Tutt v. Doby
| Citation | 459 F.2d 1195 |
| Decision Date | 16 March 1972 |
| Docket Number | No. 24248.,24248. |
| Parties | Cecil TUTT, Appellant, v. Lewis DOBY, Appellee. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (District of Columbia) |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Miss Marilyn Fisher, Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. C. Christopher Brown, Baltimore, Md., and Richard B. Wolf, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellant.
Before FAHY, Senior Circuit Judge, and LEVENTHAL and MacKINNON, Circuit Judges.
In 1967, landlord Lewis Doby filed a suit for possession of an apartment against his tenant, Cecil Tutt, in the Landlord and Tenant Branch of what was then the District of Columbia Court of General Sessions. The complaint alleged that Tutt was in default for $275 rent. The complaint was served by a United States Marshal by "posting" on the door to the apartment. A default judgment was entered fifteen days after the action was filed when Tutt failed to appear. Tutt then vacated the premises.
In 1968, Doby sued Tutt again, this time for $275 plus interest. This action was grounded in the non-payment of the rent which had given rise to the possessory action the year before.1 He obtained a summary judgment, which the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (DCCA) affirmed.
The DCCA stated: "A judgment in a suit for possession, including one by default, is res judicata as to those issues litigated and determined therein in any subsequent suit for rent." It held that Doby's entitlement to the $275 was conclusively established by the first lawsuit under principles of res judicata.2 We reverse.
While the term res judicata is sometimes used broadly, as in the DCCA opinion, it may help analysis to confine it to its classic and precise reference, as interposing an absolute bar to the relitigation of the same cause of action between the parties or their privies. If the doctrine of res judicata applies, both parties are concluded, not only as to things which were determined but as to all matters which might have been determined as well. Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U.S. 351, 24 L.Ed. 195 (1877); Lawlor v. National Screen Service Corp., 349 U.S. 322, 326, 75 S.Ct. 865, 99 L.Ed. 1122 (1955).
The case before us involves what is more precisely referred to as the doctrine of collateral estoppel. That rule prohibits parties who have litigated one cause of action from relitigating in a second and different cause of action matters of fact which were, or necessarily must have been, determined in the first litigation. That collateral estoppel is the principle involved in the case at bar ensues from the condition that an action for money due is different from a possessory action to recover property or its use. These actions are differently focused, they serve different purposes, and are governed by significantly different procedures. Our statutes provide a landlord with a summary action for possession. 16 D.C.Code §§ 1501-1503, 45 D.C.Code § 910. This action may be begun without personal service of process; if no person can be found for service of process, the complaint may be "posted" upon the door of the dwelling, or elsewhere on the premises "where it may be conveniently read." 16 D.C.Code § 1502. On the other hand, if the landlord seeks a money recovery, process must be served personally. Paregol v. Smith, 103 A.2d 576 (D.C.Mun.App.1954); Mahoney v. Campbell, 209 A.2d 791 (D.C. App.1965). And if the landlord seeks to combine repossession and a money recovery, personal service is requisite. Bell v. Tsintolas Realty Co., 139 U.S.App.D.C. 101, 430 F.2d 474 (1970).
There are special considerations that justify a summary proceeding limited to recovery of possession from a tenant no longer entitled to remain. See Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56, 92 S. Ct. 862, 31 L.Ed.2d 36 (1972):
There are unique factual and legal characteristics of the landlord-tenant relationship that justify special statutory treatment inapplicable to other litigants. The tenant is, by definition, in possession of the property of the landlord; unless a judicially supervised mechanism is provided for what would otherwise be swift repossession by the landlord himself, the tenant would be able to deny the landlord the rights of income incident to ownership by refusing to pay rent and by preventing sale or rental to someone else. Many expenses of the landlord, continue to accrue whether a tenant pays his rent or not. Speedy adjudication is desirable to prevent subjecting the landlord to undeserved economic loss and the tenant to unmerited harassment and dispossession when his lease or rental agreement gives him the right to peaceful and undisturbed possession of the property. Holding over by the tenant beyond the term of his agreement or holding without payment of rent has proved a virulent source of friction and dispute.
The summary procedure is provided by the legislature to provide Court relief to the landlord, otherwise trapped by the "relatively slow, fairly complex and substantially expensive procedure" of the common law possessory action of ejectment; to avoid resort to self-help and force, condoned at common law as justified; and to permit an expeditious judicial determination of what remains a possessory action.
While there is no summary action for money due, the provision of a summary proceeding for the possessory action harmonizes considerations of fairness with the felt need for expedition in settling possessory rights. On the one hand, there is need for dispatch in determining the right of the businessman to occupancy of rented premises. On the other hand, tenants may be relatively unconcerned with the matter of possession—they may indeed be ready to quit the premises of the landlord with whom they have had bitter disputes—but may be far from acquiescent on the matter of whether, and how much, money is owed.
The summary action determines who is entitled to possession. In order to find that the landlord is entitled to possession for non-payment of rent, the court must find that tenant owes landlord some rent. But the court has only a collateral or incidental interest in any consideration of how much rent is due. The "significance of what a court says it decides is controlled by the issues that were open for decision." Angel v. Bullington, 330 U.S. 183, 187, 67 S.Ct. 657, 660, 91 L.Ed. 832 (1947). And the Landlord and Tenant Branch had no jurisdiction, in the absence of personal service of process, to enter a judgment for the landlord for the amount of rent due. The amount of rent due was not genuinely before the court, and it cannot be said to have "decided" the question, therefore, for purposes of raising a later estoppel. The applicable rule is stated in the Restatement, Judgments, § 71:
Where a court has incidentally determined a matter which it would have had no jurisdiction to determine in an action brought directly to determine it, the judgment is not conclusive in a subsequent action brought to determine the matter directly.
We do not think this principle can be set aside by the circumstance that where a tenant is seeking to retain possession the court may fix an amount which, if paid, will effectuate the objective of avoiding eviction.3 The authority to limit the possessory relief within the court's jurisdiction—by giving defendant tenant a power conditional upon the payment of money—does not establish a right to provide relief outside the court's jurisdiction. With a tenant in default, the amount of rental due was neither determined in fact nor necessarily determined,4 for it was not genuinely before the court, except in an incidental sense that is too insubstantial for estoppel doctrine.
As we have already brought out, the issue of rental due was not really "before" the trial court, and in no substantial sense could it be said to have been "necessarily determined" within the doctrine that once turned on that concept (see note 4). The rule requiring reversal is intertwined with, and is given support and perspective by, the doctrine that collateral estoppel essentially applies only to matters actually litigated and determined in the first action.
The underlying principle is stated in the Restatement, Judgments, § 68(2):
A judgment on one cause of action is not conclusive in a subsequent action on a different cause of action as to questions of fact not actually litigated and determined in the first action.
This rule is supported not only by general considerations of justice, but by pertinent precedent.
The doctrine of collateral estoppel is intended to discourage splitting causes of action or defenses, thus wasting valuable judicial resources and imposing needless burdens on parties-defendant. It is a "measure calculated to save individuals and courts from the waste and...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Miller v. Poretsky
...United Shoe Machinery Corp. v. United States, 258 U.S. 451, 459, 42 S.Ct. 363, 66 L.Ed. 708 (1922); Tutt v. Doby, 148 U.S.App.D.C. 171, 173, 459 F.2d 1195, 1197 (1972). The Supreme Court has made clear that collateral estoppel must be construed narrowly to apply only to instances where ther......
-
Otherson v. Department of Justice, I.N.S.
...cf. United States v. International Building Co., 345 U.S. 502, 73 S.Ct. 807, 97 L.Ed. 1182 (1953) (consent judgment); Tutt v. Doby, 459 F.2d 1195, 1199-200 (D.C.Cir.1972) (default judgment). The reasoning behind this rule is apparent from the Restatement's articulation of the actual litigat......
-
Habib v. Thurston
...action is not like a summary possession order, based on "some rent" in an unadjudicated amount being due. See Tutt v. Doby, 148 U.S.App.D.C. 171, 459 F.2d 1195 (1972). While the right to possession does not depend on an adjudication of exactly how much rent is overdue, the right to money un......
-
Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. Thomas
...matters which were determined in the previous litigation, but also as to all matters that might have been determined. Tutt v. Doby, 459 F.2d 1195, 1197 (D.C.Cir.1972). Moreover, enforcement of the 60-day time limits imposed by the statute providing for review, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 7607(b)(1), req......