Silent Automatic Sales Corp. v. Stayton

45 F.2d 476, 1930 U.S. App. LEXIS 3661
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedNovember 28, 1930
DocketNo. 8751
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 45 F.2d 476 (Silent Automatic Sales Corp. v. Stayton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Silent Automatic Sales Corp. v. Stayton, 45 F.2d 476, 1930 U.S. App. LEXIS 3661 (8th Cir. 1930).

Opinion

VAN VALKENBURGH, Circuit Judge.

This is- a companion case to cause No. 8750, 45 F.(2d) 471. The two-eases were consolidated for trial. The appellee herein is the husband of Anna George Stayton, appellee in cause No. 8750, and sues for injuries personal to himself, for' damages to his automobile, for expenses incidental to his wife’s injuries, and for deprivation of his wife’s society, companionship, services, and comfort, as the direct result of her said injuries. The trial resulted in a verdict and judgment in his favor in the sum of $1,000.

Appellant assigns in this appeal the same errors relied upon in the appeal of Silent Automatic Sales Corporation against Anna George Stayton, this day decided, and reference is made to the opinion in that ease for the facts, points, and rulings thereon. In the instant ease the following additional error was assigned, which will receive consideration here:

“Because the court erred in refusing to sustain defendant’s demurrer offered at the close of plaintiff’s evidence in chief and again at the close of all the evidence, for the reason that it appeared affirmatively from the evidence that plaintiff’s cause of action, as contained in his petition, was res adjudieata, in that plaintiff had sued upon the same cause of action in a Justice of the Peace Court in the City of St. Louis, Missouri, and because it appeared affirmatively from the evidence that plaintiff attempted to split his cause of action by suing upon a portion thereof in the Justice of the Peace Court in the City of St. Louis, State of Missouri, and a portion thereof in the ease at bar.”

It is true that prior to the institution of this action, appellee filed suit in the sum of $350 before a justice of the peace within the [477]*477city of St. Louis for damages to his automobile alleged to have been sustained in the same accident as that upon which this cause is based. He recovered a judgment against appellant herein for $250. In due time thereafter appellant appealed from said judgment to the circuit court of the city of St. Louis, gave bond, and thereby transferred the cause to the jurisdiction of said circuit court, where it rvas pending and undisposed of when this case was tried. In a circuit court on appeal a justice court ease is tried de novo. Section 2902, Rev. St. Alo. 1919. There is no doubt that in Missouri damages resulting from the same tort can and should be assessed and recovered in one action.

“The cause of action cannot be split up and various suits brought for the different items of damage, where such items grew out of one wrong.” Coy v. St. Louis & San Francisco R. Co., 186 Mo. App. loc. cit. 412, 172 S. W. 446, 447.

This rule is not founded upon statute, but has been established by judicial decision, the reason given being that “one shall not be twice vexed for one and the same cause.” An exception recognized is that “unavoidable ignorance of the full extent of the wrongs received or injuries will relax the, rule.” The substance of this rule is that one may have but one recovery for damages and injuries growing out of the same tort; and, in seeking such recovery, he must plead all the elements of damage of which he is or should be cognizant. It is recognized, however, that by timely amendment, additional items may be added to those originally pleaded; and if, by dismissal or abandonment otherwise, no recovery is had, a new' action may include elements of damage, not laid in the former dismissed or abandoned suit.

Addressing ourselves to the special assignment of error urged in this appeal, we find pronounced disagreement in state courts of; last resort. This divergence is thus expressed in 34 Corp. Jnr. par. 1307, p. 898:

“In many jurisdictions it has been held that the pendency of an appeal suspends the operation of a judgment in respect to all its usual effects, and prevents it from being pleaded or used in evidence as a conclusive estoppel, although it may be admissible to show a contingent right, or to prove incidental or collateral facts not directly in issue. But in others the conelusiveness of the judgment is not affected by an appeal, its force as a plea or as evidence remaining unimpaired until it is reversed.”

The text is well supported by copious citations. An examination of thrsse authorities leads to the conclusion that the decision in each case depends upon the rule prevailing in the state in whose courts the judgment, sought to be urged in estoppel of the plea of res adjudicata, is rendered. Contra Costa Water Co. v. City of Oakland (C. C. N. D. Cal.) 165 F. 518, opinion by Circuit Judge Gilbert; Bryar v. Campbell, 177 U. S. 649, 654, 20 S. Ct. 794, 44 L. Ed. 926; 2 Freeman on Judgments (5th Ed.) par. 722, p. 1529.

In a number of states a distinction is drawn between appeals from courts of record, where the case is affirmed or reversed upon a re-examination of the record made below, and those tried de novo in the appellate court, such as, in Missouri, an appeal from a justice of the peace to a circuit court of the state. The rule in this circuit has thus been declared by Judge Thayer, speaking for this court in Ransom v. City of Pierre, 101 F. 665:

“When a ease removed to an appellate court by a writ of error or an appeal is not there tried de novo, but the record made below is simply re-examined, and the judgment either reversed or affirmed, such an appeal or writ of error does not vacate the judgment below, or prevent it from being pleaded, and given in evidence, as an estoppel upon issues which were tried and determined, in the absence of a statute providing that it shall not be so used pending appeal. A supersedeas bond merely stays process for enforcement 0 f the judgment, and does not vacate the judgment, or change its effect as an estoppel.”

This case is cited and discussed with approval by the Supreme Court of Missouri in Rodney v. Gibbs, 184 Mo. 1, 14, 82 S. W. 187. Reference is also made to Freeman on Judgments as stating the “settled doctrine.” In that text-book we find the following language :

“In some cases the operation of an appeal has been made to depend upon the character of the jurisdiction of the appellate court. If the latter court has authority to try the cause de novo, and to settle the controversy by a judgment of its own, and to enforce such judgment by its own process, then it is plain that by the appeal the judgment of the inferior court is not merely suspended, it is vacated and set aside, and can no longer have effect as an estoppel.” 2 Freeman on Judgments, par. 722, p. 1528.

This statement of the rule is in accord with a long line of Missouri decisions: Turner v. Northcut & McCarty, 9 Mo. 252; Lee v. Kaiser, 80 Mo. 431; Ketchum et al. v. Thatcher, 12 Mo. App. 185; Williams v. [478]*478Lewis, 47 Mo. App. 657; Earl v. Hart, 89 Mo. 263, 1 S. W. 238; Young v. Thrasher, 61 Mo. App. 413; George v. Waller (Mo. Sup.) 19 S.W.(2d) 284.

In some of these eases is found the rather broad statement that a judgment appealed from with supersedeas will not, pending the appeal, support a plea of res adjudieata. Ketchum v. Thatcher, supra; Young v. Thrasher, supra. ¡ Other Missouri cases have qualified this language to comport more with the weight of authority and the logic of the situation, and this has led counsel for appellant to urge that'the rule announced in Ransom v. City of Pierre, Rodney v. Gibbs, and Freeman on Judgments, no longer prevails as to appeals from judgments rendered by justices of the peace in Missouri.

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Bluebook (online)
45 F.2d 476, 1930 U.S. App. LEXIS 3661, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/silent-automatic-sales-corp-v-stayton-ca8-1930.