Bryan v. Hall

367 N.W.2d 251, 1985 Iowa App. LEXIS 1440
CourtCourt of Appeals of Iowa
DecidedFebruary 26, 1985
Docket83-1416
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 367 N.W.2d 251 (Bryan v. Hall) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bryan v. Hall, 367 N.W.2d 251, 1985 Iowa App. LEXIS 1440 (iowactapp 1985).

Opinions

SNELL, Judge.

Marlyn Charles Hall, the defendant, and Linda Bryan, the plaintiffs mother, were involved in an automobile accident on August 17,1979. Linda Bryan suffered physical injuries in the accident. On July 24, 1981 she filed a lawsuit against Hall seeking recovery for those injuries. That lawsuit was tried to a jury, which returned a verdict in favor of defendant Hall. On its verdict forms the jury answered “no” to the question, “Was the defendant negligent?” (The jury had been instructed on comparative negligence as well as contributory negligence.)

After this conclusion of Linda Bryan’s lawsuit, her son, David Bryan, filed the present lawsuit on May 25, 1983 against Hall. David Bryan, fourteen years old at the time of the 1979 accident, seeks damages for loss of parental consortium arising from his mother’s injuries in that accident..

Defendant Hall moved for summary judgment. Hall relied on the ground of issue preclusion, alleging that the issue of his negligence had already been resolved in the earlier suit filed by Linda Bryan. Hall also relied on a purported release signed by David in 1979 when he was fourteen years old.

The trial court overruled Hall’s motion for summary judgment. In a brief handwritten ruling, the trial court stated that a child’s loss of consortium claim “is not nec[252]*252essarily precluded by trial of a parent’s claim.” The trial court did not address the purported release signed by David.

Defendant Hall has sought and received permission to appeal in advance of final judgment from the trial court’s denial of summary judgment. On appeal, Hall sets forth two arguments to support his claim that the trial court should have granted the summary judgment: (1) this action is barred by issue preclusion because the issue of his negligence was litigated in the earlier lawsuit; and (2) because David has not disaffirmed a release he signed shortly after the accident, the release is still valid.

A motion for summary judgment should be sustained only when the moving party shows there is no genuine issue of fact and is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Iowa R.Civ.P. 237(c). If a moving party has supported his motion, an adverse party may not rest upon the allegations or denials in his pleadings, but must show there is a genuine issue of fact. Iowa R.Civ.P. 237(e).

The subject of issue preclusion or collateral estoppel is part of the doctrine of res judicata. In recent legal parlance, for clarity, the generic historical term of res judi-cata has been discussed in terms of claim preclusion and issue preclusion. Claim preclusion was applied by the Iowa Federal Court in Green v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., 572 F.2d 628, 632 (8th Cir.1978). Issue preclusion means that further litigation on a specific issue is prohibited. See Preclusion/Res Judicata Variables: Parties, by Allan D. Vestal, 50 Iowa Law Review 27 (Fall 1964). The premise for issue preclusion is that an issue once tried should not be retried. The Iowa Supreme Court recognized this principle in Bennett v. Monticello Bank, 226 Iowa 705, 711, 285 N.W. 266, 269 (1939):

Having once tried his case upon the merits he may not properly relitigate it, since the former judgment constitutes a muniment or proof that he had no ownership in nor title to the property in controversy, but that the same belongs to his father.

After a judgment has been rendered in such a suit, it is obviously wasteful to relitigate the same issues. See Relitigation of Common Issues: The Failure of Non-Party Preclusion and An Alternative Proposal, 67 Iowa Law Review 917 (July 1982). Thus the doctrine has been applied to parties to suit one and to participating non-parties. See Preclusion/Res Judicata Variables, supra pp. 29-36 and 37 et seq. The question in the instant case involves preclusion by the winning party in suit one against a non-party. The issue segregated is whether defendant Hall in suit one, who was judged not negligent, may preclude the plaintiff David Bryan, who was not a party in suit one, from litigating this issue in suit two against defendant.

The rationale for issue preclusion rests on a desire for efficiency in our legal system and the finding that either the person precluded has had the opportunity to litigate the matter or his interests have been adequately represented in the initial litigation. In the instant case, David Bryan’s suit may not be precluded unless it is determined that his interests have been adequately represented.

Preclusion has been applied based on privity, class action litigation, reestablishing of a muniment of title, and because the claim is derivative. In the latter category are loss of consortium suits by a spouse on account of personal injuries to the other spouse. The courts have not been consistent in deciding whether privity is required, control of the claim is necessary, or representation of the claimant was adequate. See Annot. (Spouse’s Action — Conclusiveness), 12 A.L.R.3d 933, 945 (1967).

Defendant Hall has invoked defensive use of the doctrine of issue preclusion. Defensive use has been defined to mean that a stranger to the judgment, ordinarily the defendant in the second action, relies upon a former judgment as conclusively establishing in his favor an issue which he must prove as an element of his defense. Goolsby v. Derby, 189 N.W.2d 909, 913 (Iowa 1971), citing 31 A.L.R.3d 1044, 1074-1099 (defensive use of collateral estoppel),

[253]*253and Allan D. Vestal Preclusion/Res Judicata Variables: Parties, 50 Iowa Law Review 27. Here, defendant Hall is not a stranger to the judgment but is the direct beneficiary of the earlier judgment, having been judged innocent of any negligent conduct regarding the accident. Thus, Hall is asserting the shield of issue preclusion not as a stranger but as a party to the first suit.

Professor Vestal has isolated six factors commonly found in the handful of decisions that have precluded non-parties: (1) the second suit is closely related to the first, (2) the point of view of the precluded party was adequately represented; (8) often the same judge presided over both cases; (4) a second trial was considered to be a waste of time; (5) the party precluded participated in the first suit; and (6) frequently the sequence of litigation was deliberately arranged by the litigants for tactical reasons. Vestal, Res Judicata/Preclusion: Expansion, 47 S.Cal.L.Rev. 357, 373-74 (1974). On the subject of preclusion generally, see Symposium Issue in Memory of Professor Allan D. Vestal, 70 Iowa Law Review, October 1984.

With regard to whether privity (or mutuality of estoppel) is required, the Iowa Supreme Court addressed the correlative matter of whether offensive use of issue preclusion can be invoked where mutuality of the parties is lacking. Hunter v. City of Des Moines, 300 N.W.2d 121 (Iowa 1981).

Under the mutuality of estoppel rule, a stranger to the judgment, one not a party to, nor in privity with, a party to the judgment, was not bound by the judgment, and subsequently was not entitled to rely on its effect in a subsequent suit. 31 A.L.R.3d 1060. Iowa has adopted a limited exception to the requirement of mutuality if:

A. The following four prerequisites are met:

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Bryan v. Hall
367 N.W.2d 251 (Court of Appeals of Iowa, 1985)

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Bluebook (online)
367 N.W.2d 251, 1985 Iowa App. LEXIS 1440, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bryan-v-hall-iowactapp-1985.