Smalls v. Walker
| Decision Date | 24 March 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. A99A2020.,A99A2020. |
| Citation | 532 S.E.2d 420,243 Ga. App. 453 |
| Parties | SMALLS v. WALKER et al. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Calvin A. Rouse, Augusta, for appellant.
Dye, Tucker, Everitt, Long & Brewton, Troy A. Lanier, Glover & Blount, Percy J. Blount, Augusta, for appellees.
In this personal injury action, the plaintiff, Frank B. Smalls III, appeals from the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the defendants, Tashon Walker and Donald Scott Boyd. The trial court granted summary judgment to appellees on the ground that Smalls's claim against them was barred by the doctrine of judicial estoppel. Smalls contends that the doctrine does not apply and that because a genuine issue of material fact remains for jury resolution, summary judgment was not warranted. We do not agree, and we therefore affirm the judgment.
The record shows that Smalls was employed as a route salesman for the Coca-Cola Company and was injured in a work-related accident on January 17, 1995. His neck was injured, and he was eventually diagnosed with a cervical sprain. He applied for and received workers' compensation benefits as a result of this accident. He was released to full duty on April 12, 1995. Smalls's job involved delivering cases of drinks to stores on his route.
On May 13, 1995, Smalls was involved in a second collision, in which Walker reacted to Boyd's erratic driving by backing up and hitting Smalls's bumper. Smalls maintains this accident resulted in little injury to him and no damage to his vehicle. According to Smalls, he had been experiencing disabling pain from the first accident that eventually rendered him completely disabled.
Because his pain became increasingly severe, Smalls saw a neurologist, who determined that Smalls had disk herniations. Smalls was placed on bed rest. Further tests confirmed disk protrusion and spinal cord compression. He continued to have severe pain and developed depression.
Believing that the second, minor accident was not the cause of his problems, but that they continued to result from his first, work-related accident, Smalls again sought workers' compensation benefits. The employer contested the claim, and a hearing was held. Smalls testified at that hearing that he was barely injured in the second collision and that the symptoms he experienced after the second collision remained those he had been having continuously since the first accident. Smalls maintained his disability was the result of the work-related injury of January 17, 1995.
In his findings of fact and conclusions of law on the second claim, the administrative law judge found that Smalls's testimony and the medical evidence differed and the medical evidence was "more reliable and more credible." The ALJ found that medical records showed that the second accident was not minor, that it was sufficient to aggravate a pre-existing condition, and that any disability since that time was related to that nonwork accident. Workers' compensation benefits were therefore denied.
Smalls appealed this decision. Because Smalls could not work and had overwhelming medical bills, he filed a petition for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in June 1996. He did not list a claim against Walker and Boyd as a potential asset. His plan was confirmed, and he continues to make small monthly payments to his creditors under that plan.
Smalls's appeals of his workers' compensation claim were exhausted in December 1996. He filed suit against Walker and Boyd in March 1997. When he became aware of the necessity of including the claim against Walker and Boyd as an asset, he instructed both his bankruptcy counsel and his personal injury counsel "to do whatever was necessary to correct the unintentional oversight."
Walker and Boyd filed motions for summary judgment, both relying upon judicial estoppel to bar recovery by Smalls. The trial court found that Smalls testified at his workers' compensation hearing that he was not injured in the second accident, that no evidence existed in the record that Smalls ever amended his bankruptcy petition to list his claim against Walker and Boyd as an asset, and that he claimed to have been injured in the second accident in this action against Walker and Boyd. Based upon these findings, the trial court granted summary judgment to Walker and Boyd.
Although the term judicial estoppel is not explicitly mentioned in the order, it is clear that the trial court relied on that doctrine in awarding summary judgment to the defendants.
The doctrine of judicial estoppel arises under federal law and precludes a party from asserting a position in one judicial proceeding which is inconsistent with a position successfully asserted by the party in an earlier proceeding. The essential function and justification of judicial estoppel are to prevent the use of intentional self-contradiction as a means of obtaining unfair advantage in a forum provided for suitors seeking justice. The primary purpose of the doctrine is not to protect the litigants, but to protect the integrity of the judiciary. The doctrine is directed against those who would attempt to manipulate the court system through the calculated assertion of divergent sworn positions in judicial proceedings and is designed to prevent parties from making a mockery of justice through inconsistent pleadings.
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Reagan v. Lynch, 241 Ga.App. 642, 643-644, 524 S.E.2d 510 (1999).
In Georgia, this federal doctrine has been applied to preclude the prosecution of an unliquidated tort claim that a discharged debtor failed to list as an asset on a bankruptcy petition. Wolfork v. Tackett, 241 Ga. App. 633, 526 S.E.2d 436 (1999). In Southmark Corp. v. Trotter, Smith & Jacobs, 212 Ga.App. 454, 442 S.E.2d 265 (1994), this court held that failure to disclose such a claim in a Chapter 11 proceeding authorizes entry of summary judgment against the debtor-plaintiff. Id. at 455-456, 442 S.E.2d 265. And in Wolfork, supra, we noted that this duty extends to Chapter 13 bankruptcies as well. Unlike a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, the bankruptcy estate includes all property acquired by a debtor even during the bankruptcy proceeding. We therefore held in Wolfork that even failure to amend such a petition to include a tort claim acquired by the debtor after the original petition was filed warrants the application of judicial estoppel. Id. at 633-634, 526 S.E.2d 436.
1. We do not agree with the trial court that Smalls's testimony in the workers' compensation case works a judicial estoppel preventing him from recovering in this suit. First, the issue of proximate causation—that is, whether his disabling condition was caused by the first, work-related, collision or by the second accident—is a complex question. It involves both opinions of medical experts as to facts and conclusions of law. Smalls was not qualified to render an opinion as to either. His testimony went only to his belief: He did not think he had been injured in the second accident, and he so stated. He had been experiencing similar symptoms on a regular basis after the first collision, and he believed his symptoms were caused by the first collision. Smalls never changed this position. But a judicial body found otherwise, concluding that Smalls's continuing disability was, in fact, a result of the second accident. Smalls himself never advanced contradictory assertions of fact.
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