Trucking Employees of North Jersey Welfare Fund, Inc. v. Romano

• Decision Date: 17 May 1984
• Docket Number: No. 63487,63487
• Citation: 450 So.2d 843
• Parties: TRUCKING EMPLOYEES OF NORTH JERSEY WELFARE FUND, INC., et al., Petitioners, v. Thomas ROMANO, et al., Respondents.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 843

450 So.2d 843

TRUCKING EMPLOYEES OF NORTH JERSEY WELFARE FUND, INC., et al., Petitioners, v. Thomas ROMANO, et al., Respondents.

No. 63487.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 17, 1984.

Maurice M. Garcia and Bradford J. Beilly of Abrams, Anton, Robbins, Resnick, Schneider & Mager, Hollywood, for petitioners.

Arthur M. Simon of Goodwin, Ryskamp, Welcher & Carrier, Miami, for respondents.

Edward T. O'Donnell, Richard M. Bezold and Robert T. Kofman, Miami, for the Florida Defense Lawyers Ass'n, amicus curiae.

EHRLICH, Justice.

This cause is before the Court as presenting a question certified to be of great public importance. Romano v. Trucking Employees of North Jersey Welfare Fund, Inc., 427 So.2d 802 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983). We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.

Petitioners were limited partners in a registered Florida limited partnership, in which the respondents were the general partners and business managers, formed for the purpose of developing condominiums in Lauderhill, Florida. On April 3, 1978, petitioners filed a complaint against respondents, alleging breach of fiduciary duty, conspiracy to defraud and breach of the limited partnership contract. Later, an additional count was added based on alleged violation of the federal RICO statute.

On November 28, 1978, a federal criminal indictment was filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida charging respondents with twenty-one counts of fraud and misrepresentation. Petitioners were named in the indictment as victims of the specific acts which had been alleged in petitioners' complaint. Respondents were found guilty on all counts.

Thereafter, petitioners filed a motion for summary judgment on the strength of the guilty verdict returned by the jurors in the federal criminal action. Petitioners argued that that conviction conclusively established all the factual allegations contained in petitioners' complaint for purposes of res judicata and collateral estoppel in light of the fact that the United States proved that petitioners were injured by the acts complained of.

The trial court granted summary judgment on the issue of liability and retained jurisdiction on the issue of damages. The Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed on the grounds that a criminal conviction is not admissible in a civil action to prove the truth of the underlying facts and that lack of identity of the parties barred use of the conviction as collateral estoppel. However, the district court certified the following question to the Court:

May a litigant, who was not a party to a prior criminal proceeding that resulted in a judgment of conviction, use the judgment of conviction "offensively" in a civil proceeding to prevent the same defendant from relitigating issues resolved in the earlier criminal proceeding?

427 So.2d at 803. We answer the question in the negative and approve the decision of the district court.

Collateral estoppel or estoppel by judgment, like its near relative res judicata, serves to limit litigation by determining for all time an issue fully and fairly litigated between parties.

The difference which we consider exists between res adjudicata and estoppel by judgment is that under res adjudicata a final decree or judgment bars a subsequent suit between the same parties based upon the same cause of action and is conclusive as to all matters germane thereto that were or could have been raised, while the principle of estoppel by judgment is applicable where the two causes of action are different, in which case the judgment in the first suit only estops the parties from litigating in the second suit issues--that is to say points and questions--common to both causes of action and which were actually adjudicated in the prior litigation.

Gordon v. Gordon, 59 So.2d 40, 44 (Fla.), cert. denied, 344 U.S. 878, 73 S.Ct. 165, 97 L.Ed. 680 (1952). A corollary to the doctrine of collateral estoppel is the doctrine of mutuality of parties which holds that strangers to a prior litigation--those who were neither parties nor in privity with a party--are not bound by the results of that litigation. See Yovan v. Burdine's, 81 So.2d 555 (Fla.1955), and cases cited therein.

We recognize that the federal courts have abandoned the requirement of mutuality of parties as a prerequisite to asserting the doctrine of collateral estoppel. Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 99 S.Ct. 645, 58 L.Ed.2d 552 (1979); Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v....