Opinion ID: 34653
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: State Court Finding Essential to Judgment

Text: Horton maintains that the state court's finding that Horton willfully and maliciously breached his fiduciary duties to Robinson was not essential to the state court judgment because the jury's separate finding of liability on breach of contract could have independently supported the judgment.11 Citing the Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 27, Comment i (1981), Horton argues that decisions based on multiple findings that are independently sufficient to support the judgment should not be used to preclude relitigation in a subsequent case which involves only one of the 11 Actually, Horton frames the issue as whether the finding was a critical and necessary part of the state court's judgment. Critical and necessary has been used primarily when applying the federal court formulation of the doctrine of collateral estoppel. As discussed above, the preclusive effect of the prior judgment is measured by Texas law. The Texas formulation usually employs the term essential,” rather than critical or necessary. 10 independently sufficient grounds. Horton’s reliance on comment i is misplaced, however, because it concerns only judgments that are not appealed. Comment o makes clear that: If the judgment of the court of first instance was based on a determination of two issues, either of which standing independently would be sufficient to support the result, and the appellate court upholds both of these determinations as sufficient, and accordingly affirms the judgment, the judgment is conclusive as to both determinations. In contrast to the case discussed in Comment I, the losing party has here obtained an appellate decision on the issue, and thus the balance weighs in favor of preclusion. RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF JUDGMENTS § 27, Comment o (1981).12 Horton's liability for breach of fiduciary duty was discussed at length in the Texas Court of Appeals decision. Therefore, collateral estoppel applies.