Case Title: Zeidwig v. Ward

Citation: 548 So. 2d 209

Docket Number: 72316

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 1989-07-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
548 So. 2d 209 (1989)
Howard M. ZEIDWIG, etc., et al., Petitioners,
v.
Joseph WARD, Respondent.
No. 72316.

Supreme Court of Florida.
July 27, 1989.
Rehearing Denied September 29, 1989.
Melanie G. May of Bunnell and Woulfe, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, for petitioners.
Russell S. Bohn of Edna L. Caruso, P.A. and Montgomery, Searcy & Denney, P.A., West Palm Beach, for respondent.
OVERTON, Justice.
We have for review Ward v. Zeidwig, 521 So. 2d 215 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988), in which the district court held that a claim of legal malpractice against a lawyer for ineffective assistance of counsel in a criminal case is not barred by the doctrine of collateral estoppel where the criminal defendant/claimant has been denied relief in prior criminal postconviction relief proceedings on the same factual circumstances and on ineffective assistance grounds. The district court concluded that it was bound by our decision in Trucking Employees of North Jersey Welfare Fund, Inc. v. Romano, 450 So. 2d 843 (Fla. 1984), but noted that, absent Romano, it would rule to the contrary. The district court then certified the following question as one of great public importance:
Ward v. Zeidwig, 521 So. 2d  at 219. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. We rephrase the question as follows:
For the reasons expressed, we answer the certified question in the negative and approve the use of defensive collateral estoppel to prevent a criminal defendant, as a plaintiff, from relitigating the same issue which has been litigated in prior criminal proceedings. In so doing, we also approve the rationale expressed in the Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 85 (1982) entitled "Effect of Criminal Judgment in Subsequent Civil Action."
The facts establish that the respondent, Joseph Ward, was a criminal defendant and *210 a Fort Lauderdale policeman at the time of the offense, and was represented by the petitioner, Attorney Howard M. Zeidwig. We restate the pertinent facts from the district court of appeal opinion:
Ward v. Zeidwig, 521 So. 2d  at 216-18 (citation omitted; emphasis in original).
In the trial court, Zeidwig contended that the above order entered by the federal district court in the habeas corpus proceeding and affirmed on appeal estopped Ward from maintaining this civil malpractice action. Ward responded by asserting that collateral estoppel was inapplicable because the identity of the parties in both lawsuits was not the same, noting that the parties before the federal court were Ward and the United States while the parties in this malpractice action were Ward and Zeidwig. The trial court rejected Ward's claim and granted a summary judgment in favor of Zeidwig on three grounds: (1) Ward's claim was barred by the doctrine of collateral estoppel; (2) Zeidwig and his professional association were immune from liability under the "error in judgment" rule; and (3) Ward was unable to meet the burden of proof to sustain his claim.
The Fourth District Court of Appeal reluctantly reversed, stating:
Id. at 219. The district court found itself bound by our decision in Trucking Employees of North Jersey Welfare Fund, Inc. v. Romano, 450 So. 2d 843 (Fla. 1984), in which we held that "the well established rule in Florida has been and continues to be that collateral estoppel may be asserted only when the identical issue has been litigated between the same parties or their privies." Id. at 845 (emphasis added).
The basic issue before us is whether we should modify the mutuality of parties requirement when it is asserted in a defensive manner in a criminal-to-civil context. That modification has long been recognized by the United States Supreme Court. In Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U.S. 313, 91 S. Ct. 1434, 28 L. Ed. 2d 788 (1971), the United States Supreme Court completely abrogated the mutuality requirement in a defensive context and concluded that a defendant may use collateral estoppel defensively to prevent a plaintiff from asserting a claim that the plaintiff had previously litigated and lost against another defendant. It ruled that the defensive use of the doctrine gives a plaintiff strong incentive to join all potential parties in the first action without compromising fairness and promotes the interests of judicial economy. Id. at 328, 91 S. Ct.  at 1442. Next, in Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 99 S. Ct. 645, 58 L. Ed. 2d 552 (1979), the United States Supreme Court also restrictively modified the mutuality requirement of the collateral estoppel doctrine in the offensive context. It found that collateral estoppel without mutuality could be used to the extent that the plaintiff could estop or bar his defendant opponent from raising or contesting an identical issue previously decided against that defendant. That Court held that offensive collateral estoppel could be invoked only if the plaintiff could not have been joined in the earlier case with reasonable ease. Id. at 332-33, 99 S.Ct. at 1444-45; see also Cook County v. Lynch, 560 F. Supp. 136 (N.D.Ill. 1982). This constituted a qualified abrogation of the mutuality of parties requirement in the offensive context.
We considered the modification of the mutuality requirement in the offensive context in Trucking Employees. In that case, limited partners, as plaintiffs, had participated in a development of condominiums and brought an action against the general partners and business managers on the grounds of breach of fiduciary duty, conspiracy to defraud, and breach of a limited *213 partnership contract. The plaintiffs sought to invoke the doctrine offensively, asserting liability had been established by the guilty verdict returned against these general partners and business managers on charges of fraud and misrepresentation. The trial court granted the plaintiffs a summary judgment on the basis of offensive collateral estoppel, holding the plaintiffs were entitled to this judgment because of the convictions which followed a guilty verdict. The district court of appeal reversed and we approved that reversal, holding that a litigant who was not a party to a prior criminal proceeding that resulted in a judgment of conviction may not use the judgment of conviction offensively in a criminal proceeding to prevent the same defendant from relitigating issues resolved in an earlier criminal proceeding. In so doing, we recognized that the federal courts had abandoned the requirement of mutuality of parties as a prerequisite to asserting the doctrine of collateral estoppel in an offensive manner.
We explained that we were being asked in Trucking Employees to modify the mutuality requirement and allow offensive collateral estoppel to be utilized on behalf of the plaintiff and to modify our mutuality rule in the same manner as the United States Supreme Court did in Parklane. We rejected that suggestion and determined that "the well established rule in Florida has been and continues to be that collateral estoppel may be asserted only when the identical issue has been litigated between the same parties or their privies." Trucking Employees, 450 So. 2d  at 845.
It is important to note that the defensive use of collateral estoppel was not an issue in Trucking Employees. We did not consider in that case the mutuality requirement as it applies to defensive collateral estoppel nor did we discuss section 85(2)(a) of the Restatement (Second) of Judgments, which provides, in pertinent part:
The reasoning for the rule is explained by comment "e":
In Knoblauch v. Kenyon, 163 Mich. App. 712, 415 N.W.2d 286 (Ct.App. 1987), the Michigan Court of Appeals receded from a strict adherence to the mutuality requirement under facts almost identical to those in the instant case. There, the criminal defendant, after being found guilty of sexual assault, released his attorney and moved for a new trial claiming ineffective assistance of counsel and the existence of new evidence. The trial judge initially granted the motion on the grounds that the attorney should have introduced a potentially exonerating medical report, but, on a subsequent prosecutorial motion, changed his mind and vacated the order granting the new trial. The criminal defendant appealed and the Michigan Court of Appeals concluded that there was no denial of effective assistance of counsel due to the other strong evidence of his guilt. The criminal defendant, as a plaintiff, then instituted a legal malpractice action against his lawyer, asserting essentially the same grounds as *214 were previously raised in the postconviction relief proceedings. The trial court concluded that "the standards for determining ineffective assistance of counsel in malpractice were essentially the same and because the matter in dispute had been previously decided in the criminal matter and again on appeal, collateral estoppel barred relitigation of the issue." 163 Mich. App. at 712, 415 N.W.2d  at 287.
While recognizing that the defendant attorney was not a party in the underlying postconviction action nor a privy "defined as `one who, after rendition of the judgment, has acquired an interest in the subject matter affected by the judgment through or under one of the parties, as by inheritance, succession, or purchase,'" the court approved the application of defensive collateral estoppel to bar the plaintiff's action for malpractice, applying section 85 of the Restatement (Second) of Judgments. Id. at 720, 415 N.W.2d  at 290 (quoting Howell v. Vito's Trucking & Excavating Co., 386 Mich. 37, 191 N.W.2d 313 (1971) (quoting Bernhard v. Bank of America Nat'l Trust & Savings Ass'n, 19 Cal. 2d 807, 122 P.2d 892 (1942))). The Michigan court, in rejecting this claim for malpractice, noted that
Id. at 721, 451 N.W.2d  at 289. It concluded that "the concept behind ineffective assistance of counsel is the right to reasonably competent representation, and that `[t]he concept of reasonable competence is also the standard "traditionally and universally employed as the measure of a lawyer's civil liability."'" Id. (citations omitted). In the final analysis, it determined that the legal standards for "ineffective assistance of counsel in criminal proceedings and for legal malpractice in civil proceedings are equivalent for the purposes of application of the doctrine of collateral estoppel." Id.
We fully agree with the Knoblauch decision and hold that defensive collateral estoppel applies in this criminal-to-civil context. We conclude that, where a defendant in a criminal case has had a full and fair opportunity to present his claim in a prior criminal proceeding, and a judicial determination is made that he has received the effective assistance of counsel, then the defendant/attorney in a subsequent civil malpractice action brought by the criminal defendant may defensively assert collateral estoppel.
If we were to allow a claim in this instance, we would be approving a policy that would approve the imprisonment of a defendant for a criminal offense after a judicial determination that the defendant has failed in attacking his conviction on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel but which would allow the same defendant to collect from his counsel damages in a civil suit for ineffective representation because he was improperly imprisoned. To fail to allow the use of collateral estoppel in these circumstances is neither logical nor reasonable.
The public policy justification for the application of collateral estoppel in this type of circumstance was well stated by the court in Johnson v. Raban, 702 S.W.2d 134 (Mo. Ct. App. 1985), where it stated:
Id. at 138.
Accordingly, we find defensive collateral estoppel should be applied in this criminal-to-civil *215 context. We quash the decision of the district court of appeal and remand with directions to affirm the judgment entered by the trial court. The rephrased question is answered in the negative.
It is so ordered.
EHRLICH, C.J., and McDONALD, SHAW, GRIMES and KOGAN, JJ., concur.
BARKETT, J., did not participate in this case