Title: Lofton Ridge LLC v. Norfolk Southern Rwy. Co.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 032716
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: September 17, 2004

Present:  All the Justices 
 
LOFTON RIDGE, LLC 
 
v.  Record No. 032716 
 OPINION BY JUSTICE DONALD W. LEMONS 
 
 
 
September 17, 2004 
NORFOLK SOUTHERN RAILWAY 
COMPANY, ETC. 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF AUGUSTA COUNTY 
Charles H. Smith, Jr., Judge 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether the trial court 
properly applied the doctrine of judicial estoppel in 
dismissing with prejudice a plaintiff’s suit seeking 
declaration of an easement for access to a parcel of land. 
I.  Facts and Proceedings Below 
 
Lofton Ridge, LLC, (“Lofton Ridge”) purchased 226 acres 
of land in Augusta County, Virginia in the fall of 1998 with 
the intention of subdividing the property for twelve 
residential home sites.  Access to the property was 
anticipated to be along an unpaved road connecting the 
property to State Route 853.  According to the plat of the 
property, the unpaved road enters property owned by Norfolk 
Southern Railway Company (“Norfolk Southern”) twice before 
connecting with Route 853.  At the first point, the road 
travels roughly 200 feet through Norfolk Southern’s property, 
parallel to the train track.  At the second point, the unpaved 
road crosses approximately 100 feet of Norfolk Southern’s 
property immediately before connecting with Route 853. 
 
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On June 16, 2000, Norfolk Southern locked a gate located 
where the unpaved road first crosses into its property.  
Lofton Ridge filed a bill of complaint and later an amended 
bill of complaint seeking a judgment that it has an easement 
over the unpaved road to Route 853.  Lofton Ridge requested 
the trial court to enter an order “permanently enjoining or 
prohibiting Norfolk Southern and any person claiming under it 
from further interfering with Lofton Ridge’s use and enjoyment 
of the [p]roperty and the dirt road to State Route 853.” 
 
Almost one year later, Lofton Ridge filed a motion for 
judgment against the attorneys and the surveyor involved in 
its purchase of the land, alleging constructive fraud and 
professional negligence against each for making false 
representations about access to the subject property that led 
Lofton Ridge to purchase and attempt to develop the property.  
The motion for judgment sought $400,000 in damages.  Lofton 
Ridge’s claims against its attorneys were dismissed with 
prejudice on December 19, 2002, following mediation between 
the parties.  The terms of the agreement resulting from the 
mediation were subject to a confidentiality agreement and are 
not a part of this record. 
 
After the motion for judgment against the attorneys was 
dismissed, Norfolk Southern filed a plea in bar in its case  
alleging that Lofton Ridge’s claims against it were barred 
 
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under the doctrines of judicial estoppel and election of 
remedies.  Following a two-day trial, the trial court did not 
decide the case on the merits; rather, it sustained Norfolk 
Southern’s plea in bar and dismissed Lofton Ridge’s amended 
bill of complaint with prejudice "based on the doctrine of 
judicial estoppel."    Lofton Ridge appeals the adverse 
judgment of the trial court. 
II.  Analysis 
 
Lofton Ridge contends that the trial court erred in its 
application of the "doctrine of estoppel by inconsistent 
position" or "judicial estoppel."  We agree. 
 
The terms "doctrine of estoppel by inconsistent position" 
and "judicial estoppel" are often used interchangeably.  See 
The Pittston Co. v. O'Hara, 191 Va. 886, 902, 126 S.E. 34, 43 
(1951) (referring to "the doctrine of estoppel by inconsistent 
position"); Scales v. Lewis, 261 Va. 379, 383-84, 541 S.E.2d 
899, 901-02 (2001) (discussing judicial estoppel and the 
doctrine of preclusion of inconsistent position); Black's Law 
Dictionary 571 (7th ed. 1999) (providing that judicial 
estoppel is also referred to as the doctrine of preclusion of 
inconsistent position).  See also Wagner v. Professional 
Eng'rs, 354 F.3d 1036, 1044 (9th Cir. 2004) (explaining that 
"[j]udicial estoppel [is] sometimes also known as the doctrine 
of preclusion of inconsistent positions").  Essentially, 
 
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judicial estoppel forbids parties from "assum[ing] successive 
positions in the course of a suit, or series of suits, in 
reference to the same fact or state of facts, which are 
inconsistent with each other, or mutually contradictory."  
Burch v. Grace Street Bldg. Corp., 168 Va. 329, 340, 191 S.E. 
672, 677 (1937); Rohanna v. Vazzana, 196 Va. 549, 553, 84 
S.E.2d 440, 442 (1954); accord Nagle v. Syer, 150 Va. 508, 
513, 143 S.E. 690, 692 (1928).  It derives from the 
prohibition in Scottish law against approbation and 
reprobation.  Id.  The doctrine is often confused with the 
concepts of res judicata and collateral estoppel.  However, 
the doctrine of judicial estoppel differs from both by the 
elements required for its invocation and its effect. 
 
Res judicata provides that: 
When the second suit is between the same 
parties as the first, and on the same cause of 
action, the judgment in the former is 
conclusive of the latter, not only as to every 
question which was decided, but also as to 
every other matter which the parties might have 
litigated and had determined, within the issues 
as they were made or tendered by the pleadings, 
or as incident to or essentially connected with 
the subject matter of the litigation, whether 
the same, as a matter of fact, were or were not 
considered.  As to such matters a new suit on 
the same cause of action cannot be maintained 
between the same parties. 
See, e.g., Kemp v. Miller, 166 Va. 661, 674-75, 186 S.E. 99, 
103-04 (1936). 
 
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Collateral estoppel, on the other hand, 
is the preclusive effect impacting in a 
subsequent action based upon a collateral and 
different cause of action.  In the subsequent 
action, the parties to the first action and 
their privies are precluded from litigating any 
issue of fact actually litigated and essential 
to a valid and final personal judgment in the 
first action. 
Bates v. Devers, 214 Va. 667, 671, 202 S.E.2d 917, 921 (1974). 
 
Unlike res judicata and collateral estoppel, the doctrine 
of judicial estoppel does not require a prior final judgment 
to be invoked.  The doctrine of judicial estoppel may bar a 
party from taking inconsistent positions within a single 
action.  See Berry v. Klinger, 225 Va. 201, 207, 300 S.E.2d 
792, 795 (1983) (A party, "having contended in their pleadings 
and in their initial arguments at trial that the language in 
question was unambiguous, will not be allowed to take a 
contrary position thereafter."); McLaughlin v. Gholson, 210 
Va. 498, 501, 171 S.E.2d 816, 818 (1970) (A party may not 
"change his position to the prejudice of his adversaries in 
contravention of [a] stipulation freely entered into.").  
Additionally, judicial estoppel may act as a bar to 
maintaining a new cause of action.  C & O Ry. Co. v. Rison, 99 
Va. 18, 31, 37 S.E. 320, 324 (1900) ("An unsuccessful 
plaintiff in a suit for the specific performance of a contract 
 
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was not permitted to maintain a suit to reform the contract 
and enforce it as reformed."). 
 
The doctrine of judicial estoppel applies where the 
position taken is inconsistent relative "to the same fact or 
state of facts."  Burch, 168 Va. at 340, 191 S.E. at 677.  
However, "[a] person who has taken an erroneous position on a 
question of law is ordinarily not estopped from later taking 
the correct position, provided his adversary has suffered no 
harm or prejudice by reason of the change."  The Pittston Co., 
191 Va. at 904, 63 S.E.2d at 43.  Thus, in Spandorfer v. 
Cooper, 141 Va. 792, 799, 126 S.E. 558, 560 (1925), the Court 
said, "We fail to see how one who has stumbled into the wrong 
forum, and whose attorney had contended in such forum that in 
a matter of law he was in the right forum, should be precluded 
from instituting a new proceeding in the proper forum." 
 
In this appeal, Lofton Ridge asserts numerous reasons in 
support of its assignment of error that the trial court 
improperly applied the doctrine of judicial estoppel.  Lofton 
Ridge maintains that:  a) the doctrine of judicial estoppel 
does not apply where the parties to the proceedings are not 
the same; b) the allegations of the amended bill of complaint 
and the motion for judgment in these proceedings are not 
inconsistent; c) the doctrine of judicial estoppel does not 
apply when "the allegedly inconsistent position was not the 
 
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position first adopted or previously assumed;" d) no evidence 
was presented by Norfolk Southern that it relied to its 
prejudice upon the allegedly inconsistent position taken by 
Lofton Ridge; and, e) policy reasons for applying the doctrine 
of judicial estoppel are absent from this case.  We need only 
resolve Lofton Ridge's first assertion to decide this appeal. 
 
In The Pittston Co., we held that "[t]he doctrine of 
estoppel by inconsistent position [i.e., judicial estoppel] 
does not apply to a prior proceeding in which the parties are 
not the same."  191 Va. at 902, 126 S.E. at 43.  See also 
Ferebee v. Hungate, 192 Va. 32, 35-36, 63 S.E.2d 761, 764 
(1951).  An exception to this requirement may exist where the 
liability of one defendant is derivative of the liability of 
another; for example, "where the relation between defendants 
in the two suits has been that of principal and agent, master 
and servant, or indemnitor and indemnitee."  Town of 
Waynesboro v. Wiseman, 163 Va. 778, 782-83, 177 S.E. 224, 226 
(1934). 
 
Norfolk Southern relies on Canada v. Beasley & Bros., 132 
Va. 166, 173-74, 111 S.E. 251, 254 (1922), in its argument 
that Lofton Ridge's claim should be barred.  In Canada, the 
creditor of a husband sought to reach property of the husband 
protected by a homestead deed.  The creditor argued that an 
earlier conveyance of the protected property from the wife to 
 
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the husband was invalid because the wife was also in debt to 
the creditor.  Id. at 173, 111 S.E. at 254.  We held that the 
wife was not a debtor, which "destroy[ed] the foundation of 
the suit."  Id. at 174, 111 S.E. at 254. 
 
Further, we explained that the creditor, during the 
earlier bankruptcy proceeding against the husband, "with full 
knowledge of the facts, elected to treat the entire property 
. . . as belonging to [the husband] and to assert its debt 
against him alone."  Id.  We stated that the "creditor cannot 
now assume a different attitude, and claim that the property 
belonged to Mrs. Canada, and the debt was now due from her."  
Id.  This alternative justification for the ruling was 
unnecessary to the holding.  As such, it is dicta.  To the 
extent that Canada suggests that judicial estoppel applies in 
cases where the parties are not the same and do not have a 
derivative liability relationship such as those listed in Town 
of Waynesboro, it is overruled.  While an assertion of fact in 
a judicial proceeding may be introduced, subject to certain 
conditions, as a party admission in a subsequent proceeding, 
the doctrine of judicial estoppel will not act as a preclusive 
bar to the subsequent proceeding unless the parties are the 
same. 
 
In this case, Norfolk Southern and Lofton Ridge's 
attorneys are not related parties.  Under the rule stated in 
 
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The Pittston Co., Norfolk Southern may not invoke the doctrine 
of judicial estoppel against Lofton Ridge. 
III. Conclusion 
 
For the reasons stated, we hold that the trial court 
erred in granting Norfolk Southern's plea in bar and 
dismissing Lofton Ridge's amended bill of complaint.  We will 
remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings 
consistent with this opinion. 
Reversed and remanded.