Court Opinion

ID: 9687712
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:43:03.379205+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:30.315164
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in result).
This Court has cautioned against the excessive use of res judicata. Lewton v. McCauley, 460 N.W.2d 728 (S.D.1990) (Sabers, J., concurring specially); Bruntz v. Rutherford, 451 N.W.2d 290 (S.D.1990) (Sabers, J., concurring specially as joined by Chief Justice Miller). I also believe we should caution against the excessive use of collateral estoppel. Since each case is so fact determinative, I do agree with the end result in the present case. Here, we hold that Williams is collaterally estopped; this party, Williams, is barred from reasserting issues that were actually previously litigated and lost on the merits against another defendant. Williams was a party to previous litigation who had an opportunity (and lost) on an issue now sought to be raised in the instant litigation.
However, the doctrine of collateral estop-pel is not inalterable. We should not impose it, in all instances. Bank of Hoven v. Rausch, 449 N.W.2d 263 (S.D.1989); Dow v. Noble, 380 N.W.2d 359 (S.D.1986); Arcan v. South Dakota Cement Plant, 412 N.W.2d 876 (S.D.1987). It is merely a legal principle which seeks to end litigation. But the four factors set forth in Cook, and Staab, the progenitors of later cases in this Court, must be dissected and applied to the facts. With this in mind, the collateral estoppel doctrine should not be invoked without regard to dissimilar factual situations.
Broad, sweeping statements relating to public policy, judicial orderliness, and economy of judicial time should not be the polestar of the required use of collateral *621estoppel. Private rights should not be shunted aside in the name of adjectives. As professorial textbook writers have expressed: “Achieving efficiency often threatens the process imperatives of appellate justice. Stated in general terms, the risk of efficiency is that the appellate system will be prevented from giving proper heed to the particulars of cases.” Justice On Appeal, by Professors Carrington, Meador & Rosenberg, page 14, West Publishing Co., 1976.* (emphasis supplied mine).
We have previously established the four criteria test and we should use it as a polestar, in each case.

 The Bench and the Bar should realize the business of the courts is not economy, expediency or efficiency — it is justice. State v. McComsey, 323 N.W.2d 889, 894 (S.D.1982), Henderson, J., dissenting.