Stutsman v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan

• Decision Date: 14 July 1988
• Docket Number: No. 87-265.,No. 87-143.,87-143.,87-265.
• Citation: 546 A.2d 367
• Parties: Donald Jeremy STUTSMAN, Appellant, v. KAISER FOUNDATION HEALTH PLAN OF the MID-ATLANTIC STATES, INC., et al., Appellees. KAISER FOUNDATION HEALTH PLAN OF the MI-ATLANTIC STATES, INC., et al., Appellants, v. Donald Jeremy STUTSMAN, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

546 A.2d 367

Donald Jeremy STUTSMAN, Appellant, v. KAISER FOUNDATION HEALTH PLAN OF the MID-ATLANTIC STATES, INC., et al., Appellees.

KAISER FOUNDATION HEALTH PLAN OF the MI-ATLANTIC STATES, INC., et al., Appellants, v. Donald Jeremy STUTSMAN, Appellee.

No. 87-143.

No. 87-265.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued February 9, 1988.

Decided July 14, 1988.

Thomas P. Mains, Jr., Alexandria, Va., with whom Robert Cadeaux, Washington, D.C. was on the brief, for Donald Jeremy Stutsman.

Richard W. Boone, with whom W. Allen Overton, Arlington, Va. and R. Harrison Pledger, McLean, Va. were on the brief in No. 87-265, for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Capital Area Permanente Medical Group, P.C.

Before FERREN, BELSON and ROGERS, Associate Judges.

ROGERS, Associate Judge:

These consolidated appeals present claim preclusion and choice of law issues. Donald Jeremy Stutsman (Stutsman) filed two lawsuits in the District of Columbia against Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Capital Area Permanente Medical Group (Kaiser),¹ two District of Columbia corporations, as a result of the death of his wife, Mary Thomas Stutsman. In appeal No. 87-143, Stutsman, the executor of the estate of his deceased wife, appeals the dismissal of his wrongful death action, which the trial court dismissed under res judicata principles as a result of the prior denial of Stutsman's motion to add a wrongful death claim in his consolidated survival and loss of consortium action against Kaiser. In appeal No. 87-265, the consolidated action, Kaiser appeals from the judgment for loss of consortium on the ground that Virginia law, which bars the action, should have been applied instead of District of Columbia law. We dismiss appeal No. 87-143 as moot; Stutsman did not file a cross-appeal from the denial of his motion to amend the complaint after he received judgment in the consolidated action, and since his wrongful death claim merged into that judgment, his separate cause of action was extinguished. In appeal No. 87-265 we reverse the judgment against Kaiser for loss of consortium because Virginia law governed the action and barred it.

I.

Prior to her death, Mary Thomas Stutsman sued Kaiser in the District of Columbia for medical malp, actice. Kaiser filed an interlocutory appeal on the ground that Virginia tort law, which imposed a ceiling on medical malpractice recovery, applied because the alleged malpractice had occurred in Virginia. This court disagreed, holding that the District of Columbia's tort law applied. Kaiser-Georgetown Community Health Plan v. Stutsman, 491 A.2d 502, 511 (D.C. 1985) (hereinafter Stutsman

I).²

While the interlocutory appeal was pending, Stutsman filed a separate action against Kaiser for loss of consortium due to the physical injuries to his wife, Mary. Upon her death in Virginia, Stutsman became the plaintiff in the malpractice action pursuant to the District's survival statute, D.C. Code § 12-101 (1981), and that action was consolidated with his action for loss of consortium.

In July, 1985, Stutsman filed a motion to amend the malpractice complaints to add a claim for wrongful death under the Virginia Wrongful Death Act, VA. CODE ANN. § 8.01-50 et seq. (1984 Repl.Vol.), since the District's Wrongful Death Act, D.C. Code § 16-2701 et seq. (1981), applied only to deaths occurring in the District of Columbia. Judge Shuker denied the motion on September 30, 1985, on the ground that under Stutsman I District of Columbia law applied to the malpractice action and thus precluded Stutsman's reliance on Virginia law as the basis of his wrongful death cause of action.³ Four and one-half months later, on February 14, 1986, Stutsman filed a separate action against Kaiser for his wife's wrongful death.

In April, 1986, the consolidated survival/loss of consortium action went to trial. The jury awarded Stutsman $401,482 on the survival claim and $250,000 for loss of consortium. His motion for a new trial on damages, and Kaiser's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, were denied on February 4, 1987. Kaiser appealed the award of damages for loss of consortium on March 3, 1987; Stutsman did not cross-appeal.

Kaiser also filed, on July 25, 1986, a motion to dismiss the wrongful death action on the ground that Judge Shuker's denial of Stutsman's motion to amend the malpractice action complaint constituted the law of the case and required dismissal of the separately filed wrongful death action. Kaiser further filed a motion for summary judgment on the ground that Judge Shuker's denial, which had ripened into a judgment following the jury verdicts, constituted res judicata. On January 6, 1987, Judge Hamilton granted Kaiser's motion to dismiss the wrongful death action on the ground that it was precluded on res judicata principles. Stutsman appealed from that order on February 4, 1987.

II. Dismissal of the Wrongful Death Action

Stutsman contends that Judge Hamilton erred in ruling that Judge Shuker's denial of Stutsman's motion to amend the malpractice complaint required dismissal of the wrongful death action. He argues that rulings in one lawsuit have no binding effect in a separate action. We do not reach the merits of this contention. The propriety of Judge Hamilton's dismissal of the wrongful death action became moot when the time for filing an appeal from the judgment in the consolidated action expired on March 4, 1987. All of Stutsman's rights arising out of Kaiser's treatment of his wife were merged in that judgment, and therefore even if this court were to hold that Judge Hamilton erroneously dismissed the wrongful death action, that holding would have no effect, since principles of claim preclusion would prevent Stutsman from maintaining any further action arising out of Kaiser's negligent treatment of his wife.

It is well settled that once a claim is finally adjudicated, the doctrine of claim preclusion will operate to prevent the same parties from "relitigation of not only those matters actually litigated but also those which might have been litigated the first proceeding.'" Jonathan Woodner Co. v. Adams, 534 A.2d 292, 295 n. 6 (D.C. 1987) (quoting Goldkind v. Snider Bros., Inc., 467 A.2d 468, 473 n. 10 (D.C. 1983)); see also Rhema Christian Center v. District of Columbia Bd. of Zoning Adjustment, 515 A.2d 189, 192-93 (D.C. 1986); Henderson v. Snider Bros., Inc., 439 A.2d 481, 485 (D.C. 1981) (en banc). Whether a party wins or loses relief in the initial action, the final judgment embodies all of a party's rights arising out of the transaction involved, and a party will be foreclosed from later seeking relief on the basis of issues which might have been raised in the prior action. Yuen v. Durham, 488 A.2d 1346, 1348 (D.C. 1985); Henderson v. Snider Bros., Inc., supra, 439 A.2d at 485; Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen v. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, 127 U.S.App.D.C. 298, 300, 383 F.2d 225, 227 (1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1047, 88 S.Ct. 790, 19 L.Ed.2d 839 (1968); RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF JUDGMENTS § 18 comment a (1982) (plaintiff's original claim is "merged" in the judgment). Therefore, upon the entry of judgment in favor of Stutsman in the consolidated survival/loss of consortium action and the denial of his motion for a new trial, his wrongful death cause of action merged into the final judgment and his separate claim was extinguished.

That Stutsman brought his second action under a different theory, wrongful death, which had not actually been adjudicated in the prior consolidated action, is irrelevant. It is the factual nucleus, not the theory upon which a plaintiff relies, which operates to constitute the cause of action for claim preclusion purposes. Page v. United States, 234 U.S.App.D.C. 332, 334, 729 F.2d 818, 820 (1984). Stutsman's claim for wrongful death arose out of precisely the same facts as the survival and loss of consortium actions; all of his theories of recovery stem from the same transaction. Yuen v. Durham, supra, 488 A.2d at 1349; see RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF JUDGMENTS § 24 comments b & c (1982).

Furthermore, contrary to Stutsman's contention, as a prevailing party in the judgment in the consolidated action he could have appealed since the judgment did not accord him the full relief that he had requested.⁴ Thus if Stutsman believed that Judge Shuker erred in denying the motion to amend the malpractice complaint, Stutsman should have filed an appeal of the denial after the entry of final judgment in the consolidated action. Since the time for filing an appeal from that judgment expired on March 4, 1987, Stutsman's failure to preserve his rights by noting an appeal means that all of his rights stemming from the death of his wife have been merged into the judgment in the consolidated action, and he cannot thereafter maintain any lawsuit against Kaiser predicated upon her death. See Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, supra, 127 U.S.App.D.C. at 300, 383 F.2d at 227; 1B J. MOORE, J. LUCAS & T. CURRIER, MOORE'S FEDERAL PRACTICE ¶ 0.416[5], at 533 (1984).

Nor may Stutsman now attack the pretrial ruling in his posture as appellee in Kaiser's appeal of the consortium judgment. He did not appeal from that judgment, and "[b]ecause of that fact, [he] may not attack the judgment in this court, and may only defend those aspects of the judgment which favored [him]." Edwards v. Woods, 385 A.2d 780, 783 (D.C. 1978). The well-settled rule of practice is that "on an adversary's appeal a party may not challenge or seek to enlarge a judgment to which he himself did not object." Associated Third Class Mail Users v. United States Postal Serv., 213 U.S.App.D.C. 252, 255, 662 F.2d 767, 770 (1980); see also Arnold's Hofbrau, Inc. v. George Hyman Constr. Co., Inc., 156 U.S.App.D.C. 253, 258, 480 F.2d 1145, 1150 (1973); Renaire Corp. v. Vaughn, 142 A.2d 148, 150 (D.C. 1958) (party who failed to file cross-appeal could not allege error in favorable judgment on adversary's appeal from that judgment)....