Court Opinion

ID: 6897467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 21:51:24.040165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:06:03.105072
License: Public Domain

*560On Rehearing.
Mr. Justice Wolverton
delivered the opinion.
6. Since filing the opinion in this case the defendants filed a motion for rehearing based upon a question alluded to in the argument of counsel, but not discussed in the briefs, and it is now insisted that it is vital, and ought to be settled. It is claimed that the judgment in the case of Jackson against T. B. and Charles Handley is res ad judicata, and binding upon Charles Handley, even though he did not appear in the action, because the payments which it is alleged discharged the obligation were made by T. B. Handley; that is to say, that Charles Handley, by claiming the benefit of such contractual relations between T. B. Handley and Jackson, thereby puts himself in privity of contract with T. B. Handley, and that the judgment, being conclusive upon T. B. Handley, operates with like effect against Charles. It will be remembered that the action against T. B. and Charles Handley was upon a joint and several promissory note, and was a case in which a several judgment could have been entered. If both had been served, T. B. might have, if he so desired, permitted judgment to have gone against him by default, and, if so, it could not have been claimed that the default judgment was res adjudicata as to Charles. Now, would the case have been different if T. B. had been first served, and trial had upon the very ground which Charles Handley now insists discharged the obligation, and Charles had subsequently been brought in, and sought to resist *561payment by an interposition of the same defense? We think it can hardly be so claimed. In Eikenberry v. Edwards, 71 Iowa, 82 (32 N. W. 183, 56 Am. Rep. 360), a case of some analogy, several parties were sued, and, having severed at the trial, one of them prevailed. Subsequently, in a trial against another, it was sought to conclude the plaintiff by the former judgment. But the court, speaking through Rothrock, J., said: “It would be a novelty in the law of former adjudication if a defendant in an action can procure a separate trial as to the issues between him and the plaintiff, and then claim that the trial between the plaintiff and another defendant was an adjudication as to him.” As bearing somewhat on the question, see, also, Smith v. Ballantyne, 10 Paige, 101; Coleman v. Hunt, 77 Wis. 263 (45 N. W. 1085). It iso a fundamental principle that a judgment can only conclude parties and their privies. In so far as it respects the judgment in the. case of Jackson against the Handleys, it stands as though Charles had never been made a party or appeared in the action. And the pretended judgment actually entered against T. B. Handley, under the circumstances of the case, could have no more binding force and effect upon Charles than if one had been entered without making him a party in the first instance, as each was entitled to his day in court, and to contest Jackson’s right of recovery. No privity of contract can exist between codefendants thus situated. Motion denied.
Rehearing Denied.