Court Opinion

ID: 9545821
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:20:04.705675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:36.333989
License: Public Domain

*457BURNETT, Judge,
specially-concurring.
Although I agree with the result of the foregoing opinion, I write separately to comment on the relationship between res judicata and “premature” claims. My analysis is grounded in the modern version of res judicata as set forth in the RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF JUDGMENTS (1982). Our Court adopted the Second Restatement in Aldape v. Akins, 105 Idaho 254, 668 P.2d 130 (Ct.App.1983) (petition for review denied).
Res judicata embraces two distinct doctrines: claim preclusion and issue preclusion. Under the doctrine of claim preclusion, a valid final judgment generally extinguishes a claimant’s rights and remedies against a defendant “with respect to all or any part of the transaction ... out of which the action arose.” Second Restatement at § 24. Claim preclusion subsumes the entire transaction, “regardless of the number of substantive theories, or variant forms of relief flowing from those theories, that may be available to the [claimant]____” Second Restatement at § 24 Comment a. Accordingly, the bar of claim preclusion is broad; it applies to any claim that was, or properly could have been, made in the first litigation. In contrast, issue preclusion (formerly known as collateral estoppel) is a narrow doctrine. It applies only to specific issues actually raised, litigated and decided in a prior lawsuit. Second Restatement § 27.
In the present case, the district judge did not specify which form of res judicata he was invoking when he dismissed Blaser’s complaint. Blaser sought a monetary award for materials and labor allegedly furnished to construct a cabin. No dispute over these construction costs had been litigated in the prior lawsuit. Accordingly, the doctrine of issue preclusion could not have been applied here. Neither had Blaser made a claim in the first lawsuit for any unpaid obligation arising from construction of the cabin. Consequently, the doctrine of claim preclusion was not triggered by a prior claim. The remaining question is whether claim preclusion might have been applicable because such a claim could have been made in the prior litigation. That question is central to this appeal.
My colleagues have approached the question obliquely by focusing upon the compulsory counterclaim language of I.R.C.P. 13(a). They suggest that any bar to Blaser’s claim would arise solely from the rule itself, not from res judicata. I respectfully disagree. In my view, Rule 13(a) and res judicata cannot be severed from each other. The rule, standing alone, contains no language stating that a party who fails to make a compulsory counterclaim is barred from making the claim in a subsequent lawsuit. The rule impliedly contains such a bar only because it operates in the context of res judicata.1 Moreover, even if Rule 13(a) and res judicata were somehow separated, the lead opinion's determination that Blaser’s claim was not barred by the rule would still leave open the possibility that the claim was “separately” barred by res judicata.
Thus, the question of res judicata, in the form of claim preclusion, must be addressed. Blaser’s claim appears on its face to be one he could have made in the prior litigation. The first lawsuit was filed in 1976 and decided in 1977. Blaser asserted at that time, and he later testified in the present action, that construction of the cabin was completed in 1975. Accordingly, the doctrine of claim preclusion would seem to be applicable.
However, claim preclusion is subject to several exceptions enumerated in the Second Restatement and in Aldape. When we *458adopted the Second Restatement, we noted a “ripeness limitation and [a] mandamus exception ... enunciated by our Supreme Court [in prior cases].” Aldape, 105 Idaho at 259, 668 P.2d at 135. The ripeness limitation refers to a claim that arises from the same transaction as an earlier lawsuit, but which is not actionable until additional facts have developed. It is analogous to a ball resting atop a stairway — its potential energy becomes kinetic only when some event pushes it over the edge.
Here, the lead opinion identifies no missing factual event or circumstance necessary to push Blaser’s claim over the edge. Rather, the lead opinion suggests that the claim was legally premature because the judge eventually ruled that Blaser had not installed a water delivery system according to the parties’ contract. The lead opinion appears to assume that it would have been procedurally improper for Blaser to seek, during the litigation on the water system, a determination of his eventual right to recover cabin construction costs. The correctness of that assumption is not self-evident to me. Although my colleagues cite a Nevada case and a federal district court case as examples of procedural prematurity, those cases actually discuss principles of issue preclusion not apposite here.
The focus in this case should be upon the factual maturity of Blaser’s claim during the first lawsuit. When that focus is adopted, it invites attention to an important element of the parties’ contract. The contract provided that any construction costs resulting in a total obligation in excess of a $10,000 payment by the Camerons would be “paid for by labor performed by [the Camerons].” The record discloses that this “labor” was contemplated to be services performed by Mr. Cameron after he and his wife moved into the cabin. The Camerons did not move into the cabin prior to or during the first lawsuit — nor could they have done so — because there was no water. Consequently, there was no timely opportunity for Mr. Cameron to “pay” for cabin construction costs with his services. Any claim by Blaser in the first lawsuit that the Camerons had breached the contract, entitling him to a monetary recovery, would have been factually premature. It was not until 1979, two years after the first lawsuit had gone to judgment, that the water system was functional. Thereafter, and not sooner, Mr. Cameron would have been obliged to perform the “labor” envisioned by the contract.
Because Blaser’s claim did not become factually mature until the occurrence of an event after the first litigation, this case falls within the ripeness limitation on claim preclusion, as noted in Aldape.2 For this reason, I join my colleagues in their “bottom line” conclusion that the claim was not barred in the present suit.

. The lead opinion cites Joseph v. Darrar, 93 Idaho 762, 472 P.2d 328 (1970), for the proposition that Rule 13(a) operates independently of res judicata. However, Darrar antedates our Aldape decision and the Second Restatement. Prior to Aldape, the operation of res judicata had become confused because some Idaho cases purportedly limited res judicata to the relitigation of "causes of action." In Aldape we rejected this outmoded limitation. I view Darrar as an early attempt to break away from the confusion that once surrounded res judicata. Darrar should not be regarded today as authority for severing Rule 13(a) from the modern version of res judicata.

. This case also may fall within one of the exceptions to claim preclusion found in the Second Restatement itself. Section 26(f) recognizes an exception where the prior litigation has "failfed] ... to yield a coherent disposition of the controversy." In the first lawsuit, as noted above, Blaser did not, and could not, make any claim premised upon Mr. Cameron's failure to perform "labor” as contemplated in the agreement. That claim remained inchoate for some time after judgment was entered in the first lawsuit. If the instant case were dismissed without reaching the merits, this claim never would be resolved. Consequently, there would be a “failure to achieve a coherent disposition of the controversy.”