Opinion ID: 1369804
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Acting Without Jurisdiction

Text: We recently announced the following standard as to the granting of writs when the lower court is allegedly acting without jurisdiction: A writ of prohibition may be granted upon a showing that ... the lower court is proceeding or is about to proceed outside of its jurisdiction and there is no remedy through an application to an intermediate court.... Hoskins v. Maricle, 150 S.W.3d 1, 10 (Ky.2004). Foresters claims that the trial court is proceeding outside its jurisdiction because Pope's action is barred by res judicata. Foresters cites three cases  Slone v. R & S Mining, Inc., 74 S.W.3d 259 (Ky.2002); Potter v. Eli Lilly and Co., 926 S.W.2d 449 (Ky.1996); and Stephens v. Goodenough, 560 S.W.2d 556 (Ky.1977)  in support of its contention. Foresters has mischaracterized these cases. In Slone , we held that a dismissed workers' compensation claim cannot be reopened based solely on evidence of a change of medical condition. 74 S.W.3d at 262. While Slone was based in part on res judicata, it does not stand for the blanket proposition that res judicata removes jurisdiction over a later, other claim. Even assuming that Slone is applicable outside the limited context of the workers' compensation statutory scheme, it only prohibits the reopening of the specific denial of an award. Foresters's citation to Potter and Stephens is even less compelling. While Foresters correctly notes that Potter involved the appeal of a writ issued because the Court of Appeals felt that the circuit court had lost jurisdiction to reopen the judgment, 926 S.W.2d at 452, it fails to note that we reversed the Court of Appeals and dissolved the writ in that case. But even if the Court of Appeals had been correct, its writ was premised on the claim that the circuit court had lost jurisdiction because the judgment had become final, not because of the res judicata effect of the judgment. More importantly, Potter contains no discussion of res judicata. Stephens stands merely for the proposition that a ruling on a petition for a writ of prohibition can have res judicata effect on a subsequent petition, not that it strips the court of jurisdiction to consider the subsequent petition. As we have repeatedly recognized, the rule of res judicata is an affirmative defense.... Yeoman v. Commonwealth, Health Policy Bd., 983 S.W.2d 459 (Ky.1998); see also CR 8.03 (In pleading to a preceding pleading, a party shall set forth affirmatively ... res judicata ... and any other matter constituting an avoidance or affirmative defense.). And as an affirmative defense, res judicata can be waived. See, e.g., Old Line Life Ins. Co. of America v. Garcia, 418 F.3d 546, 550 (6th Cir.2005) (As a general rule, failure to plead an affirmative defense results in a waiver of that defense.). This alone indicates that res judicata has no jurisdictional dimension. As applied to petitions for writs, the Ohio Supreme Court has articulated the controlling principle succintly: [R]es judicata is an affirmative defense which does not divest the jurisdiction of the second tribunal to decide the validity of that defense. Whitehall ex rel. Wolfe v. Ohio Civ. Rights Comm., 74 Ohio St.3d 120, 656 N.E.2d 684, 687 (1995); see also 63C Am.Jur.2d, Prohibition § 65 (1997) (The fact that the defense of res judicata based on a decision in a former action is available in a second action involving the same issues does not deprive the court in which the second action is brought of jurisdiction to try the case again, so as to warrant the issuance of a writ of prohibition; the aggrieved party's remedy is to set up the res judicata plea as a defense in that suit and to appeal from an adverse decision.). As such, Foresters's claim that the Roy Final Judgment and Order has res judicata effect on Pope's current cause of action is insufficient to warrant the remedy of a writ of prohibition under the jurisdictional category.