Opinion ID: 1192522
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Duplicative Litigation

Text: The United States District Court also found that, like in Hokanson and Koplin, the recognition of an embracery tort should not be recognized because it would result in duplicative litigation. For instance, the trial court granted a new trial at OMI's request. Further, OMI requested a fee petition to recover the money wasted on the mistrial, but the federal court denied its request. The United States District Court reasoned an embracery tort would relitigate many of the issues already considered by the trial judge in granting OMI's motion for a new trial and in denying OMI's fee petition. Thus, the United States District Court ruled that recognition of an embracery tort was contrary to public policy favoring finality in judgments. The United States District Court found that the issues in question would be best handled by the trial judge of the underlying litigation where the jury tampering allegedly occurred, rather than by a new judge assigned to hear the embracery tort action who was not familiar with the underlying litigation. However, OMI contends that these policy concerns are not implicated here because an embracery tort is not a collateral attack, is not subject to abuse, and is not a duplicative relitigation of a prior issue. OMI concedes that Koplin and Hokanson properly held that perjury and spoliation torts should not be recognized because they could lead to endless litigation without finality. According to OMI, actions for perjury and spoliation of evidence are an attack on a prior judgment because the actions question whether the prior judgment would have been entered had a witness not committed perjury or had evidence not been destroyed. OMI points out, however, that this can never occur in an embracery tort because one of the elements of an embracery tort is the requirement that an order granting a mistrial or new trial be issued. This element insures that the final judgment of the underlying litigation will not be collaterally attacked. Instead, OMI contends that an embracery tort only addresses the witness' conduct which caused the mistrial and only seeks to recover the expenses spent on the mistrial. Further, OMI contends that this element of the embracery tortan order granting a mistrial or new trialwill prevent abuse of the tort. In order for a judge to grant a mistrial or new trial, the judge must find that a witness' improper communication with a juror interfered with a party's fair trial. Thus, according to OMI, improper pleading of an embracery tort will be rare because the plaintiff must have already had the trial judge find the witness' juror contact was improper and declare a mistrial. OMI also points out that very few embracery torts are reported across the nation, thereby indicating that the tort occurs infrequently. Thus, recognition of the tort will not impose any serious burden on the dockets of the Kansas courts. Finally, OMI contends that an embracery tort is not duplicative of the trial court's decisions to grant a mistrial and to deny OMI's fee petition. OMI acknowledges that an embracery tort may involve consideration of some of the same facts that were reviewed in these previous trial court rulings. However, OMI points out that the issues, the elements, and the burdens of proof are not the same in a declaration of a mistrial or the determination of a fee petition as they are in an embracery tort. For instance, according to OMI, the issue raised in its fee petition under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 (1994) was whether the court found that the witness had engaged in unreasonable and vexatious conduct which caused a mistrial. In the fee petition proceeding, the trial court was not concerned with whether OMI should be compensated for the damages caused by Howell's juror contacts. Instead, the court was concerned only with the integrity of the trial process. Further, the parties did not have an opportunity for discovery or to present witnesses before the trial court decided to grant a mistrial and deny OMI's fee petition. OMI contends that in an embracery tort, it would engage in discovery and present witnesses to prove that Howell should compensate OMI for the damages caused by his juror contacts. Thus, OMI contends that the embracery tort would not be duplicative of or relitigate the trial judge's decision to grant a mistrial and deny its fee petition. See U.S. Aluminum Corp./Texas v. Alumax, Inc., 831 F.2d 878 (9th Cir. 1987), cert. denied 488 U.S. 822 (1988) (finding that denial of fee petition in patent infringement action did not collaterally estop an action for malicious prosecution because the burden of proof for the fee petition was clear and convincing evidence, while burden of proof for malicious prosecution was preponderance of the evidence.) On the other hand, Howell contends that an embracery action would result in duplicative litigation. Howell points out that OMI has previously attempted to recover the same damages it seeks in the embracery action through fee petitions in federal court. Howell argues that OMI's embracery action is simply a collateral attack on the federal court's denial of OMI's fee petition. Howell concedes that the embracery tort and the fee petition motion require different burdens of proof. However, according to Howell, this does not, in and of itself, prevent the embracery tort from being duplicative of the prior fee petition or mistrial proceedings. Howell argues that the issues at stake in the embracery tort have already been decided in the mistrial and fee petition rulings by the federal court, which was familiar with the underlying litigation. Howell contends that these proceedings provided an adequate remedy to protect OMI's interest. According to Howell, there is no need for yet another layer of relief by recognizing a civil damage action for embracery. In fact, Howell contends that if one of OMI's prior efforts in federal court to recover its mistrial expenses had been successful, then the embracery tort suit never would have been filed. OMI apparently sought to recover its wasted mistrial expenses from Howell under 28 U.S.C. § 1927, which states: Any attorney or other person admitted to conduct cases in any court of the United States or any Territory thereof who so multiplies the proceedings in any case unreasonably and vexatiously may be required by the court to satisfy personally the excess costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees reasonably incurred because of such conduct. While the denial of the fee petition would not act as res judicata upon the embracery tort, there is no reason to give a totally different trial court, without knowledge of the underlying litigation, another chance to determine who should bear the wasted mistrial costs.