Opinion ID: 2670997
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Relying on the transactional approach

Text: The district court used the transactional approach from the Restatement (Second) of Judgments to conclude that “the term ‘claim’ connotes a natural grouping -7- or common nucleus of operative facts that are woven together as to constitute a single claim.”3 Aplt. App., Vol. 1 at 108. It determined this case concerns the same claims or causes of action as the Tri-State I case because they arose from the same transactions. Plaintiffs argue the district court erred because Kansas has not adopted the transactional approach. Kansas has not expressly adopted or rejected the transactional approach, but this court has recognized that Kansas courts have made statements approving of it. See Phillips USA, Inc. v. Allflex USA, Inc., 77 F.3d 354, 360-61 (10th Cir. 1996). Although they have not always explicitly referred to the doctrine, Kansas courts have employed it. See, e.g., O’Keefe v. Merrill Lynch & Co., 84 P.3d 613, 618-19 (Kan. Ct. App. 2004) (concluding that same claim was raised in second suit because it arose out of same operative facts as first suit, even though claims were based on different legal theories arising out of those facts). Based on the foregoing, we conclude the district court did not err. 3 The Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 24 (1982) explains: (1) When a valid and final judgment rendered in an action extinguishes the plaintiff’s claim pursuant to the rules of merger or bar . . . , the claim extinguished includes all rights of the plaintiff to remedies against the defendant with respect to all or any part of the transaction, or series of connected transactions, out of which the action arose. (2) What factual grouping constitutes a “transaction”, and what groupings constitute a “series”, are 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. -8- Under the transactional approach, a claim “is defined in factual terms so that the same factual ‘transactions’ or ‘series of connected transactions’ constitute a claim, regardless of the number of substantive legal theories that may be available to the plaintiff based on those facts.” Stanfield v. Osborne Indus., Inc., 949 P.2d 602, 611 (Kan. 1997). When looking at “whether the facts are so woven together as to constitute a single claim,” courts should consider “their relatedness in time, space, origin, or motivation, and whether taken together, they form a convenient unit for trial purposes.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).