Court Opinion

ID: 9685080
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:22:45.5524+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:02.172929
License: Public Domain

Ed. F. McFaddin, Justice (Concurring). I concur in the result reached by the majority but for a reason entirely different from that stated in the majority opinion: my reason is that the record before us is incomplete and therefore the case must be affirmed. I cannot agree that the judgment must be affirmed on res judicata; because the record now before us does not contain a copy of the complaint filed on May 7,-1949, in the first case brought by Ellen Kerksieck against Marshall Coker. Until we see the allegations contained in that complaint, it is impossible to say whether it was sufficiently similar to the one in Ozan Lumber Co. v. Tidwell, 213 Ark. 751, 212 S. W. 2d 349, as to make the adjudicated case res judicata of the case now at bar. It would have been legally possible for Ellen Kerksieck to have alleged, in her first complaint, that she had split her cause of action and had assigned to the Motors Insurance Company so much of the cause of action as related to her property damage, and that she was, in her said first complaint, suing only for her personal injuries. If the complaint had contained such allegations, then I hardly see how the majority could reach its present conclusion as to res judicata. So I inake the point that until we see the complaint that Ellen Kerksieck filed in the first case against Marshall Coker, we are in no position to hold the rule of res judicata to be applicable. But the l’eason which requires affirmance of the Circuit Court judgment in the present case is the fact that the record now before us does not contain the stipulation made by the parties at the time of the trial in the present case. That there was some such stipulation is attested by the judgment in the present case which contains this recitation: “. . . and said cause was submitted to the court upon stipulations and upon the pleadings set forth hereafter; the complaint of the plaintiff, answer and,cross-complaint of the defendant, and amended and substituted answer and cross-complaint of the defendant setting forth a plea of res judicata; and the court, after hearing argument of counsel, stipulations and agreements therein, and argument of counsel for plaintiff and counsel for defendant, doth find: . . .” (Italics our own.) The words italicized show that the Miller Circuit Court, when it rendered its judgment of dismissal from which comes this appeal, had before it some sort of ‘ ‘ stipulations and agreements. ” Now there are no stipulations or agreements in the record here; and in the absence ,of such, we must presume that the matters presented to the trial court were sufficient to justify the conclusion that was reached. In School Dist. v. Lake City Special School District, 144 Ark. 362, 223 S. W. 381, we said: “. . . The judgment and recitals therein are the last expressions of the court and the highest evidence by which to determine the course, conduct and result of the suit. Whenever it conflicts with the recitals in docket entries or in a bill of exceptions, the recitals in the judgment will control and all else must yield. If the judgment roll contains an erroneous recital, the only remedy is to obtain a correction thereof. In the instant case, the judgment recites that the case was heard upon other evidence than that set out in the abstract, and we can not treat the recital therein a-s dictum, in accordance with the suggestion of appellant.” So in the final analysis, I rest my views of affirmance on the fact that the trial court had before it some stipulations and agreements of some kind between the opposing counsel, and that such stipulations and agreements are not in the record before us; and so we must indulge the presumption that the absent matters support the judgment rendered by the trial court.