Nardolillo v. Carroll.

• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BAKER, Justice.
• Citation: Nardolillo v. Carroll., 70 R.I. 133, 37 A.2d 659 (R.I. 1944)
• Decision Date: 17 May 1944
• Docket Number: No. 8498.,8498.
• Parties: NARDOLILLO v. CARROLL.

37 A.2d 659

NARDOLILLO

v.CARROLL.

No. 8498.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

May 17, 1944.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Charles A. Walsh, Judge.

Action of trespass on the case for negligence by Mario Nardolillo against Frank C. Carroll for personal injuries sustained in an automobile collision. Defendant's motion to dismiss the case was granted and plaintiff brings exception.

Exception overruled, and case remitted to Superior Court for further proceedings.

Luigi Capasso and Joseph Capasso, both of Providence, for plaintiff.

Francis V. Reynolds, of Providence, for defendant.

BAKER, Justice.

This is an action of trespass on the case for negligence. In the superior court the defendant's motion to dismiss the case was granted. To this ruling the plaintiff has duly prosecuted his exception to this court.

From the record it appears that while the plaintiff and defendant were personally operating their respective automobiles they came into accidental collision on May 28, 1940 on Cemetery street in the city of Providence. Following that occurrence the defendant herein by a writ dated October 7, 1940, returnable to the district court of the seventh judicial district, started an action against the present plaintiff to recover damages for alleged property loss. Thereafter the plaintiff herein by a writ dated October 10, 1940, returnable in the superior court for Providence county, instituted the case at bar for the recovery of his own damages; but it was never tried. However, the other case brought by Carroll against Nardolillo was decided in the seventh district court and in the superior court in favor of Carroll, and the verdict he received in the last-named court was sustained when the exceptions which Nardolillo had thereupon duly prosecuted were overruled by this court. Carroll v. Nardolillo, 67 R.I. 389, 24 A.2d 417.

The defendant's motion to dismiss the instant case was based on the contention that the issues at present raised here had become res adjudicata between the parties by reason of the final disposition in favor of Carroll of the other case just cited in which the present parties were reversed. Upon consideration we are of the opinion that the defendant's contention is correct and that the superior court did not commit error in granting his motion to dismiss the case at bar. Since the basic issues and the parties in the two cases in question were, in our judgment, the same, the determination in the case of Carroll v. Nardolillo, supra, decided those issues finally between the parties, and it would be improper to submit them again to another jury. See Curry v. Swett, 13 R.I. 476. The defendant herein, who was successful before competent court in the reported case in which he was the plaintiff, may now, therefore, properly invoke the doctrine of res adjudicata by way of defense.

It is clear that the decisive fundamental issues in this case and in the above-reported case were the same. In Carroll v. Nardolillo, supra, 67 R.I. at page 392, 24 A.2d at page 418, we stated that the jury had been charged “that the plaintiff was entitled to recover if and...