Opinion ID: 1350286
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: A.R. 118(b).

Text: In my opinion, the result of the failure of this Court to grant a petition for review is that the decision of the Court of Appeals becomes the law of this state with regard to any new principles of law announced in the decision. Prior to the denial of review in Aldape this Court followed the formulation of the doctrine of res judicata set forth in Joyce v. Murphy Land & Irrigation Co., 35 Idaho 549, 208 P. 241 (1922). E.g., Houser v. Southern Idaho Pipe & Steel, Inc., 103 Idaho 441, 446, 649 P.2d 1197, 1202 (1982). The decision of the Court of Appeals in Aldape has, since the denial of review by this Court, constituted the law of this state on the subject of res judicata. In Aldape the Court of Appeals stated: The Second Restatement expressly recognizes the difference between claim preclusion and issue preclusion. The bar of claim preclusion is succinctly stated at § 19: A valid and final personal judgment rendered in favor of the defendant bars another action by the plaintiff on the same claim. The limits of this rule of bar are determined by the dimensions of the concept of a claim. The Second Restatement adopts a transactional view toward claims. When a valid and final judgment rendered in an action extinguishes the plaintiff's claim ... the claim extinguished includes all rights of the plaintiff to remedies against the defendant with respect to all or any part of the transaction ... out of which the action arose. .... What factual grouping constitutes a transaction .. . [is] to be determined pragmatically, giving weight to such considerations as whether the facts are related in time, space, origin, or motivation, whether they form a convenient trial unit, and whether their treatment as a unit conforms to the parties' expectations or business understanding or usage. Second Restatement at § 24. Comment a to § 24 makes it clear that the transactional concept of a claim preclusion is broad, and that the bar of claim preclusion is similarly broad: [I]n the days when civil procedure still bore the imprint of the forms of action and the division between law and equity, the courts were prone to associate claim with a single theory of recovery, so that, with respect to one transaction, a plaintiff might have as many claims as there were theories of the substantive law upon which he could seek relief against the defendant... . .... The present trend is to see claim in factual terms and to make it coterminous with the transaction regardless of the number of substantive theories, or variant forms of relief flowing from those theories, that may be available to the plaintiff. .. . Accordingly, the bar of claim preclusion may apply even where there is not a substantial overlap between the theories advanced in support of a claim, or in the evidence relating to those theories. Comment b to § 24. This conclusion is more fully stated in § 25 of the Second Restatement: The rule of § 24 applies to extinguish a claim by the plaintiff against the defendant even though the plaintiff is prepared in the second action (1) To present evidence or grounds or theories of the case not presented in the first action, or (2) To seek remedies or forms of relief not demanded in the first action. Comment d in this section further explains the effect of claim preclusion: Having been defeated on the merits in one action, a plaintiff sometimes attempts another action seeking the same or approximately the same relief but adducing a different substantive law premise or ground. This does not constitute the presentation of a new claim when the new premise or ground is related to the same transaction or series of transactions, and accordingly the second action should be held barred. There are exceptions to the bar of claim preclusion. However, they are narrowly defined in § 26 of the Second Restatement. Such exceptions are recognized where the parties themselves have agreed that the plaintiff may split his claim, where the court in the first action has expressly reserved the plaintiff's right to maintain the second action, where there are limitations on the subject matter jurisdiction of the court hearing the first action, or where the judgment in the first action was inconsistent with the implementation of a general statutory or constitutional scheme. Exceptions may also exist in special types of cases where a plaintiff is permitted to sue more than once for recurrent wrongs, and where there are extraordinary reasons for allowing a second action  such as the protection of personal liberty, or the need to bring coherency to disparate judgments in prior litigation. We believe the Second Restatement, with its definitive treatment of claim preclusion, clarifies the scope of res judicata. We adopt it, subject to the ripeness limitation and mandamus exception which have been enunciated by our Supreme Court. Id. at 258-59, 668 P.2d at 134-35. See also Makin v. Liddle, 108 Idaho 67, 68, 696 P.2d 918, 919 (1985), rev. den. (1985). In my opinion, this case would be more appropriately disposed of by holding that the assault and battery claimed by Nash is not part of the transaction that was involved in her divorce action. As § 24 of the Second Restatement points out, whether a factual grouping constitutes a transaction is to be determined pragmatically, giving weight to such considerations as whether the facts are related in time, space, origin, or motivation, whether they form a convenient trial unit, and whether their treatment as a unit conforms to the parties' expectations or business understanding or usage. Using these considerations, I am persuaded that pragmatically the assault and battery did not constitute part of the transaction out of which the divorce action arose. It would be illogical to conclude that every event that occurred during the marriage of Nash and Overholser was part of the transaction of their marriage, and that any action for the dissolution of the marriage would necessarily require the joinder of all claims growing out of these events. For instance, if Nash had loaned Overholser an amount from her separate funds, and if it were due when her divorce was filed, the debt should not be considered to be part of the transaction of the marriage. The transaction involved in the divorce action was the marriage. The transaction involved in the present action was the assault and battery. They are not part of the same transaction according to the factual grouping provided for in the Second Restatement as adopted in Aldape. I would affirm the trial court on this basis and avoid the necessity to create a narrow exception to our traditional interpretation of the doctrine of res judicata,  as our opinion today does. In so doing, we continue to ignore that the Second Restatement was adopted as the law of this state by the denial of review in Aldape. BISTLINE and HUNTLEY, JJ., concur.