Court Opinion

ID: 9751188
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:11:54.601183+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:37.916912
License: Public Domain

FLANDERS, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the result and with all aspects of the Court’s opinion except for that portion concerning the doctrine of res judicata. Because no final judgment entered after our initial ruling which reversed the Superior Court’s grant of the defendant’s motion to suppress the blood-test results, I do not believe res judicata is applicable. Res judicata only applies where a prior suit has been brought to a valid and final personal judgment. See Restatement (Second) Judgments § 17 at 148 (1982); see also ElGabri v. Lekas, 681 A.2d 271, 275 (R.I.1996); E.W. Audet & Sons, Inc. v. Firemens Fund Insurance Co., 635 A.2d 1181, 1186 (R.I.1994) (citing Restatement (Second) Judgments for its treatment of the issue of res judicata). The same is true for collateral estoppel, which applies only to a subsequent action after “an issue of fact or law is actually litigated and determined by a valid and final judgment.” Restatement (Second) Judgments § 27 at 250; see also E.W. Audet & Sons, Inc., 635 A.2d at 1186 (citing Restatement (Second) Judgments’ treatment of the collateral-estoppel issue). Moreover, “[flinality of judgment contemplates an act that definitely terminates the litigation between the parties so that if we were to affirm the subject judgment, the trial court would have nothing further to do on remand other than order execution of the judgment previously entered.” Medeiros v. Hilton Homes, Inc., 122 R.I. 406, 410, 408 A.2d 598, 600 (1979).
Here, the trial justice granted defendant’s motion to suppress the results of his blood-alcohol test pursuant to G.L.1956 § 31-27-2. The state appealed this interlocutory decision, and we reversed. We held that the above-cited statute only applied to “blood-taking initiated by the state, including police officers, for the purpose of possible prosecution,” and not to situations like this one in which private medical providers conduct blood tests for the purpose of assisting in the furnishing of medical treatment. State v. Presler, No. 95-722-C.A., slip op. at 2 (R.I., filed May 16,1996) (order).
As a result of this interlocutory decision, the law-of-the-case doctrine, rather than res judicata, foreclosed any relitigation on remand of whether the police initiated the blood-taking in this case. “A motion to suppress is interlocutory in character, and neither res judicata nor collateral estoppel applies to a ruling which is less than a final judgment.” People v. Lewis, 659 P.2d 676, 679 (Colo.1983); see also, e.g., DiBella v. United States, 369 U.S. 121, 82 S.Ct. 654, 7 L.Ed.2d 614 (1962) (acknowledging that suppression orders in criminal trials are “truly interlocutory”). The law-of-the-case doctrine “posits that when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case.” Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Carp., 486 U.S. 800, 815-16, 108 S.Ct. 2166, 2177, 100 L.Ed.2d 811, 830 (1988) (quoting Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618, 103 S.Ct. 1382, 1391, 75 L.Ed.2d 318, 333 (1983)). In addition,-that decision “applies as much to the decisions of a coordinate court in the same case as to a court’s own *706decisions.” Id. at 816, 108 S.Ct. at 2177, 100 L.Ed.2d at 830. The doctrine has “developed to maintain consistency and avoid reconsideration of matters once decided during the course of a single continuing lawsuit. These rules do not involve preclusion by final judgment; instead, they regulate judicial affairs before final judgment.” 18 Charles Alan Wright et al. Federal Practice and Procedure § 4478 at 788 (1981). Moreover, the law-of-the-case doctrine “turns on whether a court previously ‘decide[d] upon a rule of law.’ ” Christianson, 486 U.S. at 817, 108 S.Ct. at 2178, 100 L.Ed.2d at 830. It applies to those issues of law which the appellate court in fact considered and decided as well as those necessarily inferred from the appellate court’s disposition. See Cohen v. Brown University, 101 F.3d 155, 168 (1st Cir.1996) (quoting Commercial Union Insurance Co. v. Walbrook Insurance Co., 41 F.3d 764, 770 (1st Cir.1994)). Compare 18 Charles Alan Wright et al., § 4478 at 789 (noting that “questions that have not been decided do not become law of the case merely because they could have been decided”), with E.W. Audet & Sons, Inc., 635 A.2d at 1186 (explaining that the doctrine of res judicata not only precludes the relit-igation of all issues the parties raised, but also those issues they could have raised in the original action).
Furthermore, the law-of-the-case doctrine is not restricted to rulings issued by the same or a coordinate court. Rather, it also applies to rulings by an appellate court after the case is remanded to a lower court for further proceedings in the same case. Thus, “[w]hen a case has been once decided by this court on appeal, and remanded to [the lower court], whatever was before this court, and disposed of by its decree, is considered as finally settled. The [lower court] is bound by the decree as the law of the case; and must carry it into execution, according to the mandate.” In re Sanford Fork and Tool Co., 160 U.S. 247, 255, 16 S.Ct. 291, 293, 40 L.Ed. 414, 416 (1895); see also, e.g., University of Rhode Island v. Department of Employment and Training, 691 A.2d 552, 555 (R.I.1997) (holding that opinions of this Court declare the law in Rhode Island, and lower courts must follow that law as announced); D’Arezzo v. D’Arezzo, 107 R.I. 422, 426, 267 A.2d 683, 685 (1970) (same); 18 Moore’s Federal Practice § 134.51[2][b] at 134-51 (3d ed. 1998) (“The decision of an appellate court on an issue of law governs the issue during subsequent stages of litigation, * * * and on any further appeal. The decision of the appellate court establishes the law of the case and it must be followed by the trial court on remand * * *. If there is an appeal from the judgment entered after remand, the decision of the first appeal establishes the law of the case to be followed on the second appeal.”) (emphasis added); Jack H. Friedenthal et al., Civil Procedure § 14.1 at 614 (2nd ed. 1993) (“[L]aw of the case will apply when an issue in the case is decided by the trial court and appealed. If the appellate court reverses and rules on the law to be applied and how it affects certain issues of the case, those findings will be binding on the trial court when the action is remanded for a new trial.”). See generally 18 Charles Alan Wright et al., at § 4478 (discussing the law-of-the-case doctrine as applied to further trial-court proceedings after an initial appeal).
However, unlike res judicata, the law-of-the-case doctrine does not serve as an absolute bar to reconsider a previous decision “when evidence has been introduced in the interim that significantly extends or expands the record,” Richardson v. Smith, 691 A.2d 543, 546 (R.I.1997), or “where the initial decision was ‘clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice,’ ” Christianson, 486 U.S. at 817, 108 S.Ct. at 2178, 100 L.Ed.2d at 831 (quoting Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. at 618 n. 8, 103 S.Ct. at 1391 n. 8, 75 L.Ed.2d at 333 n. 8). Thus, while the law-of-the-case doctrine expresses the practice of courts generally to refuse to reopen issues that had been decided in earlier stages of the same litiga*707tion, it does not limit their power to do so if circumstances so change in the interim that the interests of justice mandate a second look. See Messenger v. Anderson, 225 U.S. 436, 32 S.Ct. 739, 56 L.Ed. 1152 (1912).
Understandably, the majority seeks to bolster the finality of this Court’s rulings on interlocutory matters by eliminating some of the potential wiggle room that exists in law-of-the-case situations when one trial justice is reviewing another trial justice’s earlier order in that same case. And I certainly agree that, in a case on remand from this Court, the circumstances under which a trial justice should be free to modify our mandate should be much narrower than in those situations where the trial justice is faced with an earlier ruling in the same case by a coordinate trial justice. However, rather than stretching the doctrine of res judicata to cover a situation in which it was never intended to apply,4 I would simply hold that the degree of finality to be applied to the law of the case is substantially greater after the highest court in the state has ruled on an interlocutory issue and then remands the case to the trial court than when a trial justice is faced with an earlier ruling in the same case by a coordinate trial justice.
Although no final judgment entered after our first ruling on appeal (we remanded the case to the Superior Court for further proceedings), and hence, no res judicata effect could be given to that ruling, we determined the issue of why the medical providers performed the blood tests, and it therefore became the law of this case. See Columbian National Life Insurance Co. v. Industrial Trust Co., 57 R.I. 325, 190 A. 13 (1937) (holding that the Court’s decision in its previous opinion became the law of the case on the second appeal in the same case); see also Royal Insurance Company of America v. Quinn-L Capital Corp., 3 F.3d 877, 880-81 (5th Cir.1993) (concluding that as to decisions of law, the court’s decision on the interlocutory appeal will establish the law of the case); Satterwhite v. State, 858 S.W.2d 412 (Tex.Crim.App.1993) (holding that under the law-of-the-case doctrine, the court’s resolution of the question of law in appellant’s previous appeal of his motion to suppress governs the disposition of the same issue in his present appeal); 18 Moore’s Federal Practice § 134.24 at 134-60 (“Once an appeal is taken and an issue is decided, that decision becomes the law of the case for that issue, even if decided on an interlocutory appeal.”). Moreover, none of the facts surrounding the taking of the defendant’s blood have changed since this Court ruled on the legality of the blood testing in connection with the defendant’s first appeal, nor have other circumstances surfaced indicating that a manifest injustice would result in following the law of this case. See Christianson, 486 U.S. at 817, 108 S.Ct. at 2178, 100 L.Ed.2d at 831; Richardson, 691 A.2d at 546.5
*708Thus, I agree with the Court’s opinion that the first appeal determined that the taking of the defendant’s blood was not performed at the direction of the state police, but rather was taken pursuant to hospital protocol. This became the law of the case after the first appeal, and, absent extraordinary circumstances not present here, the defendant could not relitigate this issue after the remand. Accordingly, I concur in the Court’s opinion.

. In researching this issue, I was unable to locate a single case in this or in any other jurisdiction that has ever applied the doctrine of res judicata to the proceedings on remand after an interlocutory ruling by an appellate court.

. The mere fact that defendant’s post-remand motion to suppress added a new allegation that the blood samples had been seized at the direction of the police did not serve to rescue his motion from the law-of-the-case doctrine. Because defendant could have raised this issue earlier and because he adduced no compelling reasons why he failed to do so, the law of the case doctrine barred any reconsideration of the motion to suppress. However, if in fact newly discovered evidence had surfaced that the police had directed the blood seizure — evidence that could not have been, in the exercise of due diligence, produced earlier — then the law-of-the-case doctrine would not bar a reconsideration of the earlier suppression decision, nor should it do so. See, e.g., People v. Roybal, 672 P.2d 1003 (Colo.1983) (holding that the state supreme court’s ruling on the defendant’s interlocutory appeal, which required the suppression of his written statement as a product of an invalid arrest, became the law of the case and therefore precluded the trial court on remand from granting the state an evidentiary hearing on *708the issue of whether the taking of a blood alcohol test was also the product of the defendant's illegal arrest). In affirming the lower court’s denial of a probable-cause hearing, the court noted:
"If the prosecution had proffered newly-discovered evidence, the result might be different. A trial court may reconsider its own suppression order when there is new, probative evidence available and the prosecution shows good cause why that evidence was not introduced previously. Even where a trial court’s suppression order has been affirmed on interlocutory appeal, we believe that in appropriate circumstances newly-discovered evidence could justify the trial court’s reconsideration of its earlier ruling. Here, however, the evidence that the prosecution now wishes to adduce [an additional witness] was available at the first hearing * * Id. at 1006 n. 7.