State v. California Packing Corporation

145 P.2d 784, 105 Utah 191, 1944 Utah LEXIS 2
CourtUtah Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 17, 1944
DocketNo. 6584.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 145 P.2d 784 (State v. California Packing Corporation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Utah Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. California Packing Corporation, 145 P.2d 784, 105 Utah 191, 1944 Utah LEXIS 2 (Utah 1944).

Opinions

WADE, Justice.

Plaintiff, by its petition for rehearing, raises only the question of the effect of our affirmance of the dismissal of plaintiff’s complaint with prejudice. The district court sustained the demurrer to plaintiff’s amended complaint, plaintiff refused to plead further; the case was dismissed with prejudice and we affirmed the judgment. State of Utah v. California Packing Corporation, 105 Utah 182, 141 P. 2d 386. The state now contends that the dismissal of this action *193 should not be a bar to its maintaining another action based on the facts alleged in its original complaint and asks us to so hold.

The dismissal of plaintiff’s action, although with prejudice, does not bar plaintiff from maintaining another action against the defendant based on the same facts alleged in the original complaint providing the new complaint supplies new and additional facts so that the new complaint alleges different facts and states a cause of action. The dismissal of the action is with prejudice only to the extent that it determined once and for all that the complaint attacked by demurrer did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action and bars the maintenance of a new action on the same facts which were alleged in the complaint which was dismissed.

Section 104-29-1, U. C. A. 1943 provides that

“An action may be dismissed without prejudice, or a judgment of non-suit entered”

under the conditions specified in the five sub-divisions which followed. Section 104-29-2 provides that

“In every case, other than those mentioned in the next preceding section, [the] judgment must be rendered on the merits.”

A dismissal of an action after a demurrer has been sustained and plaintiff has refused to plead further is not mentioned in Section 104-29-1 as a ground for a “dismissal without prejudice” so it must come under Section 104-29-2 and be “with prejudice.” This result is not in any way affected by Section 104-30’-l, which merely provides a final judgment dismissing the complaint does not prevent a new action for the same cause of action unless it expressly declares or appears from the judgment roll that the judgment was rendered upon the merits. We are not here concerned with how it must be made to appear but under what state of facts should a judgment prevent the bringing of another action.

*194 It is well settled, in the absence of statutory provisions to the contrary, that where a demurrer to the complaint is sustained on the ground that it fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, and the defendant refuses to plead further, and the court dismisses the action for that reason, such judgment of dismissal will prevent the maintenance of a new action for the same cause of action where the allegations in the two complaints are substantially the same, and no substantially material new facts are alleged in the new complaint. This is true even though the court was incorrect in holding that the original complaint did not state a cause of action. 2 Freeman on Judgments 1572, Sec. 747; Wade v. Peters, 89 Or. 233, 173 P. 567, 13 A. L. R. 1100, also note on this question at the end of this case in 13 A. L. R. 1104, also supplemental note on this question in 106 A. L. R. 437. On this point the courts are practically unanimous and it is clear that to that extent such a judgment is a judgment on the merits. It is usually recognized by the courts and writers that a judgment on a question of fact is res adjudicata of that fact in another action between the same parties, even though it does not involve the same cause of action, but on a question of law, a judgment is res adjudicata only in- the same cause of action. See 38 Yale Law Journal (1928-29) 299, which is an article written by Robert von Moschzisker on Res Adjudicata; Kellerman’s Estate, 242 Pa. 3, 88 A. 865; Havir’s Estate, 283 Pa. 292, 129 A. 101. A judgment on demurrer determines only questions of law and not questions of fact. Although it is often said that on demurrer the demurrant admits all facts well pleaded for the purpose of the demurrer, in reality he does not admit anything but merely says: Even if everything stated in the complaint were true it does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. 38 Yale Law Journal 319.

*195 *194 On the other hand, it is usually held that under the facts assumed above where, in the first action, the demurrer is sustained on the ground that the complaint failed to allege *195 some essential fact necessary to constitute a cause of action and another action is commenced wherein the essential allegation omitted in the first action is fully supplied in the second, the judgment in the first action is no bar to the second even though both suits were brought to enforce the same right and the plaintiff in the first action might have amended his complaint to include the omitted essential allegation. This for the reason that the merits of the cause as shown in the complaint in the second action were not passed on in the first. As said in Gould v. Evansville & C. R. Co., 91 U. S. 526, 534, 23 L. Ed. 416, 419:

“* * * but it is equally well settled, that, if the plaintiff fails on demurrer in his first action from the omission of an essential allegation in his declaration which is fully supplied in the second suit, the judgment in the first suit is no bar to the second, although the respective actions were instituted to enforce the same right; for the reason that the merits of the cause, as disclosed in the second declaration, were not heard and decided in the first action.”

In Wilson v. Lowry, 5 Ariz. 335, 52 P. 777, 778, the court said:

“ * * * the appellant having failed on demurrer in his first cause of action from the omission of an essential allegation in his complaint which is fully supplied in the second suit, the judgment in the first-suit is no bar to the second, although the respective actions were instituted to enforce the same rights.”

Mr. Justice Cardoza said in Heyman Cohen & Sons v. M. Lurie Woolen Co., 232 N. Y. 112, 133 N. E. 370, 371:

“A former judgment, stated in the answer and admitted in the reply, is pleaded as a bar. We think it fails of that effect. The former judgment was on demurrer. The defects in the first pleading [were] corrected in the second.”

In Wade v. Peters, supra [89 Or. 233, 173 P. 568, 13 A. L. R. 1100], the court quotes with approval from Spicer v. United States, 5 Ct. Cl. 34, as follows:

*196

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Bluebook (online)
145 P.2d 784, 105 Utah 191, 1944 Utah LEXIS 2, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-california-packing-corporation-utah-1944.