Court Opinion

ID: 9852933
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:39:22.195993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:37.961466
License: Public Domain

Justice MEYER
dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the denial of defendants’ motion for summary judgment based on res judicata is immediately appealable. However, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the doctrine of res judicata does not bar plaintiffs’ action in this case.
I believe that only one claim exists in this case for one course of medical treatment. This claim is based on a single core of operative facts and on two tightly intertwined theories of medical negligence: (1) negligence in the diagnosis and treatment of plaintiff Cynthia Bockweg’s pelvic infection, and (2) failure to monitor properly plaintiff’s nutritional status. Both legal theories arise from one single core of facts — plaintiff’s continuing course of medical treatment by defendants at Forsyth Memorial Hospital from December 1983 to February 1984.
Under the doctrine of res judicata, a final judgment on the merits in a court of competent jurisdiction precludes further litigation involving the same claim by the parties or their privies. Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153, 59 L. Ed. 2d 210, 216-17 (1979); see also Masters v. Dunstan, 256 N.C. 520, 124 S.E.2d 574 (1962); Gaither Corp. v. Skinner, 241 N.C. 532, 85 S.E.2d 909 (1955).
The “claim-splitting rule,” an adjunct of the res judicata doctrine, requires that a plaintiff’s whole claim, including all theories of liability and all damages arising out of the transaction, be determined in one action. The majority purports to uphold the rule against claim-splitting but, in actuality, eviscerates it. As we said in Gaither:
*498The bar of the judgment in such cases extends not only to matters actually determined, but also to other matters which in the exercise of due diligence could have been presented for determination in the prior action.
241 N.C. at 535-36, 85 S.E.2d at 911 (emphasis added) (citing Bruton v. Carolina Power & Light Co., 217 N.C. 1, 6 S.E.2d 822 (1940); Moore v. Harkins, 179 N.C. 167, 169, 101 S.E. 564, 565 (1919), cert. denied, 179 N.C. 525, 103 S.E. 12 (1920); Piedmont Wagon Co. v. Byrd, 119 N.C. 460, 26 S.E. 144 (1896); 1 Am. Jur. Actions § 96 (1936); 30 Am. Jur. Judgments §§ 179-180 (1940)); see Thomas M. Mclnnis & Assoc., Inc. v. Hall, 318 N.C. 421, 428, 349 S.E.2d 552, 556 (1986) (“all matters, either fact or law, that were or should have been adjudicated in the prior action are deemed concluded”); see also Smokey Mountain Enterprises, Inc. v. Rose, 283 N.C. 373, 196 S.E.2d 189 (1973); Jocie Motor Lines, Inc. v. Johnson, 231 N.C. 367, 57 S.E.2d 388 (1950).
When a plaintiff brings an action for just part of a claim, under the general rule prohibiting claim-splitting, he or she is precluded from bringing a second action for the residue of the claim. Gaither, 241 N.C. 532, 85 S.E.2d 909. We held in Hicks v. Koutro:
A judgment is conclusive as to all issues raised by the pleadings. When issues are presented it is the duty of the court to dispose of them. Parties, even by agreement, cannot try issues piecemeal. The courts and the public are interested in the finality of litigation.
249 N.C. 61, 64, 105 S.E.2d 196, 199 (1958). The claim-splitting rule seeks to prevent plaintiffs from bifurcating one claim into two lawsuits.
Proper application of the doctrine of res judicata and its prohibition against claim-splitting depends on an accurate determination of what constitutes a claim. Under the modern, transactional approach, a claim is defined as “a single core of operative facts.” Alexander v. Chicago Park District, 773 F.2d 850, 854 (7th Cir. 1985), cert, denied, 475 U.S. 1095, 89 L. Ed. 2d 894 (1986). The transactional approach is fact-oriented, and a change in legal theory does not create a new claim. Car Carriers, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 789 F.2d 589, 593 (7th Cir. 1986). On the facts of this case, I believe that only one claim exists. All the factual issues in this one claim surround plaintiff’s hospitalization by defendants. The *499fact that there were two acts of negligence and two resulting injuries in no way indicates that they arose out of a different set of facts. A claim “may arise out of the same transaction or series of transactions even if they involve different harms or different theories or measures of relief.” Harnett v. Billman, 800 F.2d 1308, 1314 (4th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 480 U.S. 932, 94 L. Ed. 2d 763 (1987). Plaintiff was admitted to the hospital by her obstetrician in December of 1983 for delivery of her baby. Following the cesarean section that was performed, plaintiff developed an infection that required her readmission to the hospital in early 1984. During her second stay in the hospital, part of plaintiffs treatment for the infection involved intravenous feedings. Ultimately, after unsuccessful attempts to cure her infection with antibiotics, a hysterectomy was performed. Plaintiffs’ injuries arose out of a continuing course of treatment that constitutes a single core of operative facts. As such, that claim was tried before a federal court jury and resulted in a verdict for the defendants. Plaintiffs made a strategic decision in failing to pursue the pelvic infection issue in the federal court action. I believe that their attempt to recast this issue as a separate claim and to pursue a second action is barred because it is res judicata.
I disagree with the majority on yet another issue. Contrary to the implication in the majority opinion, defendants did not stipulate to the bifurcation of claims and, thus, to defending two actions on the same set of integral facts. Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure differs from the corresponding state rule. Rule 41(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure refers only to a dismissal of an “action,” not an issue or allegation. The proper procedure when plaintiffs want to dismiss some but not all of their allegations is technically one of amending the pleadings under Rule 15(a). 5 James Wm. Moore, Jo Desha Lucas & Jeremy C. Wicker, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 41.06-1 (2d ed. 1993). To dismiss their federal court action or any portion thereof, plaintiffs had to obtain either an order from the court permitting a dismissal or a stipulation of all parties that plaintiffs could dismiss without the court’s order. Defendants stipulated only that plaintiffs could dismiss without obtaining a court order. Defendants did not stipulate to submitting themselves to the burden of defending a second lawsuit on the same claim.
Astoundingly, the majority says that “[fjurther evidence of defendants’ understanding that the issues would be treated separate*500ly is found in the fact that defendants proceeded in the defense of the two actions without complaining on the ground that the two actions involved the same claim” and that there is “no record evidence of an objection by defendants to the pendency of the two actions involving the same claim.” These statements indicate a remarkable lack of familiarity with a fact well known to all experienced trial attorneys and a failure to recognize a time-honored trial strategy. First, defendants moved in the state action for summary judgment on the ground of res judicata (claim preclusion) at their very first opportunity. The motion for summary judgment was filed following the trial and entry of judgment for defendants in the federal court action. Defendants could not have filed their motion any sooner because it is only the entry of the final judgment in the federal action that constitutes the adjudication of the federal claim. Simply put, the defense of res judicata did not arise until the entry of the final judgment in the federal action. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, had the defendants “complain[ed] on the grounds that the two actions involved the same claim” or, as the majority suggests in a footnote, filed a plea in abatement, they would have disclosed their defense in the state action and would thereby have enabled the plaintiff to reassert the pelvic infection facet of plaintiff’s claim in the federal action. The majority, in that footnote, says, “Since such an objection could result in dismissal of the action, raising it would certainly be in defendants’ interest.” Nothing could be further from the truth. If a plea in abatement in the state action had been successful, plaintiff could have reasserted that facet in the federal action, the state action would have been terminated, and defendants would have lost the opportunity to defeat the pelvic infection facet of the claim by a res judicata defense in the state action. No thinking attorney representing the defendants in this case would have tipped his hand in this manner and thus lost the chance of defeating the pelvic infection facet of plaintiff’s claim by a plea of res judicata in the state action. Defendants were under no obligation to file a plea in abatement or to plead in the state action that there was a prior action pending in the federal court. Just as defendants acted at their peril in not insisting in the federal action on continued consolidation of the two facets of the same claim and relying on the res judicata defense in the state action, the plaintiff acted at his peril by running the risk that the defendants would remain silent, not raise in the state action a plea in abatement or a defense of prior action pending, wait for the entry of the federal judgment, *501and only then raise the claim-splitting defense in a motion for summary judgment on the ground of res judicata. Defendants’ trial strategy was in all respects correct, particularly in view of the fact that defendants were successful in defeating the remaining facet of plaintiff’s claim in the federal action. It is only by reason of the majority’s erroneous determination of the case that defendants’ strategy did not prove successful.
I dissent from the opinion of the majority and vote to reverse the trial court’s order denying defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the basis of res judicata.