Opinion ID: 1738387
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Whether the lower court committed error by granting Appellees Epps and Luster's Motion for Summary Judgment when a genuine issue of fact existed as to whether the Appellant's injury was a foreseeable consequence of their negligence.

Text: ¶ 8. Epps and Luster assert that they should have been granted summary judgment in this case since the issue of their liability was authoritatively decided on the merits against Glover in the federal court action. Epps' insurance carrier filed a declaratory judgment action in March of 1996, almost two years after the complaints in the consolidated cases were filed. The insurance carrier sought a declaration of its liability towards its insured for damages arising out of Glover's complaints as well as its duty to defend the state court action. The consolidated state court actions were dismissed without prejudice on November 22, 1996, and Glover filed her third complaint three days later, on November 25, 1996. The defendants filed motions for summary judgment in that suit, which were still pending when Judge Barbour issued his opinion in the federal court action on February 24, 1997. ¶ 9. The doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel (also referred to as claim and issue preclusion, respectively) promote judicial economy by limiting cases or issues from being re-litigated. In Dunaway v. W.H. Hopper & Assocs., Inc., 422 So.2d 749, 751 (Miss.1982), this Court held that there were four requirements under Mississippi law for res judicata or claim preclusion: (1) identity of the subject matter of the action, (2) identity of the cause of action, (3) identity of the parties to the cause of action, and (4) identity of the quality or character of the person against whom the claim is made. The Court further stated that collateral estoppel would preclude relitigation of a specific issue actually litigated, determined by, and essential to the judgment in the former action, even if the two suits involve a different cause of action. Id. ¶ 10. Glover argues that this case involves a different cause of action than the federal court case since the theories of discovery, the operative facts, and the measure of recovery differ. See Schmueser v. Burkburnett Bank, 937 F.2d 1025, 1031 (5th Cir.1991). Regardless of any finding by this Court as to the same or similar causes of action, Glover's claim does not survive the collateral estoppel or issue preclusion analysis, which does not require a finding of the same cause of action. In Lyle Cashion Co. v. McKendrick, 227 Miss. 894, 907, 87 So.2d 289, 293-94 (1956), this Court stated: [t]he collateral estoppel aspect of res judicata finds particular application to declaratory judgments. In such suits, the plaintiff is not seeking to enforce a claim against the defendants, but rather a judicial declaration of legal relations between the parties ... collateral estoppel... applies and precludes relitigating the specific issues determined by and essential to the declaratory judgment when those specific issues are sought to be again disputed in a subsequent suit. Accord Warwick v. Pearl River Valley Water Supply Dist., 271 So.2d 94, 95-96 (Miss.1972). In Lyle Cashion, the state court defendant had previously filed a declaratory judgment action in the federal district court for the Eastern District of Louisiana under diversity jurisdiction for a determination of the parties' rights under a option in an oil, gas, and mineral lease pertaining to property in Jefferson County, Mississippi. The federal district court issued a declaratory judgment that the state court plaintiff had validly exercised an option to purchase under the terms of the lease, and that judgment was affirmed in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Lyle Cashion Co. v. McKendrick, 97 F.Supp. 1008 (E.D.La.1951), aff'd, 204 F.2d 609 (5th Cir.1953). After the defendant still refused to recognize plaintiffs interest in the property, the plaintiff filed suit for confirmation of title in the Jefferson County Chancery Court, which gave deference to the federal district court judgment in finding for the plaintiff. We affirmed, finding that the defendant was precluded by the doctrine of collateral estoppel from relitigating its interest in the property, even though the opinion issued from a federal court in Louisiana exercising jurisdiction over a land dispute in Mississippi. ¶ 11. Here, the issue in the declaratory judgment action filed in the federal district court was whether Luster and Epps were liable to Glover for her injuries arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the insured bus on which Glover was a passenger immediately before she was dropped off at the gym and raped. Specifically, Luster and Epps' insurance carrier argued that the voluntary, deliberate acts of Glover's rapists were the genuine cause of her injuries, and the use of the bus to transport her, even to the wrong location, was merely incidental. The federal court held that Glover submitted no evidence that the bus driver should have foreseen that the male students on the bus would rape Glover when he transported the youths to the wrong location. In the present case, the Court finds that no jury could reasonably find that the intervening criminal act was foreseeable. Luster and Epps' liability to Glover was a fact essential to and determined by the federal court. It is important to note also that Glover was joined as a party in the federal court action and had every opportunity to establish liability on the part of Luster and Epps before that court. See Coleman v. Mississippi Farm Bureau Ins. Co., 708 So.2d 6, 9-11 (Miss.1998) (holding that res judicata would not prevent an injured party from relitigating the liability issue in a subsequent suit if they were not actually joined in the federal declaratory judgment action). Therefore, we hold that Glover is collaterally estopped from pursuing her claims against Luster and Epps in this state court action, and the circuit court did not err in granting summary judgment to Luster and Epps.