Valdez v. Smith, 3886.

• Decision Date: 14 May 1934
• Docket Number: No. 3886.,3886.
• Citation: 32 P.2d 1022,38 N.M. 345
• Parties: VALDEZv.SMITH et al.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

38 N.M. 345

32 P.2d 1022

VALDEZ

v.SMITH et al.

No. 3886.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

May 14, 1934.

Appeal from District Court, San Juan County; Otero, Judge.

Suit by Jose Cleofas Valdez against Roy Smith and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed.

Decree in quiet title action held res judicata in subsequent quiet title action involving same land notwithstanding tracts were inadvertently described in first complaint as 1,295.6 feet instead of 2,615.6 feet in length, where omitted land claimed as additional subject-matter of suit was involved in former suit wherein decree was entered in accordance with stipulation which supplied omission of complaint.

John J. Kenney, of Santa Fé, for appellant.

George P. Bruington and Claude T. Smith, both of Aztec, for appellees.

WATSON, Chief Justice.

Plaintiff, Jose Cleofas Valdez, sued numerous defendants, named and unnamed, to quiet title to three tracts, all evidently portions of “the old Juan J. Valdez ranch.”

Defendants Smith and Carter answered. They set up a former suit to quiet title by the same plaintiff against the same defendants, in which plaintiff obtained a decree based on a stipulation with defendants Smith and Carter, which, as they alleged, was res adjudicata of the present suit. As exhibits they set forth a copy of a former complaint, a copy of the stipulation, a copy of the final judgment, and a copy of a motion exhibited by plaintiff to set aside the final judgment. In that motion it was claimed that the plaintiff had inadvertently made an error in describing one of the three tracts with the result of excluding more than half of it. The record does not disclose the disposition of that motion. Plaintiff assumes to state that it was overruled. Defendants, by said answer, also made the point that plaintiff's failure to present his entire claim in the first suit estopped him in the present suit.

Plaintiff seems to have filed no reply. Defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings was sustained and judgment was entered, after consideration of briefs and arguments “upon the issues raised by the answer of ‘res adjudicata,”’ holding “that the defense raised by the answer creates a bar to the prosecution of this present action, and the plaintiff is estopped from now maintaining the same.” Plaintiff appeals.

Appellant here asserts, and appellees do not deny, that, in preparing the original complaint, an error was made in describing one of the three tracts as 1,295.6 feet instead of 2,615.6 feet in length. He urges that the subject-matter of the present suit is not the same as that of the former suit, and that the principles of res adjudicata were erroneously applied to bar his right to a day in court as to the land not included in the original complaint and decree.

But the original decree did not stop with adjudicating title to the lands described in the original complaint. After so doing, it adjudged “that the plaintiff quit-claims and hereafter makes no claim to any other lands...