Pratt v. Ratliff

• Decision Date: 08 June 1900
• Citation: 1900 OK 55,10 Okla. 168,61 P. 523
• Parties: W. S. PRATT v. JOHN A. RATLIFF, Sheriff of Kingfisher County.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

1900 OK 55

61 P. 523

10 Okla. 168

W. S. PRATT v. JOHN A. RATLIFF, Sheriff of Kingfisher County.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma

Decided: June 8, 1900

Error from the District Court of Kingfisher County; before John C. Tarsney, District Judge.

Syllabus

¶0 1.RES JUDICATA. A judgment is a bar if the cause of action be the same, though the form be different. The cause is the same when the same evidence will support both actions; or, rather the judgment in the former action will be a bar provided the evidence necessary to sustain the judgment for the plaintiff in the present action would have authorized a judgment for him in the former.

2. SAME. When a matter has once passed to final judgment without fraud or collusion, in a court of competent jurisdiction, it has become res judicata, and the same matter between the same parties cannot be reopened or subsequently considered.

D. K. Cunningham, for plaintiff in error.

M. J. Kane, for defendant in error.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE.

This is an action of replevin brought by plaintiff in error before Thomas Menzies, a justice of the peace in and for Kingfisher county, Oklahoma Territory, against the defendant in error, to recover possession of personal property levied upon and taken by the defendant as sheriff of said county under an execution issued in a suit in which one D. W. Doty recovered a judgment against this plaintiff in error, in June, 1893, before one W. D. Hilton, who was then pretending to act as justice of the peace, in and for said county, and which last mentioned judgment was taken on transcript to, and filed in the district court of said county, and the execution in the hands of the defendant, as sheriff, upon which he acted in taking the property, was issued by the clerk of the district court on said transcript. The plaintiff in error in his affidavit of replevin filed in this case sets out that the judgment on which the execution issued is void, for the reason that at the time said judgment was rendered, the said Hilton, who rendered said judgment was not a justice of the peace, de facto nor de jure, and had no authority whatever to render said judgment. To plaintiff's affidavit in replevin defendant filed a demurrer in the justice court which was sustained by that court, and judgment rendered against the plaintiff. Plaintiff then appealed to the district court, and in the district court the case again came on for hearing on a motion of the defendant to dismiss the appeal, for the reason that the affidavit in replevin was not sufficient, which motion was by the court overruled. Defendant was then allowed to and did file a general denial, and the trial of the case proceded upon an agreed statement of facts: By agreement of counsel it was stipulated that the statement and evidence obtained in a certain case-made in case No. 760, wherein this plaintiff was plaintiff, and B. W. Burchett, as sheriff, and one Doty, were defendants, should be taken as a statement of facts in this case. This case No. 760 was brought in the district court of said county by this plaintiff to enjoin the sheriff of said county and said Doty from enforcing collection of the same judgment which is claimed in this case to be void. And the plaintiff in that case, who is the plaintiff in this, obtained a temporary restraining order restraining the sheriff from collecting said judgment. It is agreed and stipulated by counsel that the evidence in that case was practically the same as the evidence in this case, and that the only difference between the two cases is that this one is an action of replevin, and that was an action for injunction or restraining order. On hearing the district court refused to grant a permanent restraining order in that suit, the judgment of the court in that case being as follows:

"And now on this 27th day of November, 1897, the same being a regular judicial day of said court, this cause came regularly on for decision, having theretofore been tried, argument of counsel made, and having been taken under advisement by the court until this date. The plaintiff being present in court by D. K. Cunningham, his attorney, and defendants being present by W. A. Taylor, their attorney, and the court having been thoroughly advised in the premises, finds that the temporary writ of injunction heretofore issued be quashed, and that any further or permanent injunctional writ be refused therein, and generally finds for the defendants. The costs taxed to the plaintiff."

This plaintiff took an appeal from this order and judgment to the supreme court and the same was dismissed in that court on motion, for the reason that plaintiff did not file his brief in time. After a full hearing of the cause, the court, on the 2nd day of November, 1898, sitting in the district court in and for Kingfisher county, Oklahoma Territory, rendered a judgment in favor of the defendant, and against the plaintiff for the recovery of certain personal property, or the value thereof, in the sum of $ 79.47, and costs of suit. Motion for a new trial was made by the plaintiff, overruled by the court, and the plaintiff brings the cause here for review, alleging the action of the court in so rendering judgment, and overruling his motion for a new trial, as error.

IRWIN, J.:

¶1 It is apparent from an examination of the record and the stipulation of the parties, that the issues joined and the evidence in the case No. 760, referred to in the stipulation, are identical with the case at bar. The parties are practically the same. In that case it was this plaintiff in error as plaintiff, and the sheriff of Kingfisher county, and the execution creditor, as defendants. The question there involved was the validity of the judgment on which the execution in this case was issued. The questions to be tried in that case were identical with the questions put in issue by the pleadings in this case. The plaintiff could not recover, nor the defendant defeat the action, except by an adjudication, one way or the other, of the validity or invalidity of that judgment, as the issues are identical and the evidence the same, and between the same parties. We think the judgment in that case being a final judgment is conclusive, and binding upon the parties to this case, and that the district court was correct in so finding by the judgment. We take the proposition of law to be well settled that when a matter has once passed to final judgment, without fraud or collusion, in a court of competent jurisdiction, it becomes res judicata, and the same matter, between the same parties, cannot be reopened or subsequently considered. (21 Am. & Eng. Enc. of Law, page 128.)

¶2 In the case of Duchess of Kingston's Case, 11 State Trial 261; 2 Smith's Lead. Cases, (6th Am. Ed.) 663 it is said:

"The judgment of a court of concurrent jurisdiction directly upon a point is, as a plea, a bar; or, as evidence, conclusive between the same parties upon the same matter directly in question, in another court."

¶3 It is urged by the plaintiff in error that the decision in the case No. 760, referred to in the stipulation is not a bar to this action, and the decision there is not final or binding in this case, as the decision there was the refusal of an injunction, and the granting of an injunction is a matter resting largely in the discretion of the court, and the court may...