaroa,' the defendant to the complaint, and defendant in error here.

The defense was, first, a general denial, and second, that the defendant, in a criminal action for the same burning and damage alleged, had been acquitted and held not guilty of the malicious burning now alleged, and in consequence of such judgment was not liable in a civil action for any damage to the plaintiff. The judgment in the criminal proceeding referred to was in these words:

'The evidence introduced by the prosecution indicates that the defendant might have been the author of the crime, but it is not conclusive. All persons charged with crime are presumed to be innocent until they are proven otherwise. There being in my mind some doubt as to the guilt of the defendant, I should and do hereby acquit him, with the costs of these proceedings de officio, and the attachment heretofore levied on his property is hereby vacated, reserving to the complaining witness whatever right he may have to bring a civil action against the said Eduardo Abaroa.'

Upon a final hearing upon all of the proofs, the court of first instance adjudged that the cause of action alleged and proved was one arising from the criminal act which was the subject of the former criminal proceeding; and that the defendant, having been acquitted in the criminal action, was not civilly liable. This judgment was affirmed by the supreme court of the Philippine Islands upon an elaborate opinion.

We have not had the benefit of either brief or argument for the defendant in this writ of error, but have found much assistance in the opinions of each of the Philippine courts, as well from very helpful briefs filed by learned counsel for the plaintiffs in error. The contention which has been very forcibly pressed is that the judgment of acquittal in the criminal action does not operate as a bar to a subsequent civil action for indemnification of damages resulting from the same malicious or unlawful burning of the house and goods of the plaintiff, which was charged in the criminal action.

The proposition upon which the supreme court of the Philippine Islands grounded its judgment affirming that of the lower court in favor of the defendant Abaroa was, 'that it has not been alleged or shown by the plaintiffs, as a cause of action instituted civilly against the defendant, that the aforesaid fire was caused through any fault or negligence on the part of the defendant, nor is there shown any motive or cause distinct from that, the subject of the case already terminated in accordance with the provisions of articles 1093, 1902, and 1903 of the Civil Code; and second, that one who is not criminally responsible for a crime or misdemeanor cannot be made civilly responsible for the crime of which he has been acquitted.'

The general rule of the common law is that a judgment in a criminal proceeding cannot be read in evidence in a civil action to establish any fact there determined. The reason for this rule is, primarily, that the parties are not the same, and, secondarily, that different rules of evidence are applicable. In the old case of Jones v. White, 1 Strange, 67, 68, Eyre, J., said: 'If a verdict be given in evidence, it must be between the same parties; and therefore an indictment, which is at the suit of the King, cannot be read in an action which is at the suit of the party.' The requisite of mutual estoppel is essential to make a judgment in one action obligatory in another, although the point in issue is the same in each case. Unless the parties are the same, the matter is res inter alios. Buller, N. P. 233; 1 Wharton, Ev. & 776; Dyer County v. Chesapeake, O. & S. W. R. Co. 87 Tenn. 712, 11 S. W. 943.

Neither will identity of parties always operate to make a judgment in a criminal action admissible in evidence in a civil action. There must be identity of issue. Thus, in Stone v. United States, 167 U. S. 178, 187, 42 L. ed. 127, 131, 17 Sup. Ct. Rep. 778, Stone was sued by the United States to recover the value of timber alleged to have been cut by him from public lands. He had been theretofore indicted, tried, and acquitted for unlawfully cutting the same timber from the public lands, and pleaded this judgment as a bar to a suit for civil liability. This was held to be no defense, and Coffey v. United States, 116 U. S. 436, 29 L. ed. 684, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 437, distinguished as having been placed upon the ground 'that the facts ascertained in the criminal case, as between the United States and the claimant, could not be 'again litigated between them, as the basis of any statutory punishment denounced as a consequence of the existence of the facts." With respect to the application of Coffey's Case, Mr. Justice Harlan, for the court, said:

'In the present case the action against Stone is purely civil. It depends entirely upon the ownership of certain personal property. The rule established in Coffey's Case can have no application in a civil case not involving any question of criminal intent or of forfeiture for prohibited acts, but turning wholly upon an issue as to the ownership of property. In the criminal case, the government sought to punish a criminal offense, while in the civil case it only seeks, in its capacity as owner of property illegally converted, to recover its value. In the criminal case his acquittal may have been due to the fact that the government failed to show, beyond a reasonable doubt, the existence of some fact essential to establish the offense charged, while the same evidence in a civil action brought to recover the value of the property illegally converted might have been sufficient to entitle the government to a verdict. Not only was a greater degree of proof requisite to support the indictment than is sufficient to sustain a civil action, but an essential fact had to be proved in the criminal case, which was not necessary to be proved in the present suit. In order to convict the defendant upon the indictment for unlawfully, wilfully, and feloniously cutting and removing timber from lands of the United States, it was necessary to prove a criminal intent on his part, or, at least, that he knew the timber to be the property of the United States. R. v. Cohen, 8 Cox, C....