Strunk v. Bennett

• Decision Date: 22 May 1953
• Citation: 258 S.W.2d 517
• Parties: STRUNK v. BENNETT.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

Page 517

258 S.W.2d 517

STRUNK v. BENNETT.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

May 22, 1953.

Hiram H. Owens, Barbourville, for appellant.

Walter B. Early and L. O. Silar, Williamsburg, for appellee.

MOREMEN, Justice.

The petition of L. E. Strunk sought recovery of $4,531 as the value of certain mining equipment and material alleged to have been converted to his own use by the defendant, J. L. Bennett. The suit is rested upon breach of an implied contract, the tort being expressly waived. There had been a pervious suit filed by Bennett, lessor, to have two leases to Strunk canceled and declared void on the ground that he had breached the terms of the contract and leases in several particulars. Issues were joined and proof taken. The judgment, however, declared the leases to be void on the ground that the location of the lands was too indefinite for identification. In the present suit, filed about nine months later, the defendant, Bennett, again pleaded breach of the terms of the leases and contracts of operation by Struck. He further set up their provisions that if the lessee ceased to operate the mine before the coal was exhausted, the equipment which he had placed on the premises should remain as the property of the lessor, and alleged that Strunk had ceased operations and had made no claim to the equipment left thereon. After the issues had been joined, the defendant, by amended answer, pleaded the former judgment that the leases were void as res judicata of the present claimed right to recover the value of the property left on the premises and sought by way of a counterclaim to recover $5,000 of the plaintiff for damages caused by his improper mining operations. The court held the former judgment to be a bar to all the claims asserted in the present suit because the issues could have been litigated therein. The petition was dismissed and the plaintiff appeals.

It is almost axiomatic that the doctrine of res judicata precluding subsequent litigation extends not only to issues actually determined but to other matters which could properly have been or, as sometimes said, might have been determined in the previous action. This court has gone farther than some others in applying the rule. But we have held the rule does not mean that the prior judgment is conclusive of matters which were not germane to, implied in, or essentially connected with the actual issues in the case although they may affect the ultimate rights of the parties and might have been presented in the former action. Hays v. Sturgill, 302 Ky. 31, 193 S.W.2d 648, 164 A.L.R. 868.

In the matter of a party having a claim which was or might have been available by way of a counterclaim asserted in the former action, it is the general rule that he has an election to plead it then or to reserve it for a future independent...