Opinion
BORDEN, J.
The issue in this certified appeal is whether the doctrine of claim preclusion operates to bar a personal injury action arising out of an automobile accident, filed on the regular docket of the trial court, that is preceded by a judgment for property damage to [418]*418the plaintiffs automobile on the small claims docket of the trial court. The defendants appeal from the judgment of the Appellate Court rejecting their claim that the doctrine of claim preclusion barred this action by the plaintiff.1 Isaac v. Truck Service, Inc., 52 Conn. App. 545, 557, 727 A.2d 755 (1999). We conclude that the doctrine of claim preclusion should not apply in these circumstances. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.
The plaintiff, Mary G. Isaac, brought this personal injury action against the defendants, Truck Service, Inc. (Truck Service), and Mary Ann West,2 for injuries arising out of an automobile accident on September 28, 1993. The trial court rejected, as a matter of law, the special defense that the plaintiffs action was barred by the doctrine of claim preclusion based upon the plaintiffs prior small claims judgment against Truck Service for property damage to her automobile arising out of the same accident.3 Following a jury verdict for the defendants, the trial court rendered judgment for the defendants on the verdict.
The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court, which determined that a new trial was required because the trial court, Rittenband, J., improperly had permitted the defendants to amend their answer to the complaint during closing arguments. The Appellate Court also rejected the defendants’ alternate ground for affirming the judgment, namely, the application of the doctrine of claim preclusion. Accordingly, the Appellate Court [419]*419reversed the judgment of the trial court and ordered a new trial. Id., 557. This certified appeal followed.
As stated by the Appellate Court, the facts relevant to this appeal are undisputed. On February 25, 1992, the plaintiff was driving her car on Interstate 91 in Windsor when there was a collision with another vehicle that the plaintiff claimed to be a truck owned by Truck Service. Id., 547. “After the accident occurred, the plaintiff immediately notified the Connecticut state police. She notified Truck Service of the accident the next day. On March 2, 1992, Truck Service had the property damage to the plaintiffs vehicle appraised at $1422.58. After her attempts to resolve her claim with Truck Service failed, the plaintiff initiated a small claims action against Truck Service in July, 1992. The plaintiff was able to reach a settlement agreement with Truck Service’s liability insurance carrier in September, 1992. The insurance carrier issued settlement checks to the plaintiff but stopped payment on the drafts soon thereafter. The plaintiff, therefore, proceeded to a hearing in damages in small claims court and was awarded a judgment of $1422.58 plus costs.
“At the time she instituted her small claims action against the defendants, the plaintiff had not yet seen a physician for the injuries she alleges that she had sustained in the accident. Although she was experiencing back and neck pain, the plaintiff treated herself with over-the-counter pain relievers. On April 23, 1993, the plaintiff sought treatment from an orthopedic surgeon when the over-the-counter remedies ceased providing relief. The physician advised the plaintiff that she had underlying orthopedic conditions that were, in his opinion, made substantially and materially worse by the accident. The plaintiff commenced the present action against West and Truck Service in September, 1993, seeking damages for the personal injuries she had sustained.” Id., 554.
[420]*420The Appellate Court declined to apply the doctrine of claim preclusion on the factual basis that: the plaintiff had sought to secure compensation for her property damage within two weeks of the accident; at that time, she believed that her injuries could be remedied without medical attention; she did not learn until more than one year later that her injuries were serious enough to require surgery; and she brought this action for her injuries within six months thereafter. Id., 556-57. On the basis of these facts, the Appellate Court held that “our social policy of providing a means of redress for personal injuries outweighs the need for finality of the small claims judgment.” Id., 557.
The defendants claim that the Appellate Court, in rejecting their alternate ground for affirmance of the trial court’s judgment, improperly failed to apply settled principles of claim preclusion. Although we disagree with the route by which the Appellate Court reached its conclusion, we agree with that court that the doctrine of claim preclusion does not apply to this case. We conclude that the doctrine does not apply to a claim for personal injuries arising out of an automobile accident, filed on the regular docket of the Superior Court, where the parties have litigated the question of property damage arising out of the same accident on the small claims docket of the court.
It is difficult to dispute — and the plaintiff does not dispute — the defendants’ contention that, pursuant to the ordinary application of the general principles of claim preclusion, the plaintiffs claim would be barred. Under those principles, a valid, final judgment rendered on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction is an absolute bar to a subsequent action between the same parties, or those in privity with them, upon the same claim or demand. Slattery v. Maykut, 176 Conn. 147, 156-57, 405 A.2d 76 (1978). Furthermore, the doctrine of claim preclusion, as opposed to issue preclu[421]*421sion, bars not only subsequent relitigation of a claim previously asserted, but subsequent relitigation of “any claims relating to the same cause of action which were actually made or which might have been made.” Orselet v. DeMatteo, 206 Conn. 542, 545, 539 A.2d 95 (1988). In addition, for these purposes whether the subsequent claim relates to the same cause of action is to be determined by the transactional test, which is measured by “the ‘group of facts which is claimed to have brought about an unlawful injury to the plaintiff,’ ” and which also states that “ ‘[ejven though a single group of facts may give rise to rights for several different kinds of relief, it is still a single cause of action.’ ” Duhaime v. American Reserve Life Ins. Co., 200 Conn. 360, 365, 511 A.2d 333 (1986). Moreover, the doctrine applies even where the prior litigation was a small claims action. Orselet v. DeMatteo, supra, 546 (prior small claims judgment in favor of plaintiff for car rental expense bars subsequent action for property damage to plaintiffs car). Finally, as the defendants point out, § 24 of the Restatement (Second) of Judgments reiterates these principles, and illustrates them by indicating that they apply to a subsequent claim for personal injury preceded by a prior small claims judgment for property damage to a vehicle, arising out of the same accident.
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Opinion
BORDEN, J.
The issue in this certified appeal is whether the doctrine of claim preclusion operates to bar a personal injury action arising out of an automobile accident, filed on the regular docket of the trial court, that is preceded by a judgment for property damage to [418]*418the plaintiffs automobile on the small claims docket of the trial court. The defendants appeal from the judgment of the Appellate Court rejecting their claim that the doctrine of claim preclusion barred this action by the plaintiff.1 Isaac v. Truck Service, Inc., 52 Conn. App. 545, 557, 727 A.2d 755 (1999). We conclude that the doctrine of claim preclusion should not apply in these circumstances. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.
The plaintiff, Mary G. Isaac, brought this personal injury action against the defendants, Truck Service, Inc. (Truck Service), and Mary Ann West,2 for injuries arising out of an automobile accident on September 28, 1993. The trial court rejected, as a matter of law, the special defense that the plaintiffs action was barred by the doctrine of claim preclusion based upon the plaintiffs prior small claims judgment against Truck Service for property damage to her automobile arising out of the same accident.3 Following a jury verdict for the defendants, the trial court rendered judgment for the defendants on the verdict.
The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court, which determined that a new trial was required because the trial court, Rittenband, J., improperly had permitted the defendants to amend their answer to the complaint during closing arguments. The Appellate Court also rejected the defendants’ alternate ground for affirming the judgment, namely, the application of the doctrine of claim preclusion. Accordingly, the Appellate Court [419]*419reversed the judgment of the trial court and ordered a new trial. Id., 557. This certified appeal followed.
As stated by the Appellate Court, the facts relevant to this appeal are undisputed. On February 25, 1992, the plaintiff was driving her car on Interstate 91 in Windsor when there was a collision with another vehicle that the plaintiff claimed to be a truck owned by Truck Service. Id., 547. “After the accident occurred, the plaintiff immediately notified the Connecticut state police. She notified Truck Service of the accident the next day. On March 2, 1992, Truck Service had the property damage to the plaintiffs vehicle appraised at $1422.58. After her attempts to resolve her claim with Truck Service failed, the plaintiff initiated a small claims action against Truck Service in July, 1992. The plaintiff was able to reach a settlement agreement with Truck Service’s liability insurance carrier in September, 1992. The insurance carrier issued settlement checks to the plaintiff but stopped payment on the drafts soon thereafter. The plaintiff, therefore, proceeded to a hearing in damages in small claims court and was awarded a judgment of $1422.58 plus costs.
“At the time she instituted her small claims action against the defendants, the plaintiff had not yet seen a physician for the injuries she alleges that she had sustained in the accident. Although she was experiencing back and neck pain, the plaintiff treated herself with over-the-counter pain relievers. On April 23, 1993, the plaintiff sought treatment from an orthopedic surgeon when the over-the-counter remedies ceased providing relief. The physician advised the plaintiff that she had underlying orthopedic conditions that were, in his opinion, made substantially and materially worse by the accident. The plaintiff commenced the present action against West and Truck Service in September, 1993, seeking damages for the personal injuries she had sustained.” Id., 554.
[420]*420The Appellate Court declined to apply the doctrine of claim preclusion on the factual basis that: the plaintiff had sought to secure compensation for her property damage within two weeks of the accident; at that time, she believed that her injuries could be remedied without medical attention; she did not learn until more than one year later that her injuries were serious enough to require surgery; and she brought this action for her injuries within six months thereafter. Id., 556-57. On the basis of these facts, the Appellate Court held that “our social policy of providing a means of redress for personal injuries outweighs the need for finality of the small claims judgment.” Id., 557.
The defendants claim that the Appellate Court, in rejecting their alternate ground for affirmance of the trial court’s judgment, improperly failed to apply settled principles of claim preclusion. Although we disagree with the route by which the Appellate Court reached its conclusion, we agree with that court that the doctrine of claim preclusion does not apply to this case. We conclude that the doctrine does not apply to a claim for personal injuries arising out of an automobile accident, filed on the regular docket of the Superior Court, where the parties have litigated the question of property damage arising out of the same accident on the small claims docket of the court.
It is difficult to dispute — and the plaintiff does not dispute — the defendants’ contention that, pursuant to the ordinary application of the general principles of claim preclusion, the plaintiffs claim would be barred. Under those principles, a valid, final judgment rendered on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction is an absolute bar to a subsequent action between the same parties, or those in privity with them, upon the same claim or demand. Slattery v. Maykut, 176 Conn. 147, 156-57, 405 A.2d 76 (1978). Furthermore, the doctrine of claim preclusion, as opposed to issue preclu[421]*421sion, bars not only subsequent relitigation of a claim previously asserted, but subsequent relitigation of “any claims relating to the same cause of action which were actually made or which might have been made.” Orselet v. DeMatteo, 206 Conn. 542, 545, 539 A.2d 95 (1988). In addition, for these purposes whether the subsequent claim relates to the same cause of action is to be determined by the transactional test, which is measured by “the ‘group of facts which is claimed to have brought about an unlawful injury to the plaintiff,’ ” and which also states that “ ‘[ejven though a single group of facts may give rise to rights for several different kinds of relief, it is still a single cause of action.’ ” Duhaime v. American Reserve Life Ins. Co., 200 Conn. 360, 365, 511 A.2d 333 (1986). Moreover, the doctrine applies even where the prior litigation was a small claims action. Orselet v. DeMatteo, supra, 546 (prior small claims judgment in favor of plaintiff for car rental expense bars subsequent action for property damage to plaintiffs car). Finally, as the defendants point out, § 24 of the Restatement (Second) of Judgments reiterates these principles, and illustrates them by indicating that they apply to a subsequent claim for personal injury preceded by a prior small claims judgment for property damage to a vehicle, arising out of the same accident.4
[422]*422Despite these authorities, however, we are persuaded that this case presents an appropriate occasion for a limited exception to the doctrine of claim preclusion. In Delahunty v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Co., 236 Conn. 582, 592, 674 A.2d 1290 (1996), we concluded that the doctrine’s underlying policies were not sufficiently compelling to preclude the postmarital dissolution assertion of tort actions “based on claims arising between married persons . ...” A similar analysis in the present case leads us to conclude that where the parties litigate to judgment, on the small claims docket, a claim for property damage to a motor vehicle arising out of a motor vehicle accident, that judgment will not bar a subsequent action, on the regular docket, for personal injuries arising out of the same accident.
“[W]e recognize that a decision whether to apply the doctrine of res judicata to claims that have not actually been litigated should be made based upon a consideration of the doctrine’s underlying policies, namely, the interests of the defendant and of the courts in bringing litigation to a close; 1 Restatement (Second), [Judgments § 24, p. 199 (1982)]; and the competing interest of the plaintiff in the vindication of a just claim. We have stated that res judicata should be applied as necessary to promote its underlying purposes. These purposes are generally identified as being (1) to promote judicial economy by minimizing repetitive litigation; (2) to prevent inconsistent judgments which undermine the integrity of the judicial system; and (3) to provide repose by preventing a person from being harassed by vexatious litigation. . . . The judicial doctrines of res [423]*423judicata and collateral estoppel are based on the public policy that a party should not be able to relitigate a matter which it already has had an opportunity to litigate. . . . Stability in judgments grants to parties and others the certainty in the management of their affairs which results when a controversy is finally laid to rest. The doctrines of preclusion, however, should be flexible and must give way when their mechanical application would frustrate other social policies based on values equally or more important than the convenience afforded by finality in legal controversies. . . . We review the doctrine of res judicata to emphasize that its purposes must inform the decision to foreclose future litigation. The conservation of judicial resources is of paramount importance as our trial dockets are deluged with new cases daily. We further emphasize that where a party has fully and fairly litigated his claims, he may be barred from future actions on matters not raised in the prior proceeding. But the scope of matters precluded necessarily depends on what has occurred in the former adjudication.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Delahunty v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Co., supra, 236 Conn. 591-92.
It is indisputable that automobile accidents are one of the most common occurrences in our society in general, and in our state in particular, that result in civil litigation in our courts. It is also indisputable that most of those accidents that ultimately result in litigation involve, at one stage or another, claims for both property damage to the vehicle involved and personal injuries to the people involved. Thus, in focusing on those cases that involve those two types of claims, we focus on one of the paradigmatic examples of civil litigation in the judicial system. We also know that typically the amount of the property damage claim will be asceitained much sooner than the ultimate value, whether by settlement or by litigation, of the personal injury claim. Moreover, [424]*424we know that, if the claimant has collision insurance, typically she will use that source of funds to repair her car, and leave to her insurer the collection of that expense, including the amount of the deductible, from the alleged tortfeasor; and, if there is no collision insurance, the claimant typically will be required to repair her car out of her own funds and will want to collect that expense from the alleged tortfeasor as soon as possible. This set of indisputable understandings leads us to conclude that claimants, alleged tortfeasors and the judicial system as a whole will be better served by encouraging the prompt adjudication of contested property damage claims through the small claims process, without the inhibiting opportunity costs5 that the imposition of the claim preclusion doctrine would impose.
Our small claims system is statutorily designed to achieve the inexpensive, prompt, informal and final adjudication of contested monetary claims involving limited amounts of money. See General Statutes § 51-15.6 Our rules of practice are designed with the same [425]*425aims in mind. See, e.g., Practice Book §§ 24-1, 24-28 [426]*426and 24-23.7 Furthermore, the plaintiff has the right to forgo the small claims process; see Practice Book § 24-3;8 and the defendant in a small claims action has the right to opt out of that process by moving to transfer the action to the regular docket. Practice Book § 24-21.9
[427]*427Thus, where the parties have litigated to final judgment a small claims action for property damage arising out of an automobile accident, it fairly may be assumed that they have chosen to do so because the goals of inexpensive, prompt, informal and final adjudication were consistent with their goals in resolving their particular dispute. Just as our law, as a matter of policy, encourages the voluntary settlement of civil disputes; see, e.g., Duni v. United Technologies Corp., 239 Conn. 19, 26-27, 682 A.2d 99 (1996); it also, as a matter of policy, should encourage the inexpensive, prompt, informal and final adjudication of civil disputes that fall within the jurisdictional limits that the law makes available for such adjudication. By permitting the parties to bring motor vehicle property damage claims to final, prompt and inexpensive resolution through the use of the small claims docket, we would be furthering that policy. Furthermore, we would be furthering the policy of freeing the regular civil docket from the burden of such claims.
Finally, applying the doctrine of claim preclusion to the result of a small claims judgment involving only a property damage claim arising from an automobile accident would give a prudent claimant the incentive to delay litigation of that claim until such time as his or her personal injury claim resulting from the accident [428]*428could be filed on the regular docket.10 This would, in turn, mean that the regular docket, designed mainly for the more substantial personal injury claim, would be further encumbered by an accompanying claim for property damage, despite the availability of a prompt, informal and final adjudication of the property damage claim on the small claims docket.
Furthermore," as the defendants in this case have brought to our attention, when the claimant’s collision insurer, rather than the claimant personally, has litigated the property damage claim on a subrogation basis, some courts have held that the doctrine of claim preclusion does not bar the later assertion of the claimant’s personal injury claim. See annot., 24 A.L.R.4th 646, 689-90 (1983). Our conclusion that the doctrine does not apply in this case simply renders both instances— where the property damage claim has, and has not, been paid by the collision insurer — consistent with each other.
In this analysis, however, we must also take into account the interest of the alleged tortfeasor, and the incentives and disincentives afforded him. If we were to hold that application of the doctrine of claim preclusion to a small claims judgment on the plaintiffs property damage claim does not bar the later assertion of her personal injury claim, we also should hold that the doctrine of issue preclusion should not apply to that claim as well. Otherwise, a small claims judgment in favor of or against the plaintiff might later be used by or against her in her personal injury action to assert, on the basis of issue preclusion, that the issue of liability [429]*429already had been fully and finally litigated.11 In any event, unless the doctrine of issue preclusion were not applied to such a small claims judgment, there would be an incentive on the part of the defendant to remove the small claims action to the regular docket, and an accompanying disincentive to litigate the issue on the small claims docket.
Therefore, for the same policy reasons that underlie our conclusion that the doctrine of claim preclusion does not apply to a small claims motor vehicle property damage judgment, we conclude that the doctrine of issue preclusion also does not apply to such a judgment. With these twin conclusions in place, the parties, although free to litigate the property damage aspect of their motor vehicle dispute on the regular docket if they so choose, will at least be free of unnecessary disincentives to do so on the small claims docket instead.
The judgment of the Appellate Court is affirmed.
In this opinion the other justices concurred.