Taylor v. Hawkinson

306 P.2d 797, 47 Cal. 2d 893, 1957 Cal. LEXIS 311

• Court: California Supreme Court
• Decided: February 8, 1957
• Docket: L. A. 24279
• Status: Published

Opinions

TRAYNOR, J.

Virginia Taylor, hereinafter referred to as plaintiff, was injured when the car in which she was riding was struck from the rear by a ear driven by defendant. The car was registered in the name of her husband and was being driven by a friend, Laurine Holibaugh. Plaintiff, her husband, and the driver brought an action for damages against defendant, and the jury returned verdicts of $65 for personal injuries suffered by the driver, $63.06 in favor of plaintiff's husband for damages to the car, and $371.94 for personal injuries suffered by plaintiff. Judgment was entered on the verdicts, and plaintiff alone moved for a new trial on the ground that the damages were insufficient. Her motion was granted and thereafter the judgment in favor of her husband and the driver became final. On retrial plaintiff sought to limit the trial to the issue of damages on the ground that the judgment in favor of her husband and the driver was conclusive against defendant on the issue of liability. Over her objection the trial court submitted the issue of liability to the jury, which returned a verdict for defendant. Judgment was entered on the verdict, and plaintiff’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, for a new trial was denied. Plaintiff appeals from the judgment, jury verdict, and the order denying her motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or for a new trial. Since only the judgment and the order denying the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict are appealable (Code Civ. Proc., § 963), the other appeals are dismissed.

Plaintiff contends that this case is governed by the rule stated in Bernhard v. Bank of America, 19 Cal.2d 807, 813 [122 P.2d 892], that “In determining the validity of a plea of res judicata three questions are pertinent: Was the issue decided in the prior adjudication identical with the one presented in the action in question? Was there a final judgment on the merits? Was the party against whom the plea is asserted a party or in privity with a party to the prior adjudication?” Moreover, she asserts that even if a requirement of mutuality of estoppel should be deemed essential in this case, it is met by the fact that she was in privity with her husband in his cause of action for damages to the car. (Zaragosa v. Craven, 33 Cal.2d 315, 321 [202 P.2d 73, 6 A.L.R. 2d 461].) Defendant contends, on the other hand, that even though the judgment in favor of the husband and the driver may be final for some purposes, since it was entered in the same action in which plaintiff’s motion for a new trial was granted and since the issue of defendant’s negligence was common to all parts of the first judgment, the part as to which a new trial was neither sought nor granted cannot, be res judicata as to the issues set at large by the granting of plaintiff’s motion for a new trial. (See American Enterprise, Inc. v. Van Winkle, 39 Cal.2d 210, 218 [246 P.2d 935].)

It may be conceded that the judgment in favor of plaintiff’s husband and the driver is now final, that their causes of action are merged therein, and that it constitutes a bar to any further prosecution of their original claims. As was pointed out in Sutphin v. Speik, 15 Cal.2d 195, 201-202 [99 P.2d 652, 101 P.2d 497]; the doctrine of res judicata has two aspects. “First, where the causes of action and the parties are the same, a prior judgment is a complete bar in the second action. This is fundamental and is everywhere conceded.

“Second, where the causes of action are different but the parties are the same, the doctrine applies so as to render conclusive matters which were decided by the first judgment. As this court said in Todhunter v. Smith, 219 Cal. 690, 695 [28 P.2d 916] : ‘A prior judgment operates as a bar against a second action upon the same cause, but in a later action upon a different claim or cause of action, it operates as an estoppel or conclusive adjudication as to such issues in the second action as were actually litigated and determined in the first action.’ ” In the present case, since plaintiff’s cause of action is different from those of her husband and the driver, we are concerned with the second aspect stated above, and the question presented is whether defendant’s liability i was a matter decided or an issue that was actually litigated and determined within the meaning of the foregoing rule.

There is ample evidence to support the trial court’s implied finding that the verdicts following the first trial were compromise verdicts and that the jury did not determine the issue of liability. The damages awarded plaintiff were less than her special damages, and the parties concede that they were so inadequate that a new trial limited to the issue of damages would have been improper. (See Rose v. Melody Lane, 39 Cal.2d 481, 489 [247 P.2d 335].) Moreover, it is obvious that if the jury failed to determine the issue of liability in returning the verdict for plaintiff, it also failed to determine that issue in returning the verdicts for her husband and the driver. Accordingly, had defendant or plaintiff’s husband and the driver moved for a new trial, it wonld have been granted, and their failure to do so was tantamount to accepting the jury’s compromise as their own. (See Leipert v. Honold, 39 Cal.2d 462, 470-471 [247 P.2d 324, 29 A.L.R.2d 1185].) Regardless of the effectiveness of such a compromise in extinguishing the causes of action or in settling the rights directly involved therein (see Partridge v. Shepard, 71 Cal. 470, 475 [12 P. 480] ; Moore v. Schneider, 196 Cal. 380, 389 [238 P. 81] ; FitzGerald v. Terminal Dev. Co., 11 Cal.App.2d 126, 135-136 [53 P.2d 177, 55 P.2d 194]), it does not constitute such a determination of the issues involved as to render them res judicata where distinct rights are sought to be litigated in a separate cause of action. (United States v. International Building Co., 345 U.S. 502, 506 [73 S.Ct. 807, 97 L.Ed. 1182] ; Lawler v. National Screen Service Corp., 349 U.S. 322, 324, 327 [75 S.Ct. 865, 99 L.Ed. 1122]; Burgess v. Consider H. Willett, Inc., 311 Ky. 745 [225 S.W.2d 315, 317] ; Reeves v. Philadelphia Gas Works Co., 107 Pa. Super. 422 [164 A. 132, 134]; Fruehauf Trailer Co. v. Gilmore, 167 F.2d 324, 330; Marchant v. Buffalo General Hospital, 166 Misc. 234 [3 N.Y.S.2d 496, 498] ; see Hall v. Coyle, 38 Cal.2d 543, 546 [241 P.2d 236] ; Stark v. Coker, 20 Cal.2d 839, 843 [129 P.2d 390]; Rest., Judgments, § 68.) To hold otherwise would tend to defeat rather than to promote the objective of preventing vexatious litigation with its attendant expense both to the parties and the public. Defendant did not have his day in court during the first trial on the issue of liability, and plaintiff can now justify making that judgment binding upon him in her action only on the ground that he had an opportunity to attack it. Had he done so, more rather than less litigation would have ensued, and plaintiff would have gained nothing. Defendant did not vex her by seeking a redetermination of an issue once decided, but sought and secured only the right to have the issue of liability determined once after plaintiff by securing a new trial on all issues had established the propriety thereof.

The judgment and the order denying the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict are affirmed.

Gibson, C. J., Shenk, J., Schauer, J., Spence, J., and McComb, J., concurred.