Seaboard Coast Line R. Co. v. Cox, 74--1050

• Decision Date: 12 February 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74--1050,74--1050
• Citation: 308 So.2d 154
• Parties: SEABOARD COAST LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, a corporation, Appellant, v. Eric COX, a minor, by and through his guardian and next friend, J. W. Caldwell, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 154

308 So.2d 154

SEABOARD COAST LINE RAILROAD COMPANY, a corporation, Appellant, v. Eric COX, a minor, by and through his guardian and next friend, J. W. Caldwell, Appellee.

No. 74--1050.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

Feb. 12, 1975.

Rehearing Denied March 11, 1975.

Michael N. Brown, of Allen, Dell, Frank & Trinkle, Tampa, for appellant.

R. J. Beckham, of Beckham & McAliley, Miami, for appellee.

GRIMES, Judge.

In May of 1972 an accident occurred involving a Seaboard train and an automobile carrying five persons. Jackie Cox and his wife, Judy, who were passengers in the automobile, were killed. Their minor son Eric brought suit against Seaboard for the wrongful death of his mother. He obtained a judgment in the amount of $255,000.

Thereafter, Eric brought another suit against Seaboard for the wrongful death of his father. Pursuant to his motion, the court entered a summary judgment on liability upon the ground that the defendant was estopped by the prior judgment from further litigating the issue of its negligence concerning the collision. There is no contention that either of the decedents was guilty of contributory negligence. Seaboard has filed an interlocutory appeal from the order granting summary judgment on liability.

At the outset, it appears that the case of Culloden v. Music, Fla.App.2d, 1969, 226 So.2d 240, is directly on point. That was a case in which a father brought an administrator's action and wrongful death action predicated upon the death of his son, Roger. He had already successfully prosecuted an administrator's action and wrongful death action pertaining to the death of his son, Chester, against the same defendant. Both sons had been killed in an accident while riding as passengers in the same automobile. This court held that the defendant was not estopped from relitigating the issues as they pertained to Roger's death. The First District Court of Appeal followed Culloden in its recent case of Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Company v. Arnett, Fla.App.1st, 1974, 303 So.2d 653.

This would seem to set the matter at rest were it not for the case of Shearn v. Orlando Funeral Home, Fla.1956, 88 So.2d 591. There, a widow recovered a judgment in a combined survival and wrongful death action arising out of the death of her husband which had occurred when an automobile he was driving was struck by an ambulance. Thereafter, the widow brought suit against the ambulance company, which was the same defendant in the first action, to recover for personal injuries she had received in the accident. In an opinion by Justice Hobson, the Supreme Court said that the doctrine of estoppel by judgment was applicable to the extent that the issue of the negligence of the ambulance driver had already been determined in the prior suit. Since there was no contention that the widow was guilty of contributory negligence, the court held she was entitled to a judgment on liability, leaving for determination in the second action only the amount of her damages.

Where there is a second suit between the same parties, even though based on separate causes of action, the doctrine of estoppel by judgment precludes relitigating those issues common to both actions which were actually adjudicated in the first suit. Gordon v. Gordon, Fla.1952, 59 So.2d 40. In Culloden and Shearn, while the causes of action in both suits were different, the parties were the same. Likewise, in both Culloden and Shearn the negligence of the defendant which was an issue in the second suit had already been adjudicated in the first suit. Contributory negligence was not an issue in Culloden. The only contributory negligence in Shearn was that of the husband, but the jury had resolved that issue adverse to the defendant in the first suit. The basis upon which this court in Culloden held the doctrine to be inapplicable was that the first suit involved the death of one son, whereas the second suit involved the death of another. Yet, in Shearn the first suit involved the injuries (and subsequent death) of the husband, and the second suit involved the injuries of the widow. In Shearn, both injuries occurred as the proximate result of the same accident, and in Culloden both deaths occurred as the proximate result of the same accident. The two cases are irreconcilable.

One might suggest that the principle of Shearn has been modified because of the following comment made in Youngblood v. Taylor, Fla.1956, 89 So.2d 503:

'To illustrate, if two persons wholly unrelated are passengers in a motorcar that...