State ex rel. Ohio Water Service Co. v. Mahoning Val. Sanitary Dist.

• Decision Date: 25 March 1959
• Docket Number: No. 35470,35470
• Citation: 169 Ohio St. 31,157 N.E.2d 116,8 O.O.2d 1
• Parties: , 8 O.O.2d 1 STATE ex rel. OHIO WATER SERVICE CO. v. MAHONING VALLEY SANITARY DISTRICT et al.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 31

169 Ohio St. 31

157 N.E.2d 116, 8 O.O.2d 1

STATE ex rel. OHIO WATER SERVICE CO. v. MAHONING VALLEY SANITARY DISTRICT et al.

No. 35470.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

March 25, 1959.

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The principle of res judicata bars a subsequent action between the same parties and based upon the same cause of action and renders the judgment in the preceding action conclusive as to all germane matters that were or could have been raised therein.

2. Under the principle of estoppel by judgment, the final adjudication of a material issue by a court of competent jurisdiction binds the parties in any subsequent proceeding between or among them, irrespective of a difference in forms or causes of action. (Paragraph two of the syllabus of Mansker v. Dealers Transport Co., 160 Ohio St. 255, 116 N.E.2d 3, followed and applied.)

3. Where objection is made to the failure of a board of appraisers of a sanitary district to appraise the benefits accruing to real estate or to political entities outside the district, and the court of such sanitary district overrules such objections and aproves the report of the board of appraisers, such approval by the district court, under the provisions of Sections 6115.36 and 6115.37, Revised Code, is final, incontestable, and conclusive as to the same issue subsequently raised by the objector in an action in mandamus.

This is an action in mandamus brought originally in this court. The petition of relator alleges in substance the following facts:

Relator is an Ohio corporation engaged in the business of furnishing water service to individuals, firms and corporations located in various parts of Ohio and is the owner in fee of real property situated in Youngstown, Ohio, within the boundaries of the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District, a respondent herein. The district is a public corporation organized and existing under and by virtue of the Sanitary District Act (Sections 6115.01 through 6115.99, Revised Code), and respondents Kidston and MacQueen are the directors of said district.

The district was created in 1926, following a decree of a special court, hereinafter referred to as the district court, and its original facilities were built pursuant to the adoption of an 'official plan.' The district is comprised of the cities of Youngstown and Niles, all lands included therein, and the lands upon which the district's improvements and facilities are located.

On May 10, 1950, the district court approved a plan for enlarging the facilities of the district, known as 'amendment No. 1 to the official plan,' and on March 15, 1956, the respondent directors, in order to pay for the same, levied an assessment upon Youngstown and Niles. The district has commenced this construction program, which, according to its estimates, will double its safe daily yield of water.

The district impounds, processes and pumps water to Youngstown and Niles, and those cities, in turn, distribute the water to the ultimate consumers thereof. The cities pay the district for this water, at rates established by the district and sufficient to defray the district's cost of maintenance.

The district's capital cost, including the cost of preparing its 'official plan' and 'amendment No. 1,' the cost of construction, and all charges incidental thereto, are paid out of the proceeds of bonds issued and sold by the district, and such bonds, together with the interest thereon, are paid by assessments, levied pursuant to appraisals of benefits, upon the cities of Youngstown and Niles as political entities. These assessments become liens upon all real property situated within said cities and are paid in annual installments by levies upon the real property lying within the cities. The district assessments levied for the original facilities have been paid, but the assessments levied on March 15, 1956, for 'amendment No. 1' have not been paid and are liens upon the real property located within the cities of Youngstown and Niles.

Following the levying of the assessments for 'amendment No. 1,' the cities of Niles and Girard entered into a contract whereby Niles agreed to furnish Girard its daily water requirements for a period of 20 years, for a price based upon the district's charges to Niles for such water.

The City of Girard is not now, nor has it ever been, in the sanitary district, and no appraisal of benefits to, or assessment and levy upon any of the property of, Girard has ever been made.

The petition alleges that Section 6115.43, Revised Code, requires that such appraisal be made and prays for a writ of mandamus requiring the respondent directors to direct the board of appraisers of the district to appraise the benefits of every kind accruing from the district to all real property within the city of Girard and to appraise any benefits accruing to Girard as a political entity.

The amended joint answer of all the respondents alleges three defenses. The first defense admits the creation of the district, its method of operation, and the fact of the contract between Niles and Girard. Respondents, however, deny that the city of Girard is benefited by the district within the meaning of Sections 6115.01 to 6115.79, Revised Code, and that the contract between Niles and Girard creates a situation whereby the district or its directors have any mandatory duty to appraise any benefits to the city of Girard or the real estate therein.

The second and third defenses allege that the issues raised herein have all been litigated, and that because of either estoppel by judgment or res judicata the relator not only has an adequate remedy at law but has, in fact, pursued that remedy.

The issues are made up by relator's demurrer to the amended joint answer.

James E. Mitchell, Youngstown, Ashley M. VanDuzer, Cleveland, and Frank C. Dunbar, Jr., Columbus, for relator.

W. P. Barnum, Youngstown, James M. Hengst, Columbus, and H. Herschel Hunt, Youngstown, for respondents.

BELL, Judge.

If, as alleged in the joint answer, the issues raised here were litigated and determined in a prior action, such prior determination will be dispositive of such issues.

The doctrine that a final judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction is conclusive upon the parties or their privies in all subsequent actions as to the points and matters in issue and adjudicated in the first action is one of ancient origin and universal application. It existed in ancient Rome by a plea of exceptio rei adjudicatae and was carried into those countries which came under the sway of the civil law and finally into Anglo-American jurisprudence. 2 Black on Judgments (2 Ed.), Section 501; 2 Freeman on Judgments (5 Ed.), Section 627.

As the principle was used and expanded, it became two different principles or doctrines--res judicata and estoppel by judgment. Although many courts have used these phrases interchangeably, since both principles are actually based on estoppel, a thin line of demarcation has arisen to separate the two principles.

It would appear that the essential difference between res judicata and estoppel by judgment is that in the former there must be an exact identity in parties and in causes of action, whereas the doctrine of estoppel by judgment may apply where the cause of action in the subsequent suit is different. In the former situation, the preceding action is dispositive not only of issues which were actually litigated but also of those which could have been litigated. Covington & Cincinnati Bridge Co. v. Sargent, 27 Ohio St. 233; Roby v. Rainsberger, 27 Ohio St. 674; Petersine v. Thomas, 28 Ohio St. 596; Avery v. Vansickle, 35 Ohio St. 270; Raymond v. Ross, 40 Ohio St. 343; Strangward v. American Brass Bedstead Co., 82 Ohio St. 121, 91 N.E. 988; Rothman v. Engel, 97 Ohio St. 77, 119 N.E. 250; Clark v. Baranowski, 111 Ohio St. 436, 145 N.E. 760; Charles A. Burton, Inc., v. Durkee, 162 Ohio St. 433, 123 N.E.2d 432. See, also, Dunham v. Board of Education, Ohio Com.Pl., 99 N.E.2d 183 (dismissed for want of debatable constitutional question, 155 Ohio St. 594, 99 N.E.2d 658).

In the case of estoppel by judgment, only those issues actually litigated and determined in the preceding action are foreclosed so far as subsequent determination is concerned.

An excellent discussion of this distinction is found in Gordon v. Gordon, Fla., 59 So.2d 40, 43, where it is said:

'We have held as a general proposition that when a final decree or judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction becomes absolute it puts at rest and entombs in eternal quiescence every justiciable, as well as every actually adjudicated, issue. This pronouncement is considered by us as controlling only when res judicata is the proper test. By this we mean it is not controlling except in an instance wherein the second suit is between the same parties and is predicated upon the same cause of action as was the first. If the second suit is bottomed upon a different cause of action than that alleged in the prior case estoppel by judgment comes into paly and only those matters actually litigated and determined in the initial action are foreclosed--not other matters which 'might have been, but were not, litigated or decided.' Prall v. Prall, 58 Fla. 496, 50 So. 867, 870, 26 L.R.A., N.S., 577; Bagwell v. Bagwell [153 Fla. 471, 14 So.2d 841], supra. The test proper to be applied in a divorce action in order to decide whether the second suit is founded upon a new and separate cause of action is not simply whether a different statutory ground for divorce is asserted but whether the facts necessary to the maintenance of such suit are essentially the same as those which were relied upon to establish plaintiff's alleged right to a decree in the first action and whether the decree or judgment sought in each requires the same degree of proof to justify or sustain it. If the degree of proof required in the first suit is greater than that required in the second the cause of action cannot be held to...