Silva v. State

• Decision Date: 03 November 1987
• Docket Number: No. 16798,16798
• Citation: 745 P.2d 380,1987 NMSC 107,106 N.M. 472
• Parties: Manuel F. SILVA, et al., Petitioners, v. STATE of New Mexico, et al., Respondents.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 380

745 P.2d 380

106 N.M. 472

Manuel F. SILVA, et al., Petitioners, v. STATE of New Mexico, et al., Respondents.

No. 16798.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Nov. 3, 1987.

[106 NM 473] Ray M. Vargas, Albuquerque, for petitioners.

Keleher & McLeod, Judith L. Durzo, Rebecca A. Houston, Albuquerque, for respondents.

William H. Carpenter, Albuquerque, for amicus curiae N.M. Trial Lawyers Ass'n.

Douglas A. Baker, Charles E. Stuckey, Albuquerque, for amicus curiae N.M. Defense Lawyers Ass'n.

OPINION

RANSOM, Justice.

This case is before the Court on a writ of certiorari to the court of appeals to review an opinion on interlocutory appeal which affirmed the ruling of the court below that plaintiffs were not entitled to partial summary judgment of liability. Plaintiffs had sought partial summary judgment on the grounds of claim or issue preclusion arising out of prior action taken by the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. Also on review is the affirmance of the trial court's dismissal of a direct action under the Tort Claims Act against the state, the Corrections and Criminal Rehabilitation Department of the State of New Mexico (Corrections Department), and the Secretary of Corrections. This question, as it relates to the applicability of respondeat superior, has been briefed for us by the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association and the New Mexico Defense Lawyers Association. These excellent briefs by friends of this Court have been of significant aid.

This action was brought seeking damages for the wrongful death of Manuel Silva (Silva) who committed suicide by hanging while incarcerated at a facility of the Corrections Department. Because of psychiatric problems, Silva was held at a facility where he could receive medication; and it was known that special care was required to prevent his suicide. Negligent failure to provide that care was the alleged cause of Silva's suicide.

The defendants included the state, the Corrections Department, and the Secretary of Corrections (Francke), and other law enforcement officers and health care providers. Moving the court for partial summary judgment on the issue of defendants' liability, plaintiffs relied upon the doctrines of res judicata (claim preclusion) or, alternatively, upon collateral estoppel (issue preclusion). The motion was based on an order entered by the federal court in Duran v. Anaya, No. 7-721-JB, on unchallenged findings of a special master who conducted an evidentiary hearing into the events and circumstances surrounding Silva's death. Duran is a class action in which partial consent decrees and an agreement were approved and adopted on July 14, 1980, requiring the State of New Mexico, its Corrections Department and its Secretary of Corrections to operate by certain standards, procedures and policies for the benefit of a class of inmates to which Silva belonged.

The federal court found that Francke and others connected with the Corrections Department failed to operate by standards and procedures required by the consent decree. These included staffing, training Application of the doctrine of res judicata, or "claim preclusion," depends upon identity of prior and subsequent actions in four respects: (1) parties or privies, (2) capacity or character of persons for or against whom the claim is made, (3) cause of action, and (4) subject matter. Three Rivers Land Co. v. Maddoux, 98 N.M. 690, 652 P.2d 240 (1982); Adams v. United Steelworkers of Am., AFL-CIO, 97 N.M. 369, 640 P.2d 475 (1982). When the duty sued upon stems from different roots in the prior and subsequent actions, even if both actions involve essentially the same course of wrongful conduct, it is indicated that the suits arise from different causes of action. Adams, 97 N.M. at 373, 640 P.2d at 479. Here, suffice to say, the hearing ordered by the federal court to inquire into whether the defendants in Duran were in compliance with the "consent decree" with respect to the events and circumstances surrounding Silva's death was not the same cause of action as the personal representatives' action for wrongful death. Where the ultimate facts necessary for the resolution of two suits are different, and the issues necessarily dispositive in the prior cause are different from those in the subsequent cause, the doctrine of res judicata is inapplicable. Torres v. Village of Capitan, 92 N.M. 64, 68, 582 P.2d 1277, 1281 (1978).

[106 NM 474] and provision for facilities which would have provided Silva a course of treatment and acute mental health care to address the mental disorder undergirding his basic prison classification and to address his immediate symptoms of depression and suicidal ideation. Also, adherence to required standards and procedures would have caused Silva to be placed on a suicide watch and would have otherwise protected him from a suicide attempt or aided in his resuscitation.

[W]here the causes of action in the cases are identical in all respects, the first judgment is a conclusive bar upon the parties and their privies as to every issue which either was or properly could have been litigated in the previous case. But absent the identity of causes of action, the parties are precluded from relitigating only those ultimate issues and facts shown to have been actually and necessarily determined in the previous litigation.

City of Santa Fe v. Velarde, 90 N.M. 444, 446, 564 P.2d 1326, 1328 (1977).

Collateral estoppel bars relitigation of ultimate facts or issues actually and necessarily decided in a prior suit. Under collateral estoppel, or "issue preclusion," the cause of action in the second suit need not be identical with the first suit. Adams v. United Steelworkers of Am., AFL-CIO; see Torres v. Village of Capitan; City of Santa Fe v. Velarde; and Edwards v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n of Clovis, 102 N.M. 396, 400, 696 P.2d 484, 488 (Ct.App.1985) (with analysis of "issues actually and necessarily decided").

It is clear from the cited New Mexico authorities that, in deciding whether to apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel, the trial judge may determine that its application would be fundamentally unfair and would not further the aim of the doctrine, which is to prevent endless relitigation of issues. Fundamental fairness requires that the party against whom estoppel is asserted had a full and fair opportunity to litigate. To give rise to estoppel, the finding of ultimate facts in the prior action must have been final. See C & H Constr. & Paving Co. v. Citizens Bank, 93 N.M. 150, 160-61, 597 P.2d 1190, 1200-01 (Ct.App.1979). Also, for application of collateral estoppel, New Mexico has adhered to the rule that the parties in the second suit must be the same or in privity with the parties in the first suit. A growing number of jurisdictions hold that, absent fundamental unfairness in a given case, the doctrine of collateral estoppel may be applied against parties or their privies to both suits regardless of whether the party asserting the doctrine was privy to the first suit.

The reason given for the "same parties" requirement is the doctrine of mutuality. The mutuality requirement prevents a litigant from invoking the conclusive effect of a judgment unless that litigant would have been bound if the judgment had gone the other way. Dissatisfaction Edwards, 102 N.M. at 401, 696 P.2d at 489. In Edwards, defensive collateral estoppel was allowed despite defendant's not having been a party to a prior federal court action brought by Edwards against the United States claiming that a tax was wrongfully levied on First Federal Savings & Loan Association of Clovis.

[106 NM 475] with the mutuality requirement resulted in a "modern" view of mutuality, which dispenses with the "same parties" requirement. Atencio v. Vigil, 86 N.M. 181, 521 P.2d 646 (1974). The modern view has two aspects--defensive collateral estoppel, see Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U.S. 313, 91 S.Ct. 1434, 28 L.Ed.2d 788 (1971), and offensive collateral estoppel, see Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore [439 U.S. 322, 99 S.Ct. 645, 58 L.Ed.2d 552 (1979) ].

The Edwards court held that the federal law of collateral estoppel governs the preclusion effect of the federal judgment in a case which decided a federal question, and that the application of collateral estoppel in federal courts is not grounded upon the "mechanical requirement of mutuality," but is tested by whether a litigant has had a "full and fair opportunity for a judicial resolution" of the issue. In the subsequent suit for damages against First Federal, Edwards claimed First Federal's response to the levied tax was to unlawfully use trust funds rather than the personal funds of the taxpayer. To the contrary, in his memorandum opinion, the federal judge had stated that, "[b]ecause the Trust is a nullity and sham for tax purposes, property held in the name of the Trust is not shielded from levy by the government." The showing by First Federal in support of summary judgment based upon the use of collateral estoppel as a complete defense to Edward's claim consisted of the memorandum and decision in the federal suit. This satisfied movant's burden of showing a prima facie case for summary judgment. The federal judgment, deciding a federal question, precluded in subsequent state proceedings any issue which was actually and necessarily decided in the federal suit. It was then respondent's burden to show there was a factual issue as to a full and fair opportunity to litigate. Respondent did not do so. To the extent the court of appeals affirmed the summary judgment on the basis of defensive collateral estoppel, we specifically approve Judge Wood's excellent opinion in Edwards.

Plaintiffs in the present case, however, assert the offensive use of collateral estoppel as adopted in Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 99 S.Ct. 645, 58 L.Ed.2d 552 (1979), a stockholder's action against a...