Wilkey v. Southwestern Greyhound Lines, Inc., s. 37438
| Citation | 322 P.2d 1058 |
| Decision Date | 17 December 1957 |
| Docket Number | 37570,Nos. 37438,s. 37438 |
| Parties | Manuel E. WILKEY, surviving father of Jerl Ruth Wilkey, Deceased, Plaintiff in Error, v. SOUTHWESTERN GREYHOUND LINES, Inc., a Corporation, and Bill L. Pratt, an Individual, Defendants in Error. Manuel E. WILKEY, Plaintiff in Error, v. SOUTHWESTERN GREYHOUND LINES, Inc., a Corporation, and Bill L. Pratt, an Individual, Defendants in Error. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. Where the verdict and judgment for defendants in an action for damages for one wrongful death from a motor vehicle accident is relied upon as an estoppel to the maintenance of other actions by the same plaintiff against the same defendants for another allegedly wrongful death and for physical injuries and property damages resulting from the same accident, said verdict and judgment operates as such estoppel only as to those issues necessarily determined thereby.
2. Where, on the basis of the record in the action, whose verdict and judgment is claimed to operate as such estoppel, there can be no question but that same determined that, in the manner in which the accident occurred, the conduct of the defendants was not responsible therefor, said verdict and judgment bars plaintiff's recovery in the other actions, on the basis of defendants' same alleged torts, or acts of negligence.
Appeal from the District Court of Oklahoma County; W. A. Carlile and Glen O. Morris, Judges.
In two actions by plaintiff against the defendants for damages for his personal injuries and property damage, and for his daughter's alleged wrongful death, resulting from a highway accident, the trial court entered judgments sustaining defendants' motions for judgment on the pleadings after they had pleaded, as an estoppel by judgment to plaintiff's recovery, the verdict and final judgment in a previously-tried action by the same plaintiff against the same defendants for the alleged wrongful death of his wife, resulting from the same accident. After his motions for new trial had been overruled, plaintiff perfected the present appeals, herein consolidated for briefing. Affirmed.
Howard K. Berry, and William A. Hennessy, Oklahoma City, and Pettigrew & Parkhill, Grand Prairie, Tex., for plaintiff in error.
Foliart, Hunt & Shepherd, Oklahoma City, for defendants in error.
In August, 1953, Manuel E. Wilkey, accompanied by his wife, Jean Louise, and his two-year-old daughter, Jeri Ruth, was driving his automobile, with house trailer attached, east of Weatherford, on U. S. Highway 66, when a bus, owned by Southwestern Greyhound Lines, Inc., and being driven by Bill L. Pratt, attempted to pass them. As the bus came abreast of the trailer, the vehicles became fastened together and left the highway on its north side, plunging through a bridge rail and into a canyon, injuring Wilkey, demolishing his auto and trailer, and fatally injuring his wife and daughter.
By reason of said accident, Wilkey, hereinafter referred to as plaintiff, instituted, all on one later day of the same month, in the District Court of Oklahoma County, three separate actions against the afore-named bus company and its driver, hereinafter referred to as defendants.
In one of them, said Court's Cause No. 131453, plaintiff sought damages for his own personal injuries, together with hospital and medical expenses incurred in connection therewith, and the difference between the alleged values of his auto and trailer before and after the accident. The other two cases were death actions. In one of them, No. 131454, he, as Jean Louise's surviving husband, sought damages on account of her alleged wrongful death; and, in the other, No. 131455, he, as Jeri Ruth's father, sought damages on account of her alleged wrongful death. In all three of the cases, the various kinds of detriment to the plaintiff were alleged to have been incurred from the same accident, and to have resulted from the same acts of negligence on the part of the defendants in allegedly causing it. To plaintiff's petitions in all three of the cases, the defendants filed joint answers containing general denials, together with special denials that any negligence on their part was the cause of the accident, and further alleging that it was proximately caused, or contributed to, by negligence on the part of the plaintiff, himself. They also pleaded that the accident was an unavoidable one.
Of the three above-described actions, Cause No. 131454, (in which plaintiff, as her surviving husband, sought damages for Jean Louise's alleged wrongful death) was brought to trial first, resulting in a verdict and judgment for defendants. Plaintiff appealed that case on the theory that the trial court had erred in its instructions; but this court affirmed the judgment. Wilkey v. Southwestern Greyhound Lines, Inc., Okl., 296 P.2d 786. Thereafter, the pleadings in Causes 131453 and 131455, supra, were amended to place in issue the question of whether or not the verdict and judgment in Cause No. 131454, supra, (which became final in the cited appeal) conclusively exonerated defendants of any and all liability in those cases and therefore barred plaintiff's recovery therein. Each of the two district judges, to whom the question was presented separately in the two cases, decided it in the affirmative and sustained the motion, defendants interposed in each, for judgment on the pleadings. The question is presented here in plaintiff's separate appeals from said judgments. As the two appeals have been consolidated for briefing and involve the same issue, our decision herein will be determinative of both.
Although, the issue here presented is sometimes referred to as one of res judicata, it seems to be generally agreed in the briefs of both parties that a better and more accurate term, employed for it by this court, and some others, is 'estoppel' by judgment or verdict. In this connection, see McKee v. Producers' & Refiners' Corp., 170 Okl. 559, 41 P.2d 466, the Annotation at 88 A.L.R. 574, and 3 Okla.L.Rev. 104. In the cited Annotation it is said:
'Such terms as 'merger', 'bar', 'estoppel', and 'res adjudicata' are often used indiscriminately and interchangeably, whether to describe the effect of a judgment as an absolute bar of a cause of action or its effect to preclude the further litigation of some fact determined in a former action between the parties on a different cause of action.'
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'The distinction between the effect of a judgment as an absolute bar to a cause of action and as an estoppel as to particular facts relied on as evidence was pointed out in Outram v. Morewood (1803) 3 East, 346, 102 Eng. Reprint, 630. In this case Lord Ellenborough, Ch. J., stated: * * *'
'The leading American case on the point is Cromwell v. Sac County (1897) 94 U.S. 351, 24 L.Ed. 195. The following language of Mr. Justice Field therein has done much to clear up the confusion which existed on this subject: 'There is a difference between the effect of a judgment as a bar or estoppel against the prosecution of a second action upon the same claim or demand, and the effect as an estoppel in another action between the same parties upon a different claim or cause of action. In the former case, the judgment, if rendered upon the merits, constitutes an absolute bar to a subsequent action. It is a finality as to the claim or demand in controversy, concluding parties and those in privity with them, not only as to every matter which was offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim or demand, but as to any other admissible matter which might have been offered for that purpose. * * * The language, therefore, which is so often used, that a judgment estops not only as to every ground of recovery or defense actually presented in the action, but also as to every ground which might have been presented, is strictly accurate when applied to the demand or claim in controversy. Such demand or claim, having passed into judgment, cannot again be brought into litigation between the parties in proceedings at law upon any ground whatever. But when the second action between the same parties is...
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