Court Opinion

ID: 9830989
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 20:41:02.051792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:29.087890
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
[3] Because, in the suit of Mrs. Lane against appellee and others, an issue as to the validity of the conveyance to her from her husband was made by the pleading and the proof, we do not think it necessarily follows, as appellants insist it does, that the effect of the judgment in her favor in that suit was to estop appellee from litigating that question in this suit. The rule seems to be that a matter is not to be regarded as res adjudicata unless there is a concurrence of four conditions: First, identity in the thing sued for; second, identity of the cause of action; third, identity of persons and of parties to the cause of action; fourth, identity of the quality of the persons for or against whom the claim is made. Jackson v. Cable, 27 S. W. 203; Philipowski v. Spencer, 63 Tex. 607; Cromwell v. Sac County, 94 U. S. 351, 24 L. Ed. 197. The rule invoked by appellants that a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction, upon the merits of a controversy, is conclusive between the parties and those in privity with them, upon every question of fact in issue, or which might in the suit resulting in the judgment have been litigated between them, would apply if, in addition to the other requisites, it appeared that appellee’s cause of action in this suit was identical with the defense he interposed to a recovery by Mrs. Lane in her suit. But it did not so appear. On the contrary, it appeared that in that suit appellee defended on the ground that he had title to the land, while in this suit he sought to foreclose a lien he claimed to have acquired on the land after the adjudication in favor of Mrs. Lane in her suit. As stated by the Supreme Court of the United States in a case cited above (Cromwell v. Sac County), “there is a difference between the effect oft a judgment as a bar or estoppel against the prosecution of a second action upon the same claim or demand, and its effect as an estoppel in another action between the same parties upon a different claim or cause of action.” Discussing the difference it referred to, that court said: “In the former ease, the judgment, if rendered upon the merits, constitutes an absolute bar to a subsequent action. It is a finality as to the claim or demand in controversy, concluding parties and those in privity with them, not only as to every matter which was offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim or demand, but as to any other admissible matter which might have been offered for that purpose. * * * But where the second action between the same parties is upon a different claim or demand, the judgment in the prior action operates as an estoppel only as to those matters in issue or points controverted, upon the determination of which the finding or verdict was rendered. In all cases, therefore, where it is sought to apply the estoppel of a judgment rendered upon one cause of action to matters arising in a suit upon a different cause of action, the inquiry must always be as to the point or question actually litigated or determined in the original action; not what might have been thus litigated and determined. Only upon such matters is the judgment conclusive in another action.” Applying the rule stated to the record before us, it is clear that the appeal has been properly disposed of. It not only was not shown, as it must have been to sustain appellants’ contention (24 A. & E. Enc. Law [2d Ed.] pp. 773-775, and notes; West v. Cole, 50 S. W. 151; James v. James, 81 Tex. 380, 16 S. W. 1087; Rackley v. Fowlkes, 89 Tex. 616, 36 S. W. 77; Griffin v. Barbee, 29 Tex. Civ. App. 325, 68 S. W. 698; Noel v. Clark, 25 Tex. Civ. App. 136, 60 S. W. 360; Land Mort. Co. v. Macdonell, 93 Tex. 398, 55 S. W. 739; Philipowski v. Spencer, 63 Tex. 607), that a question as to the validity of the conveyance to Mrs. Lane was determined in her suit against appellee and others, but it affirmatively appeared that the judgment in her favor was based alone upon the finding by the court that the judgment ap-pellee relied on for title was invalid.
The motion is overruled.