Lustik v. Rankila, 39121

• Decision Date: 04 December 1964
• Docket Number: No. 39121,39121
• Citation: 131 N.W.2d 741,269 Minn. 515
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court
• Parties: Mary Jane LUSTIK, Appellant, v. Roy RANKILA and Steve Devich, Spec. Admrs. of Estate of Ruth Rankila, decedent, Respondents.

Page 741

131 N.W.2d 741

269 Minn. 515

Mary Jane LUSTIK, Appellant, v. Roy RANKILA and Steve Devich, Spec. Admrs. of Estate of Ruth

Rankila, decedent, Respondents.

No. 39121.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Dec. 4, 1964.

Syllabus by the Court

A verdict awarding damages to the trustee of a deceased driver against a surviving driver under Minn.St. 573.02 establishes as a matter of law that the surviving driver was guilty of negligence which proximately caused the accident and estops him from thereafter asserting against the decedent's administrator a claim under § 573.01 for personal injuries arising out of the same occurrence.

Spellacy, Spellacy & Lano, Marble, for appellant.

O'Leary, Trenti & Berger, Virginia, for respondents.

OTIS, Justice.

This lawsuit is brought to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by appellant, Mary Jane Lustik, as a result of a head-on collision between vehicles driven by her and by decedent, Ruth Rankila. Previously an action was brought against Mrs. Lustik under Minn.St. 573.02 for the death of Mrs. Rankila. A motion to consolidate the two proceedings was denied on the authority of Lambach v. Northwestern Refining Co., Inc., 261 Minn. 115, 111 N.W.2d 345, which held that because of the statutory presumption of decedent's due care, § 602.04, it was improper to do so. ¹ The court ordered that the trustee's suit be given priority since it was first sued. The jury rendered a verdict awarding the trustee damages against Mrs. Lustik. ² In the present litigation Mrs. Rankila's special administrator moved for summary judgment, claiming that the issue of Mrs. Lustik's contributory negligence was res judicata and that the verdict estopped her from asserting this claim. The trial court granted the motion and Mrs. Lustik appeals.

In essence it is the position of appellant that the doctrine of estoppel by verdict is not applicable because (1) the estoppel is not mutual; (2) the issues are not the same; (3) the parties are not identical and do not have privity; (4) the inability to counterclaim gives an arbitrary and unfair advantage to the first person suing; and (5) under Minn.Const. art. 1, § 8, there is no right without a remedy. ³

We have carefully considered all of appellant's contentions and acknowledge that the statutory presumption of decedent's due care may lead to an unseemly race to the courthouse, as Mr. Chief Justice Knutson predicted in the Lambach case. However, as long as Minn.St. 602.04 remains on the books, litigants will continue to find themselves burdened with duplicated litigation and with the necessity for maneuvering for the tactical advantage of being the first to trial. ⁴

Appellant concedes that in the prior action for death by wrongful act the jury necessarily found she was negligent and that her negligence was a proximate cause of the accident. However, she seeks to avoid the effect of this determination by urging that in a subsequent action, without decedent's presumption of due care, Mrs. Rankila's negligence might be found to have insulated prior negligence on the part of Mrs. Lustik. It appears to be Mrs. Lustik's contention that the so-called 'last clear chance' doctrine would now be available to her and that the verdict against her in the action for death by wrongful act does not therefore create an estoppel because the issues in the first action were decided under different principles of law. We do not agree. There is no showing that the evidence in either action would support this theory. The conclusion is inescapable that whether or not Mrs. Rankila is now found to be negligent, there has already been a judicial determination in proceedings to which Mrs. Lustik was a party establishing as a fact that Mrs. Lustik was herself guilty of negligence which was a proximate cause of this collision. The court's charge on the issue of Mrs. Lustik's negligence would be precisely the same in this litigation as it was in the first action. ⁵ The test is: Did the first action Necessarily decide that Mrs. Lustik was guilty of negligence which proximately caused the accident and the injuries for which she here seeks damages? ⁶ Obviously, the answer is in the affirmative. Her negligence has already been thoroughly litigated. There has been no appeal. There is no principle of law which is not common to both actions on the decisive question of Mrs. Lustik's contributory negligence. She is therefore barred from recovering.

The dissent written by Mr. Justice Thomas Gallagher states that appellant is entitled to a second trial because she had no opportunity to litigate her affirmative claims without the statutory presumption of § 602.04 'against her.' We are not concerned with decedent's presumption of due care but only with plaintiff's lack of care. Section 602.04 is not a sword but a shield. It has no bearing on any negligence except that of decedent and no application to the issue of Mrs. Lustik's contributory negligence.

An interpretation of TePoel v. Larson, 236 Minn. 482, 53 N.W.2d 468, has been suggested which we believe is at complete variance with what that opinion holds. In discussing the decedent's presumption of due care, this court stated in the TePoel decision (236 Minn. 492, 53 N.W.2d 473):

'* * * The court's instruction on the issue of contributory negligence, if properly given, will require a Finding against defendant if the evidence is in balance or fails to preponderate in his favor. The presumption cannot and should not be permitted to cast any greater Burden upon defendant than he already has under such instructions.' (Italics supplied.)

The 'finding against defendant' and the 'burden upon defendant' to which we referred in that opinion had only to do with a finding against defendant and his burden in connection with proving decedent's contributory negligence and had no bearing whatever on the issue of defendant's own negligence in that case.

It is contended that estoppel by verdict is not applicable unless the adversary of the party against whom the doctrine is invoked appears in the same capacity in both actions. This is not the law of Minnesota. What we have held in Olson v. Linster, 259 Minn. 189, 107 N.W.2d 49, and in Schmitt v. Emery, 215 Minn. 288, 290, 9 N.W.2d 777, 779, is that the doctrine may not be invoked against a party to the subsequent action who appears in a different capacity from the losing party in the initial litigation. This fundamental distinction is required by due process which prevents the result of a prior suit from binding Adversely a litigant who was a stranger to it and had no opportunity to be heard. ⁷ But our court and other jurisdictions do not require that in a second action one who Invokes the doctrine of estoppel in his own favor against an adversary who appeared in identical capacities in both suits must also have been a party to the first action. In Gammel v. Ernst & Ernst, 245 Minn. 249, 72 N.W.2d 364, 54 A.L.R.2d 316, we squarely held that estoppel by prior verdict was available in favor not only of a party who appeared in a different capacity but also of one who was a complete stranger to the prior litigation. There we said (245 Minn. 256, 72 N.W.2d 369):

'* * * While the present defendants were not parties to that action, it is the same issue--dependent on the same evidence--that plaintiff seeks to litigate once more in the present proceedings. Defendants assert that the judgment in the prior action constitutes a bar thereon. They recognize the general rule that a former judgment is not Res judicata in a subsequent action unless the parties in the latter are the same or in privity with those in the former proceeding * * *; but submit authorities defining an exception to this rule and assert that the facts in the instant case bring it within such exception. * * *

'* * * We have recognized this exception to the doctrine of mutuality otherwise essential to Res judicata * * *.

'Based on the facts described and the decisions cited, we hold that on the issue of fraud plaintiff has had his day in court; that the issue has been fully litigated and determined; and in consequence that any attempt to relitigate it in the present proceedings is barred.' (Citations omitted.)

In abandoning the strict rule of mutuality of estoppel, this court cited three leading cases on the subject: Bernhard v. Bank of America Nat. Trust & Sav. Ass'n, 19 Cal.2d 807, 122 P.2d 892; Coca Cola Co. v. Pepsi-Cola Co., 6 W.W.Harr. 124, 36 Del. 124, 172 A. 260; and Bruszewski v. United States (3 Cir.), 181 F.2d 419. The test prescribed in Bernhard by the present Chief Justice, Roger Traynor, was this (19 Cal.2d 813, 122 P.2d 895):

'* * * Was the issue decided in the prior adjudication identical with the one presented in the action in question? Was there a final judgment on the merits? Was the party against whom the plea is asserted a party or in privity with a party to the prior adjudication?'

In the instant case all three requirements have been met.

The court in the Coca Cola case based its decision on considerations of public policy which demand an end to litigation where a party has had a full, free, and untrammeled opportunity to present facts pertinent to a decisive issue. That decision rejects the argument that a litigant may have pursued his cause with less zeal in the first action than he might in the subsequent one. ⁸

The court in Bruszewski held that orderly judicial administration foreclosed a party from twice litigating the same issue despite a lack of mutuality if there had been a full and fair opportunity to be heard previously. Three other Federal cases discuss exhaustively the abandonment of mutuality as a prerequisite to the application of estoppel: Judge Charles Clark in a dissent predating Bruszewski, Riordan v. Ferguson (2 Cir.), 147 F.2d 983, 988; and more recently opinions from the same court in Fleischer v. Paramount Pictures Corp. (2 Cir.), 329 F.2d 424, and Zdanok v. Glidden Co., Durkee Famous...