Roberts v. Hollandsworth

• Decision Date: 05 September 1980
• Docket Number: No. 12747,12747
• Citation: 101 Idaho 522,616 P.2d 1058
• Parties: Dolores V. ROBERTS and Hugh H. Roberts, Jr., husband and wife, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Oren W. HOLLANDSWORTH and Grace Hollandsworth, husband and wife, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

Page 1058

616 P.2d 1058

101 Idaho 522

Dolores V. ROBERTS and Hugh H. Roberts, Jr., husband and wife, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Oren W. HOLLANDSWORTH and Grace Hollandsworth, husband and wife, Defendants-Respondents.

No. 12747.

Supreme Court of Idaho.

Sept. 5, 1980.

David H. Maguire, Ben Peterson, Kenneth E. Lyon, Jr., Hugh C. Maguire, Pocatello, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Gardner W. Skinner, Jr., and David W. Cantrill of Cantrill & Skinner, Phillip M. Barber and Merrily Munther of Elam, Burke, Evans, Boyd & Koontz, Boise, for defendants-respondents.

BAKES, Justice.

Plaintiff appellants Roberts appeal from a district court order dismissing their action against defendant respondents. We affirm.

Plaintiff appellant Dolores V. Roberts and her sister, defendant respondent Grace Hollandsworth, each inherited from their mother an undivided one-half interest in real property located in Idaho County, Idaho. In 1965 Roberts conveyed her interest to her sister and to her sister's husband. Appellant Roberts, however, reserved or excepted from the conveyance an interest in merchantable timber located on the land. In 1972 the respondents Hollandsworths conveyed to Idapine Mills, now merged with Wickes Corporation, all accessible and merchantable timber on the property. ¹

The Robertses initially commenced suit in federal district court for the District of Idaho in 1975 against the Hollandsworths and Idapine Mills, alleging (1) that the defendants had conspired to defraud them of their interest in timber on the property; and (2) that the Hollandsworths had defrauded them of their interest in the timber. The defendants moved for summary judgment in the federal court action. The federal court granted summary judgment in favor of each of the defendants and ordered plaintiffs' complaint dismissed, ruling that there was no credible evidence of any acts or agreements by the defendants to support the conspiracy theory and that the plaintiffs had failed to make the requisite proof of the elements of fraud required by Idaho law. The federal district court, however, allowed the plaintiffs additional time to allege any other theory of relief which might be supported by the evidence. Plaintiffs thereupon sought relief upon a conversion theory. The federal district court subsequently granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on this theory as well, ruling that there was no basis for an action in Idaho law for conversion of real property and that an action for conversion was barred by a three year statute of limitations in Idaho. Judgment was entered for the defendants in July 1976. The Robertses appealed the judgment to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Subsequently, in August, 1976, the Robertses filed this action in state district court. The action was brought against the same defendants named in the federal complaint and was based upon the same transactions and facts which were sued upon in the federal action. The Robertses sought either to have a one-half interest in the timber on the Idaho County land declared to be theirs or, in the alternative, to have judgment for one-half the price received by the defendants Hollandsworths for sale of the timber. The Robertses based their claim upon the following theories: (1) quiet title; (2) unjust enrichment; (3) accounting; (4) money had and received; and (5) constructive trust.

The defendants moved to dismiss the state court action on the ground that another action was pending in the federal court which was based upon the same transactions and conduct and involved the same parties as the state court action. The district court issued a provisional ruling indicating its intent to dismiss the suit for the reasons raised by the defendants and granted the plaintiffs Robertses additional time in which to submit to the court any additional material they might deem pertinent to the defendants' motion to dismiss. In August, 1977, the state court, treating the defendants' motion to dismiss as a motion for summary judgment, entered judgment for all defendants. The court held that the federal court action pending appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was based upon the same transaction and conduct and involved the same parties as the state court action and that dismissal of the state court action was proper under I.R.C.P. 12(b)(8). ² The court also held that the state court action was barred under the principles of res judicata, based upon the federal court judgment. The Robertses have appealed dismissal of their state court action.

Subsequent to the Robertses' filing of this appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the federal court's dismissal of the Robertses' federal court action, holding that material issues of fact existed which might form the basis for a claim for money had and received, precluding the granting of summary judgment in the case. The cause was remanded to federal district court for the District of Idaho, with leave granted to the Robertses to amend their claim if desired. Roberts v. Hollandsworth, 582 F.2d 496 (9th Cir. 1978). ³ Idaho state courts may take judicial notice of the judgments and decisions of the federal courts which affect the subject matter of an action before the state court. Williams v. Sherman, 36 Idaho 494, 212 P. 971 (1922). ⁴

The district court did not err in dismissing the Robertses' state court action on the ground that there was another action pending between the same parties for the same cause, I.R.C.P. 12(b)(8). ⁵ Farmer v. Boyd, 89 Idaho 269, 404 P.2d 353 (1965); Stevens v. Home Savings & Loan Ass'n, 5 Idaho 741, 51 P. 779 (1898) (relying on former I.C. § 5-607 which was superseded by I.R.C.P. 12(b) (8), and subsequently repealed in 1975). It was only after the federal district court had ruled against the plaintiffs adversely, albeit by summary judgment, that the plaintiffs then filed the same action in the state district court. There is no suggestion in the record that the federal district court did not have jurisdiction to resolve the entire conflict between the parties, and the plaintiffs have not asserted that the federal court lacked jurisdiction to resolve the issues on the merits. The filing of the second action in the state court under these circumstances, involving as it did the same parties, the same issues and the same facts, incurs needless and substantially increased costs to the defendants, is a waste of judicial resources, and conjures up the possibility of conflicting judgments by state and federal courts. ⁶ While there may be some circumstances which would justify a state court in staying a state court action pending the termination of a similar controversy pending the federal courts, under the circumstances of this case we conclude that the trial court did not err in dismissing this action. I.R.C.P. 12(b)(8); Farmer v. Boyd, supra.

Affirmed. Costs to respondents. No attorney fees allowed.

DONALDSON, C. J., and McFADDEN, J., concur.

TOWLES, Justice Pro Tem., dissenting:

From the majority's determination affirming the trial court's action in dismissing the above case on the ground that another action was pending, I must dissent.

As pointed out by the majority opinion, an action was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Idaho, was dismissed by the court on motion for summary judgment, and an appeal was filed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

About the same time the appeal was filed, the plaintiff appellants herein filed an action in the state district court involving the same set of facts and the same parties. The trial court dismissed the state action on the grounds that (1) another action was pending (I.R.C.P. 12(b)(8)), and (2) that the decision dismissing the action in the federal court was res judicata.

As events subsequently developed, the Ninth Circuit Court reversed the federal district court and remanded the case for further proceedings. The majority opinion takes judicial notice of the action of the Ninth Circuit Court and, hence, at the present time there is no final decision of the federal court that could be pled as res judicata.

With the exception of the Federal Employers Liability Act cases and bankruptcy cases, the courts have uniformly held that the pendency of a personal or transitory action in either the state or federal court is not ground for abating a subsequent action in the other court. This is true even though the state and federal courts have the same territorial jurisdiction. 1 C.J.S. Abatement & Revival §§ 63, 67, and cited cases.

The majority reasons that the "maintenance of simultaneous actions in the state and federal courts involving the same parties and the same issues incurs needless and substantially increased costs to the defendant, is a waste of judicial resources, and conjures up the possibility of conflicting judgments by state and federal courts."

Here the action in the federal court was strictly one in personam. The state court action, on the other hand, in its prayer for relief requested a decree quieting title to standing timber located in Idaho County and, as such, was an action in rem. As observed by Justice Sutherland in Kline v. Burke Constr. Co., 260 U.S. 226, 229-31, 43 S.Ct. 79, 81, 67 L.Ed. 226, 229-30 (1922) " 'The forbearance which courts of coordinate jurisdiction, administered under a single system, exercise towards each other, whereby conflicts are avoided, by avoiding interference with the process of each other, is a principle of comity, with perhaps no higher sanction than the utility which comes from concord; but between state courts and those of the United States, it is something more. It is a principle of right and of law, and therefor of necessity. It leaves nothing to discretion or mere convenience. These courts do not belong to the same system, so far as their jurisdiction is concurrent; and although they coexist in the same space, they are independent, and have no common superior. They...