Young v. Barrow

• Citation: 130 S.W.3d 59
• Decision Date: 16 September 2003
• Docket Number: No. M2001-00876-COA-R3-CV.,M2001-00876-COA-R3-CV.
• Parties: Sylvester YOUNG v. Leah Lisa BARROW, et al.
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals

130 S.W.3d 59

Sylvester YOUNG v. Leah Lisa BARROW, et al.

No. M2001-00876-COA-R3-CV.

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, at Nashville.

Assigned on Briefs February 22, 2002.

September 16, 2003.

Permission to Appeal Denied by Supreme Court January 26, 2004.

Sylvester Young, Nashville, Tennessee, Pro Se.

Scott A. Rhodes, Brentwood, Tennessee, for the appellees, Harrison Brothers Insurance and Leah Barrow.

OPINION

WILLIAM C. KOCH, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which WILLIAM B. CAIN and PATRICIA J. COTTRELL, JJ., joined.

This appeal arises out of a minor intersection accident. The complaints of the driver and passenger of one of the motor vehicles against the driver of the second motor vehicle were consolidated in the Circuit Court for Davidson County. The trial court granted a directed verdict against the plaintiff driver at the close of the plaintiffs' proof. Thereafter, the plaintiff driver filed a second lawsuit against the defendant driver and her insurer. The trial court dismissed the second suit on the ground of res judicata and granted the insurer's motion for a judgment on the pleadings. The plaintiff driver has perfected this appeal. We affirm the dismissal of his second complaint.

I.

On November 24, 1997, Leah Barrow became trapped behind a city bus as she drove north on Gallatin Road in Nashville. She moved into the left lane to pass the bus, but, just as she reached the front of the bus, the light at the intersection of Gallatin Road and Eastland Avenue turned yellow. Ms. Barrow applied her brakes; however, her car slid into the intersection because of the wet roadway. Her motor vehicle came into contact with the driver's side bumper of a motor vehicle being driven by Sylvester Young. Ms. Barrow stopped and provided her insurance information to Mr. Young. She went on her way after observing that Mr. Young's vehicle has sustained only minor damage and that neither Mr. Young nor his three passengers¹ appeared to be injured.

Mr. Young and Ms. Buford retained a lawyer. On November 23, 1998, Mr. Young filed a civil warrant in the Metropolitan General Sessions Court against Ms. Barrow seeking damages for the personal injuries Mr. Young claimed to have sustained in the collision. This case was later removed to the Circuit Court for Davidson County where it was consolidated with a separate lawsuit Ms. Buford had filed against Ms. Barrow.

The lawyer representing Mr. Young and Ms. Buford withdrew prior to trial, and Mr. Young and Ms. Buford decided to represent themselves. The consolidated cases were tried to a jury on November 14 and 15, 2000. Ms. Barrow conceded liability, and the proceeding focused only on the question of damages. Ms. Barrow moved for a directed verdict at the close of the plaintiffs' case. The trial court granted the motion with regard to Mr. Young's claim but permitted Ms. Buford's case to go to the jury. The jury determined that Ms. Buford had not been injured, and the trial court entered a judgment on December 4, 2000 dismissing both claims. Neither Mr. Young nor Ms. Buford appealed this judgment.

On November 30, 2000, Mr. Young, still representing himself, filed another complaint against Ms. Barrow and her insurance agent, Harrison Brothers Insurance. He recited in the complaint that at a "static [sic] conference" held before the consolidated trial, the trial court had instructed him to re-file his complaint because his former lawyer had failed to depose his physician or to subpoena his medical records.

Harrison Brothers Insurance filed an answer generally denying liability and a Tenn. R. Civ. P. 12.03 motion for judgment on the pleadings. It pointed out that Mr. Young's renewed complaint did not mention Harrison Brothers Insurance except in its caption. For her part, Ms. Barrow filed a Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56 motion asserting that she was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law because Mr. Young's claim against her had already been litigated. The trial court granted both motions, and Mr. Young has appealed to this court.

II. STANDARDS FOR REVIEWING CLAIMS OF PRO SE LITIGANTS

Parties who decide to represent themselves are entitled to fair and equal treatment by the courts. Whitaker v. Whirlpool Corp., 32 S.W.3d 222, 227 (Tenn.Ct.App.2000); Paehler v. Union Planters Nat'l Bank, Inc., 971 S.W.2d 393, 396 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1997). The courts should take into account that many pro se litigants have no legal training and little familiarity with the judicial system. Irvin v. City of Clarksville, 767 S.W.2d 649, 652 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1988). However, the courts must also be mindful of the boundary between fairness to a pro se litigant and unfairness to the pro se litigant's adversary. Thus, the courts must not excuse pro se litigants from complying with the same substantive and procedural rules that represented parties are expected to observe. Edmundson v. Pratt, 945 S.W.2d 754, 755 (Tenn.Ct.App.1996); Kaylor v. Bradley, 912 S.W.2d 728, 733 n. 4 (Tenn.Ct.App.1995).

The courts give pro se litigants who are untrained in the law a certain amount of leeway in drafting their pleadings and briefs. Whitaker v. Whirlpool Corp., 32 S.W.3d at 227; Paehler v. Union Planters Nat'l Bank, Inc., 971 S.W.2d at 397. Accordingly, we measure the papers prepared by pro se litigants using standards that are less stringent than those applied to papers prepared by lawyers. Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. 5, 9-10, 101 S. Ct. 173, 176, 66 L.Ed.2d 163 (1980); Baxter v. Rose, 523 S.W.2d 930, 939 (Tenn. 1975); Winchester v. Little, 996 S.W.2d 818, 824 (Tenn.Ct.App.1998).

Pro se litigants should not be permitted to shift the burden of the litigation to the courts or to their adversaries. They are, however, entitled to at least the same liberality of construction of their pleadings that Tenn. R. Civ. P. 7, 8.05, and 8.06 provide to other litigants. Irvin v. City of Clarksville, 767 S.W.2d at 652. Even though the courts cannot create claims or defenses for pro se litigants where none exist, Rampy v. ICI Acrylics, Inc., 898 S.W.2d 196, 198 (Tenn.Ct.App.1994), they should give effect to the substance, rather than the form or terminology, of a pro se litigant's papers. Brown v. City of Manchester, 722 S.W.2d 394, 397 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1986); Usrey v. Lewis, 553 S.W.2d 612, 614 (Tenn.Ct.App.1977).

III. MR. YOUNG'S CLAIMS AGAINST HARRISON BROTHERS INSURANCE

We turn first to Mr. Young's assertion that the trial court erred when it granted Harrison Brothers Insurance a judgment on the pleadings. When reviewing orders granting a Tenn. R. Civ. P. 12.03 motion, we use the same standard of review we use to review orders granting a Tenn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Waller v. Bryan, 16 S.W.3d 770, 773 (Tenn.Ct.App.1999). Accordingly, we must review the trial court's decision de novo without a presumption of correctness, Stein v. Davidson Hotel Co., 945 S.W.2d 714, 716 (Tenn. 1997), and we must construe the complaint liberally in favor of the non-moving party and take all the factual allegations in the complaint as true. We should uphold granting the motion only when it appears that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of a claim that will entitle him or her to relief.

Harrison Brothers Insurance moved to dismiss the complaint or for a judgment on the pleadings because Mr. Young's pro se complaint contained no factual allegations regarding the company. Indeed, the complaint did not even mention Harrison Brothers Insurance except in the style of the case. In his response to the motion, Mr. Young faulted the company for paying the lowest repair estimate. Nevertheless, he never alleged that Harrison Brothers Insurance breached any duty it had by, for example, failing to pay enough to properly repair or replace the car. The bare allegation that an insurer refused to pay the most exorbitant estimate does not state a claim on which relief can be granted. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in granting judgment on the pleadings in favor of Harrison Brothers Insurance.

IV. MR. YOUNG'S CLAIMS AGAINST MS. BARROW

Mr. Young also asserts that the trial court erred by dismissing his renewed complaint because he was not a party in the original proceeding. He concedes that he participated in the proceeding, but he insists that he was only a witness for Ms. Buford. Now, he asserts that he wants his "day in court."

A.

This issue implicates the doctrine of res judicata. Res judicata is a claim preclusion doctrine that promotes finality in litigation. Moulton v. Ford Motor Co., 533 S.W.2d 295, 296 (Tenn.1976); Jordan v. Johns, 168 Tenn. 525, 536-37, 79 S.W.2d 798, 802 (1935). It bars a second suit between the same parties or their privies on the same cause of action with respect to all the issues which were or could have been litigated in the former suit. Richardson v. Tennessee Bd. of Dentistry, 913 S.W.2d 446, 459 (Tenn.1995); Brown v. Brown, 29 S.W.3d 491, 495 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2000); Collins v. Greene County Bank, 916 S.W.2d 941, 945 (Tenn.Ct.App.1995). In order for the doctrine of res judicata to apply, the prior judgment must conclude the rights of the parties on the merits. Goeke v. Woods, 777 S.W.2d 347, 349 (Tenn.1989); Lewis v. Muchmore, 26 S.W.3d 632, 637 (Tenn.Ct. App.2000).

Parties asserting a res judicata defense must demonstrate (1) that a court of competent jurisdiction rendered the prior judgment, (2) that the prior judgment was final and on the merits, (3) that both proceedings involved the same parties or their privies, and (4) that both proceedings involved the same cause of action. Lee v. Hall, 790 S.W.2d 293, 294 (Tenn.Ct.App.1990). A prior judgment or decree does not prohibit the later consideration of rights that had not accrued at the time of the earlier proceeding or the reexamination of the same question between the same parties when the facts have changed or new facts have occurred that have altered the legal rights and relations of the parties. White...