Court Opinion

ID: 9613199
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:15:17.359134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:26.755737
License: Public Domain

*74MATTHEWS, Justice,
dissenting.
I
In my view the judgment on the cross claims of Calhoun’s co-defendants, Mick and Cecilia Manns (the Manns) and Robert and Bernice Feistner (the Feistners), is void. No order allowing the Feistners to file cross claims was ever entered. They lodged an order to that effect, but the order was expressly not used. As to the Manns, their motion to file a cross claim was served by mail on Calhoun’s attorney on September 25, just two days before the trial. The Manns’ motion was granted on September 29, 1978, two days after Calhoun had been found liable to the Feistners and the Manns in what passed for a trial in this case.
Calhoun had no duty to answer the cross claims which the Feistners and the Manns *75attempted to set out in their amended answers until leave of court for such amendments was granted. Civil Rule 15(a). Once leave of court was granted, as it was with respect to the Manns on September 29, and never was with respect to the Feistners, Calhoun would ordinarily have twenty days within which to answer. Civil Rule 12(a). This period could be shortened by order of the court. Civil Rule 15(a). However, such an order would have to be served on Calhoun and Calhoun would have to be given some period within which to answer and prepare his defenses.
A judgment is void if reasonable notice that it may be entered is not given or if a reasonable opportunity to be heard is not provided. Section 6 of the Restatement of Judgments (1942) states:
A judgment is void unless a reasonable method of notification is employed and a reasonable opportunity to be heard afforded to persons affected.
Further, a judgment is void if it is based on amended pleadings where the defendant has not been given an opportunity to defend against the new matter. Comment c to § 8 of the Restatement of Judgments states in relevant part:
c. Requirement that judgment be within the issues. Even though the State has jurisdiction over the parties and even though the court is one with competency to render the judgment, a judgment by default is void if it was outside the cause of action stated in the complaint and if the defendant was not given a fair opportunity to defend against the claim on which the judgment was based. Such a judgment is subject to collateral attack. (See Illustration 1.) This does not mean, however, that the court may not permit an amendment of the pleadings so as to raise issues not raised by the original pleadings, provided that the parties have an opportunity to be heard on the issues raised by the amended pleadings. The court may under modern practice permit amendments of the pleadings at the trial, in order that they may conform to the evidence, provided that the parties are given an opportunity to be heard on the new issues presented.
Illustration 1 to this comment states:
1. A brings an action in State X against B, a corporation of State X, seeking an injunction against future trespasses on A’s land, without alleging past trespasses. Service of the summons is made upon an officer of B. B defaults and a decree is entered enjoining future trespasses by B and for the recovery of $10,-000 damages for past trespasses. The decree, in so far as it awards damages, is void.
A further illustration is given in comment b to § 117 of the Restatement:
Thus where a person and his car are injured in a collision but in the action which he brings his complaint is limited to a claim for harm to the car, a judgment which includes damages for harm to the person is invalid if no notice of the additional claim is given to the defendant and the defendant does not appear at the trial. In this case the judgment is void because it goes outside the cause of action stated in the complaint and the defendant was not given a fair opportunity to defend against the claim upon which the judgment was based.
It is clear that the above principles apply to the judgment on the cross claims. As of the time of trial, September 27, the Feist-ners, the Manns and Calhoun were all defendants to the complaint of plaintiff, John Greening. No cross claims had been filed. Calhoun was entitled not to appear at the trial, knowing that the worst that might happen would be that a judgment on Greening’s complaint would be entered against him, as it was, in the sum of $1,081.25. Since the cross claims had not been filed, Calhoun neither had notice of their filing nor a fair opportunity to defend against them.1 Permitting an amendment *76of the Feistners’ and the Manns’ answers at the time of trial to state cross claims against Calhoun, assuming even that had happened, would still have left Calhoun without a fair opportunity to defend. The judgment on the cross claims is therefore void.
A void judgment is a legal nullity; it establishes no binding legal obligations; it may be vacated by the court which rendered it at any time or by any other court in which its validity is appropriately called in question; it has no res judicata effect and cannot be bootstrapped into validity by laches. 7 Moore’s Federal Practice ¶¶ 60.-25[2] at 300-01, 60.25[3] at 314, 60.25[4] at 3LL-15, 60.41[1] at 802, 60.41[2] at 803-05; Wright & Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure: Civil § 2862; see Aguehak v. Montgomery Ward Co., Inc., 520 P.2d 1352, 1354 (Alaska 1974) (“a void judgment is entitled to no respect whatever.”)
In my view these rules are dispositive of this case. We should remand to the superi- or court with directions to set aside the judgment on the cross claims and to conduct such further proceedings as may be appropriate.
II
1 also note that this is a case in which the court and counsel for the appellees failed to follow the rule of common courtesy expressed by this court in Hill v. Vetter, 525 P.2d 529, 530 n.4 (Alaska 1974) and Cook v. Aurora Motors, Inc., 503 P.2d 1046, 1049 n.6 (Alaska 1972), that a trial in the absence of one’s opponent or the opponent’s attorney should not take place until an attempt is made to alert the opponent’s attorney of the proceedings. Such a practice “is a highly desired courtesy to the opposing side, which can help avoid unnecessary, time consuming motions before the court,” Id. at 1049 n.6, and it is a practice which this court should continue to urge on the bar and the trial bench.
Ill
Moreover, I believe that the majority has erred in basing today’s opinion on the doctrine of res judicata. The doctrine of res judicata relates to the effects of a judgment in a subsequent separate lawsuit. Note, Developments in the Law — Res Judi-cata, 65 Harv.L.Rev. 818, 820 (1951-52). This is the sense in which we have always referred to res judicata. Engebreth v. Moore, 567 P.2d 305, 307 (Alaska 1977); Drickerson v. Drickerson, 546 P.2d 162, 169 (Alaska 1976); Moran v. Poland, 494 P.2d 814, 815 (Alaska 1972); Palfy v. First National Bank of Valdez, 471 P.2d 379, 383 (Alaska 1970); Pennington v. Snow, 471 P.2d 370, 377 (Alaska 1970); State v. Baker, 393 P.2d 893, 898 (Alaska 1964). This is the sense in which res judicata is generally understood.2 Res judicata has no application to a direct, as opposed to collateral, attack on a judgment. Caldwell v. Taylor, 218 Cal. 471, 23 P.2d 758, 760 (1933); In Re Hess Estate, 379 P.2d 851, 855 (Okl.1962); Scott v. Dilks, 47 Cal.2d 207, 117 P.2d 700, 702 (Dist.Ct.App.1941); Livengood v. Munns, 27 N.E.2d 92, 96 (Ind.App.1940); Haudenschilt *77-81v. Haudenschilt, 39 S.E.2d 328, 339 (W.Va. App.1946). Motions under Rule 60(b) are direct, not collateral attacks. 7 Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 60.41[1] at 801 (2d ed. 1979).
Apart from the question of labels, it is true that successive or renewed motions for relief from a judgment should only be granted under compelling circumstances in order to prevent injustice.3 Cases in which relief, either partial or complete, has been granted on a renewed motion to vacate a judgment include: Collex, Inc. v. Walsh, 74 F.R.D. 443 (E.D.Pa.1977); Dellwo v. Petersen, 34 Idaho 697, 203 P. 472 (1921); Rambush v. Rambush, 267 Cal.App.2d 734, 73 Cal.Rptr. 268 (1968); Lynch v. Betts, 198 Cal.App.2d 755, 18 Cal.Rptr. 345 (1962).
For the reasons expressed in part I of this dissent, it is clear to me that compelling circumstances requiring relief exist here.

. The majority, in its footnote 8, supra, cites Collex, Inc. v. Walsh, 74 F.R.D. 443 (E.D.Pa. 1977) and Winfield Associates v. Stonecipher, 429 F.2d 1087 (10th Cir. 1970) for the proposition that courts have rejected renewed motions to vacate default judgments on the grounds of *76lack of notice. Those cases were decided under federal rule 55(b)(2). Both the federal and the Alaska versions of that rule require notice three days prior to hearing on the amount of judgment. In these cases the defendant has been given notice of the claim against him and has been given an opportunity to defend. Thus it is not surprising that mere failure to give notice after default has been entered that damages will be calculated does not render judgment void. By contrast, here there has not been notice of the claim asserted at all and hence no opportunity to defend. Note also that in Collex, where the failure of notice only went to the damages hearing, the court vacated the damage award. It could hardly do more under the circumstances.

. It is elementary, of course, that res judica-ta does not preclude a litigant from making a direct attack upon the judgment before the court which renders it.
IB Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 0.407 at 931 (2d ed. 1980).
In a direct, as distinguished from a collateral, attack on a judgment, the judgment does not, of course, operate as res judicata precluding relief, since the validity and binding effect of the judgment is the very matter in issue on such direct attack.
50 C.J.S. Judgments § 594.

. As the Second Circuit has recently observed:
Very high among the interests in our jurisprudential system is that of finality of judgments. It has become almost a judicial commonplace to say that litigation must end somewhere, and we reiterate our firm belief that courts should not encourage the reopening of final judgments or casually permit the relitigation of litigated issues out of a friendliness to claims of unfortunate failures to put in one’s best case. Yet, at the same time, we are not unmindful of other interests, among them the interest of deciding cases on their merits. These interests provide relevant parameters within which to evaluate Rule 60(b) motions; the facts give them values. Here we are faced with a second motion to vacate a final judgment. Most assuredly, for it to succeed the material offered in support of it must be highly convincing material. [Emphasis in original].
United States v. Cirami, 563 F.2d 26, 33 (1977).
A similar rule is expressed in Criminal Rule 35(j) relating to motions to correct sentences:
All grounds for relief available to an applicant under this rule must be raised in his original ... application. Any ground finally adjudicated or not so raised . . . may not be the basis for a subsequent application, unless the court finds a ground for relief asserted which for sufficient reason was not asserted or was inadequately raised in the original . . . application.