Woolley v. Eastern Air Lines, Inc.

• Decision Date: 13 January 1960
• Docket Number: No. 17870.,17870.
• Parties: Paul S. WOOLLEY, Appellant, v. EASTERN AIR LINES, INC., Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

273 F.2d 615 (1960)

Paul S. WOOLLEY, Appellant, v. EASTERN AIR LINES, INC., Appellee.

No. 17870.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

January 13, 1960.

William G. Ward, Miami, Fla. (Ward & Ward, Miami, Fla., of counsel), for appellant.

W. Glen Harlan, Atlanta, Ga., Charles M. Moon, Miami, Fla., Gambrell, Harlan, Russell, Moye & Richardson, Atlanta, Ga. (E. Smythe Gambrell, William G. Bell, Jr., Atlanta, Ga. of counsel), for appellee, Eastern Air Lines, Inc.

Before RIVES, Chief Judge, and HUTCHESON and CAMERON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Seeking to plead around, and thereby escape the binding effect as res judicata of, the judgment¹ in an earlier action he had brought against appellant in the Southern District of Florida, appellant, plaintiff below, brought this suit in the Circuit Court of Dade County, Florida. The cause was removed to the Southern District of Florida, where the defendant, raising the defenses of res judicata estoppel by judgment and estoppel by verdict, based on the judgment of the district court in the earlier case and its affirmance in this court, moved to dismiss, the motion was granted, judgment was entered for defendant, and plaintiff appealed.

Here generally attacking the correctness of the judgments and decisions below and here in the earlier case and particularly insisting that the issues adjudicated in this case are not the same as, and the judgment in this case is, therefore, not controlled by, the judgments in the earlier case, plaintiff urges upon us that the judgment must be reversed.

Repelling the attack on the reasoning of this court in the former Woolley case, on the ground that it is a collateral attack upon the judgment pleaded in bar and, therefore, inadmissible, appellee resists the attack on the plea of res judicata, that the issues actually raised and settled in the earlier case are not the same as those decided here, on the grounds: (1) that the record does not at all support this claim; and (2) that if any phase of the issues presented for decision here was not in terms discussed and decided there, all of them were actually presented, all could have been specifically raised and settled there, and the bar of the plea is therefore as fully effective as to them as if they had been precisely discussed and determined. Cf. Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591, 68 S.Ct. 715, 92 L.Ed. 898; Angel v. Bullington, 330 U.S. 183, 67 S.Ct. 657, 91 L.Ed. 832; Chicot County Drainage Dist....