Lynch v. Chicago Transit Authority

• Decision Date: 13 September 1965
• Docket Number: Gen. No. 50124
• Citation: 62 Ill.App.2d 220,210 N.E.2d 792
• Parties: James J. LYNCH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY, a Municipal Corporation, and D. Marron, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 792

210 N.E.2d 792

62 Ill.App.2d 220

James J. LYNCH, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY, a Municipal Corporation, and D.

Marron, Defendants-Appellees.

Gen. No. 50124.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, First Division.

Sept. 13, 1965.

Joe Reiff, Chicago, for plaintiff-appellant.

William J. Lynch, William S. Allen, Paul Denvir, James E. Hastings, Chicago, for defendant-appellee Chicago Transit Authority.

BURMAN, Presiding Justice.

This case arose out of a collision between an automobile driven by the plaintiff, Lynch, and a bus which was owned and operated by the defendant, Chicago Transit Authority, in which Collision a passenger on the bus was injured. In a prior suit (Case No. 58 C 7937) in which the passenger sued both Lynch and the C.T.A., a jury returned a verdict for the passenger against both Lynch and the C.T.A. In the instant case, in which Lynch sued the C.T.A., the trial court entered a final order dismissing the case on the grounds that Lynch was estopped by the verdict in the prior case. Lynch appeals from the dismissal charging that the doctrine of estoppel by verdict does not apply because the issues in the prior case are not the same as the issues involved here and because mutuality of estoppel is lacking.

Estoppel by verdict is a branch of the doctrine of res judicata, and like that doctrine, is based on the policy that a question once adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction shall be considered as finally settled and conclusive on the parties. City of Elmhurst v. Kegerreis, 392 Ill. 195, 64 N.E.2d 450. The doctrine of estoppel by verdict provides that when some specific fact or question has been actually and directly in issue and has been adjudicated in a former suit, and the same fact or question is again put in issue in a subsequent suit between the parties or their privities who were parties in the former suit, its determination in the former suit, if properly presented and relied on, is conclusive upon the parties and their privities in the latter suit, without regard to whether or not the cause of action is the same in both suits. Hoffman v. Hoffman, 330 Ill. 413, 161 N.E. 723; Rose v. Dolejs, 7 Ill.App.2d 267, 129 N.E.2d 281. For the doctrine to be applicable it is not necessary that the parties have been arrayed on opposite sides in the prior litigation or that formal issues have been drawn up between them. Franciscy v. Jordan, 43 Ill.App.2d 344, 193 N.E.2d 219; Stangle v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 295 F.2d 789 (C.A., 7th); Rose v. Dolejs, 7 Ill.App.2d 267, 129 N.E.2d 281.

We believe that the present case meets these requirements for the application of estoppel by verdict. The parties in this suit were both parties to the prior suit. The determinative question in the instant case is the same as one of the issues necessarily decided in the prior suit. In order to recover in the instant case, Lynch must allege and prove that he was in the exercise of ordinary case. This issue is precisely the same as the issue decided by the jury in the prior case, where, in rendering a verdict against Lynch, the jury must necessarily have decided that Lynch was not in the exercise of ordinary care at the time of the collision.

The plaintiff contends that estoppel does not apply here, however, because mutuality of estoppel is lacking. He argues that if the C.T.A. had sued him, it would not have been estopped by the verdict in the prior suit because the issue in that case (whether the C.T.A. was in the exercise of the highest degree of care toward its passenger) was not the same as the issue in its suit against Lynch (whether the C.T.A. was in the exercise of ordinary care with respect to Lynch). Hence the plaintiff concludes that, since the C.T.A. would not have been estopped by the prior verdict, there is no mutuality of estoppel and the C.T.A. cannot claim that Lynch is estopped by the prior verdict in the instant case.

Although there is an older line of Illinois cases in which the rule of mutuality of estoppel has been applied (see Schafer v. Robillard, 370 Ill. 92, 17 N.E.2d 963; MacDonald v. Dexter, 234 Ill. 517, 85 N.E. 209; Provident Mut. Life Ins. Co. of Philadelphia v. Norcott, 366 Ill. 82, 7 N.E.2d 858; Mullally v. Lott, 162 Ill.App. 533; Robinson & Co. v. Marr, 181 Ill.App. 605), more recent cases have eroded the doctrine of mutuality. In Voss Truck Lines, Inc. v. Pike, 350 Ill.App. 528, 113 N.E.2d 202, for example, mutuality was lacking because the plaintiffs in the second suit who sought...