Territory v. Santa F? Pac. R. Co.

• Citation: 62 P. 985,10 N.M. 410
• Parties: TERRITORYv.SANTA FÉ PAC. R. CO.
• Decision Date: 23 August 1900
• Court: Supreme Court of New Mexico

10 N.M. 410

62 P. 985

TERRITORY

v.SANTA FÉ PAC. R. CO.

Supreme Court of the Territory of New Mexico.

Aug. 23, 1900.

Syllabus by the Court.

Where a second action is prosecuted upon the same claim and demand by the same parties, or their privies, the judgment is a finality as to the claim and demand in controversy, concluding parties and privies, not only as to every matter which was offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim, but as to every other matter which might have been offered for that purpose.

Appeal from district court, Bernalillo county; before Justice J. W. Crumpacker.

Action by the United States Trust Company of New York against the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company and others. The territory intervened, seeking to recover from the Santa Fé Pacific Railroad Company certain taxes. From the judgment on the intervention the territory appeals. Affirmed.

Where a second action is prosecuted upon the same claim and demand by the same parties, or their privies, the judgment is a finality as to the claim and demand in controversy concluding parties and privies, not only as to every matter which was offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim, but as to every other matter which might have been offered for that purpose.

F. W. Clancy (Edward L. Bartlett, Sol. Gen., with him on the brief), for the Territory.

C. N. Sterry, for appellee.

MILLS, C. J.

The main suit in which the intervention we are now considering was filed was brought by the United States Trust Company of New York against a large number of defendants to foreclose a mortgage deed of trust on that part of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad running west from Albuquerque. In 1896 the district attorney for the county of Bernalillo filed in the main case an intervening petition setting up the levying of additional assessments for the years 1893, 1894, and 1895 against the property of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company in Bernalillo county, and asking that the receiver of that company be ordered to pay the taxes due on said additional assessments. It was heard by the court on an agreed statement of facts, and judgment was given for the territory, the intervener. Appeal was taken to this court, and the judgment below was reversed. United States Trust Co. v. Territory, 8 N. M. 673, 47 Pac. 725. On June 10, 1897, a second intervening petition was filed by the territory setting up its claim for like taxes on an additional assessment for the year 1896. The district court dismissed this petition on account of the decision of our supreme court in United States Trust Co. v. Territory, supra. An appeal was taken, the dismissal was affirmed, and appeals were taken from both decisions to the supreme court of the United States. A third intervening petition was also filed in 1897 by Frank W. Clancy, Esq., in behalf of the territory, for taxes claimed to be due on additional assessments in Valencia county. By this intervention it was made to appear that a portion of the property of the railroad for which the additional assessments were made was for improvements on the right of way over what was public domain in 1866, and that another part was on improvements on the right of way over what was private property in 1866. On hearing this petition was dismissed by the district court. An appeal was taken to this court, and, after affirmance, to the supreme court of the United States. In the supreme court of the United States the three appeals were argued together, and the first two were affirmed in New Mexico v. United States Trust Co., 172 U. S. 171, 19 Sup. Ct. 128, 43 L. Ed. 407, and the third (that is, the one relating to the taxes in Valencia county) was reversed in New Mexico v. United States Trust Co., 174 U. S. 545, 19 Sup. Ct. 784, 43 L. Ed. 1079. On the Valencia county appeal being reinstated in the district court of the Second judicial district of this territory for further proceedings in accordance with the mandate of the supreme court of the United States, the territory, by Frank W. Clancy, Esq., filed another intervening petition, seeking to recover from the Santa Fé Pacific Railroad Company, the present owner of the property, brought under the jurisdiction of the court in the main suit of the United States Trust Company of New York against the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, taxes for the years 1893, 1894, 1895, and 1896 on additional assessments upon the improvements placed upon that portion of the railroad in Bernalillo county alleged to run over land held in private ownership in 1866. This petition was dismissed on motion of the Santa Fé Pacific Railroad Company on the ground that the claim of the appellant had been previously adversely adjudicated, and had become res judicata, so as to estop the territory from prosecuting its petition. The dismissal was made on motion instead of by plea, and from it the territory appeals to this court.

The vital point in this case is the one on which it was decided by the learned judge below. He held that the claim and demand set up in the last intervening petition had already been adjudicated against the intervening petitioner in the two interventions instituted in 1896 and 1897. It is for us to decide this point, and its decision will settle this case, so far as we are concerned. It appears from an examination of the record, and it is not disputed, that the taxes mentioned in the last intervening petition were included in and are levied on a part of the same property on which the first two petitions were based. The appellant, however, claims that the decision of the supreme courts both of this territory and of the United States are not res judicata as to this proceeding, because the taxability of the railroad...