Court Opinion

ID: 9663012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:25:51.331108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:44.801472
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(specially concurring).
The majority opinion has moored, basically, its holding on the statement that “[tjhere must, however, be a final unre-versed judgment or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction before the doctrines of res judicata, collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion apply.” I have no quarrel with such a holding. However, in concurring with the majority opinion, I wish to state that I would ground an affirmance on the premise that the Cement Plant case and the Department of Transportation case involve (a) different contracts, (b) different claims for damages due, (c) different parties, (d) different issues, and (e) different instructions to the jury in both cases because of (f) differing points of law. Therefore, the rule pronounced in Black Hills Jewelry should indeed be applied here; that is, that a matter which has had identical issues litigated may not be brought back before the court to be litigated again even though there is not privity of parties to the second litigation.
We must simply apply Black Hills Jewelry properly to the facts at hand. Appellee and appellant both offer Black Hills Jewelry as authority. As I view it, the Cement Plant case arose from a breach of cement sales contracts which sought rights and remedies under the Uniform Commercial Code. Before us, we now have the same plaintiff asserting a claim against the Department of Transportation for alleged wrongs, seeking redress under a totally different contract, namely, the Brown/Spink contract. This latter contract, and the breach thereof, led the jury to find that there was an unavailability of railroad cars for hauling the cement. A *870shortage of cement at a plant in Western South Dakota is one thing; a delay of transporting cement in Eastern South Dakota is an altogether different matter. Therefore, collateral estoppel or issue preclusion is inapplicable as the issues in these two cases are readily distinguishable.