Opinion ID: 2636685
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Newly Discovered Evidence and Events Occurring Subsequent to the Previous Termination of Rights Determination Prevent the Court from Applying Res Judicata to the Determination of Mr. Nuosci's Parental Fitness

Text: ¶ 19 The petition to terminate Mr. Nuosci's parental rights is not barred by res judicata because it does not present the same claim litigated during the 2005 contested adoption proceeding. Where ... two causes of action rest on different facts, and evidence of a different kind or character is necessary to sustain them, the claims are not the same for purposes of res judicata. State ex rel. J.J.T., 877 P.2d at 165. Intervening events may constitute new facts that form the basis of a subsequent petition to terminate parental rights. Though the district court determined that Mr. Nuosci was not unfit in the 2005 contested adoption proceeding, Mr. Nuosci has since pleaded guilty to several federal charges, spent nearly three years in jail, and been deported to Canada. Further, the juvenile court learned that Mr. Nuosci was convicted of fraud-related charges on three separate occasions in Canada during the nineties. Even if information regarding these convictions was discoverable at the time of the 2005 hearing  and it may not have been considering Mr. Nuosci's constant use of assumed names and the limited access the district court had to information regarding the federal case against him  the court was not barred from considering such evidence in this subsequent petition to terminate Mr. Nuosci's parental rights. In addition to Mr. Nuosci's criminal convictions and deportation, the juvenile court also considered his history of violent behavior and threats. Res judicata does not prevent the court from considering both events that occurred between the petitions and those discoverable, but not considered by the district court in the first petition.