Williams v. Cambridge Mutual Fire Insurance Co., 15624.

• Decision Date: 29 February 1956
• Docket Number: No. 15624.,15624.
• Citation: 230 F.2d 293
• Parties: Mrs. Jewell WILLIAMS (now Mrs. Jewell Williams Evans), Appellant, v. CAMBRIDGE MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY and Grain Dealers Mutual Insurance Company, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

230 F.2d 293 (1956)

Mrs. Jewell WILLIAMS (now Mrs. Jewell Williams Evans), Appellant, v. CAMBRIDGE MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY and Grain Dealers Mutual Insurance Company, Appellees.

No. 15624.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

February 29, 1956.

Phil Stone, Oxford, Miss., Joe T. Patterson, Asst. Atty. Gen., James Stone & Sons, Oxford, Miss., for appellant.

Thos. H. Watkins, Jackson, Miss., Chester L. Sumners, Oxford, Miss., P. H. Eager, Jr., Jackson, Miss., for appellees.

Before BORAH, TUTTLE and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

TUTTLE, Circuit Judge.

This is a suit on two insurance policies for fire damage to the appellant's cafedwelling in Calhoun City, Mississippi. The trial court found that the appellant herself intentionally burned the building or procured its destruction, and granted judgment for the appellee insurance companies. She assigns as error on appeal both this finding of fact by the court, sitting without a jury, and the refusal of the trial court to exclude evidence tending to implicate her as the arsonist, on her theory that the insurance companies were estopped from raising that issue by the earlier decision of the Supreme Court of Mississippi, reversing her criminal conviction of arson.¹

With regard to the latter question, she argues that although both the parties and the burden of proof are here different from those in the criminal case, the finding of fact by the Supreme Court of Mississippi that she did not burn the building is a final determination of that issue in the criminal case and in all subsequent adjudications. We do not read the opinion in Williams v. State of Mississippi, 220 Miss. 800, 72 So.2d 147, as establishing the appellant's innocence as a matter of fact; rather, the Supreme Court there held that since the prosecution's competent evidence was wholly circumstantial in character, and did not exclude every reasonable hypothesis except guilt, the accused's motion for a peremptory instruction should have been granted. The appellant, as defendant in a criminal prosecution, was of course entitled to this safeguard of the criminal law, but as plaintiff in a civil action, she could not claim the same advantage.

Moreover, even had the Supreme Court of Mississippi found that the appellant did not intentionally burn the building, that finding would bind only the parties to that case, and their privies. The appellant urges here that by the doctrine of collateral estoppel, it should also bind the appellee insurance companies. Collateral estoppel is broader than res judicata in holding that an issue determined in one suit between the parties thereto may not be relitigated in a later action between the same parties or their privies, even though the second suit is based on an entirely separate transaction. For the finding to be conclusive in the later action, however, it is fundamental that the parties must be the same or in privity to those in the first suit, and none of the authorities which appellant urges here shows any departure from this rule by the Mississippi courts. To the contrary, the Supreme Court of Mississippi has held that a jury verdict of not guilty on a criminal charge is not admissible evidence in a later civil action brought by a private individual against the same defendant, for damages arising out of the same incident. Young v. Davis, 174 Miss. 435, 164 So. 586. Therefore, the reversal of the appellant's conviction of arson not only failed conclusively to determine this issue in the case before us, but it was also irrelevant to the question.

Having overruled the plaintiff's motion, made at the outset of the trial, to exclude evidence tending to show that she intentionally burned the building, the court went on to hear evidence on this and other issues raised by the defendants' answer.² It appears that the building, which faced on the public square in Calhoun City, was largely of brick, with the wooden additions of five bedrooms and a porch. The plaintiff occupied one of the bedrooms, and another was vacant; the other three were occupied, respectively, by Miss Neamy Wooten, the plaintiff's sister, Miss Jean Davis, a waitress, and Lloyd Vance, a roomer. The fire occurred on Sunday evening, December 7, 1952, when none of the residents was present therein. By stipulation among the parties, the testimony of some of the volunteer firemen at the criminal trial was introduced in evidence, and they agreed that the fire was a very unusual one, in that although apparently extinguished in various parts of the building, it would flare up again in these same places, seemingly without cause; and, further, that there was a strong odor of petroleum products in the building.

Beyond these facts, there was a sharp conflict of testimony regarding the circumstances leading up to the fire. The trial court stated that in attempting to resolve this conflict, it relied largely on the testimony of Miss Jean Davis, to whose testimony it gave greater credibility than to that of other witnesses, including the plaintiff. Miss Davis testified that she worked as a waitress in the cafe and had a room in the back; that the plaintiff had told her a number of times that she was broke; and that the plaintiff had rented an apartment in Memphis, with her daughter-in-law and grandson, and had moved most of her belongings out of the cafe prior to the fire. She testified further that on the night of the fire she told the plaintiff that she was going to stay with her mother that night, but instead changed her mind and returned to the cafe about 9:00 P.M.; that the plaintiff was there, and was surprised to see her; that she told the plaintiff that she was going to stay in her room in the building that night, but that the plaintiff said that she couldn't; that there were papers on the floor and over the front door, which had never been the case before; that she heard voices in the back, although the cafe was closed; that she started to go out the back, as she had come in, but the plaintiff told her to go out the front, and she did so. The witness also testified that after the fire the plaintiff was ill and in the hospital and that she visited her; that the plaintiff cried and said, "You know nothing about this or anything," and added, "It might be a mess"; that after the plaintiff recovered she sent for the witness, took her aside, and said, "You don't know nothing about it, if someone talks to you, you don't know a damn thing." Another witness testified that three gallons of coal oil were delivered to the building on the night of December 7, 1952, before the fire.

In rebuttal, the plaintiff denied making any of the remarks attributed to her by Miss Davis. She further denied that anyone was in the building on the night of the fire except herself and Miss Davis, and denied the delivery of coal oil. She...