Opinion ID: 1697670
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether Appellees are precluded from challenging the City's authority because of the entry of the Consent Judgment in the City of Madison case.

Text: ¶ 61. The doctrine of collateral estoppel serves a dual purpose. It protects litigants from the burden of relitigating an identical issue with the same party or his privy. It promotes judicial economy by preventing needless litigation. Miss. Employment Security Commission v. Philadelphia Mun. Separate School Dist. of Neshoba County, 437 So.2d 388, 396 (Miss.1983). ¶ 62. As dictated by the rulings of the U.S. District Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, some of the Appellees filed suit in state court, supra, against Madison. A settlement agreement and a Consent Judgment were entered in the Madison County Chancery Court. ¶ 63. The City asserts that because some Appellees consented to judgment, and that in the settlement, some Appellees admitted that cities in Mississippi have the authority to adopt impact fees if they are reasonable, this admission collaterally estops and precludes Appellees from re-litigating this issue. Appellees counter they did not agree or acknowledge Mississippi municipalities have the lawful authority to adopt impact fees. These suits were predicated upon Madison's 1986 impact fee ordinances and the 1986 ordinances were the basis of the suit. Subsequent to the filing of Appellees' first federal suit, Madison adopted its new ordinances in 1996. ¶ 64. Under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, [an] appellant is precluded from relitigating in the present suit specific questions actually litigated and determined by and essential to the judgment in the prior suit, even though a different cause of action is the subject of the present suit. Lyle Cashion Co. v. McKendrick, 227 Miss. 894, 87 So.2d 289, 293 (1956). Further, collateral estoppel, unlike the broader question of res judicata, applies only to questions actually litigated in a prior suit, and not to questions which might have been litigated. Dunaway v. W.H. Hopper & Associates, 422 So.2d 749, 751 (Miss.1982) (quoting Johnson v. Bagby, 252 Miss. 125, 171 So.2d 327 (1965)). In Dunaway, this Court held the doctrine of collateral estoppel did not apply, as, [t]here were no factual issue resolved in the [prior] case which are involved in the latter suit. Id. at 752. ¶ 65. This Court has not been presented with Madison's 1986 or 1996 ordinances. It is not known whether these ordinances mirror those enacted by Ocean Springs. Madison's 1986 impact fee ordinance was the issue of contention, in the City of Madison line of cases. In this case, the issue is the authority of Ocean Springs to adopt its impact fee ordinance. [T]he doctrine of collateral estoppel must never be seen as anything other than an unusual exception to the general rule that all fact questions should be litigated fully in each case. The several predicates to application of the preclusive effect of the doctrine . . . are designed to promote substantial judicial and litigant interests. They are also designed to assure substantial reliability in the facts found in the first proceedings. Where there is room for suspicion regarding the reliability of those first fact findings, collateral estoppel should never be applied. Miss. Employment Sec. Comm., 437 So.2d at 396. ¶ 66. Madison's ordinances are not being considered in this matter, but rather, we have been asked to review the propriety of the Ocean Springs ordinances. Furthermore, the parties are not the same, nor do they fall within the definition of parties in privity as enumerated by this Court in Hogan v. Buckingham, 730 So.2d 15 (Miss.1998) (quoting Little v. V & G Welding Supply, Inc., 704 So.2d 1336, 1339 (Miss.1997)). ¶ 67. The City's argument that Appellees are precluded from challenging the ordinances because of the consent judgment entered in the City of Madison cases is without merit.