Court Opinion

ID: 9591248
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:03:12.607413+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:08.746547
License: Public Domain

Birdsong, Presiding Judge.
Doctrine of Binding Precedent. The facts giving rise to this law suit show that Norris was an employee of Signal Delivery Service, Inc. (SDSI) and drove his truck upon a railroad crossing into the path of an approaching train. A crewman of that train was holding on to a step and standing on a lower step of a ladder on the rear of the engine. The stop caused by the sudden braking and the train running into the truck threw the crewman against another part of the engine, injuring his back. The crewman brought suit in Fulton County against SDSI for personal injuries alleging that the accident and his injuries *390resulted from the sole negligence of Norris. SDSI, as the employer of Norris, defended on the ground that the railroad was negligent in failing to give appropriate signal warning or to furnish a safe crossing and that the crewman was injured through his own negligence. Norris was called as a witness and testified fully on the issues of negligence. The jury resolved the issues of fact, necessarily finding the accident and injuries were the direct result of the negligence of Norris and by the doctrine of respondeat superior assessed a verdict of $20,000 in favor of the crewman against SDSI. Subsequently, Norris and his wife instituted the present proceedings by filing their own joint complaint in Coweta County against the railroad for injuries suffered in the accident together with an action by his wife for loss of consortium.
The parties on appeal wrestle with issues of res judicata and collateral estoppel. Though there can be no disagreement with the correctness of the legal principles of res judicata as between the same parties in previous litigation, or the necessity of privity in relation to res judicata, estoppel by judgment or collateral estoppel; nor to the relative rights as between master and servant where favorable or adverse judgment has been rendered for one or the other, there is no relevancy of these principles of law to the facts of this case. As we see the real issue, by applying the principles of binding precedent to the facts of this case, we conclude the failure to apply the principles of res judicata to this case has neither denied Norris or his wife their day in court nor denied them due process of law.
The doctrine of binding precedent apparently had its genesis in Bray v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 103 Ga. App. 783 (120 SE2d 628). The Bray case at 103 Ga. App. 783, supra, was preceded by a suit by Bray’s wife also against Westinghouse but for loss of consortium. Bray v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 102 Ga. App. 803 (117 SE2d 919). In that case Mrs. Bray sued Westinghouse for loss of consortium due to injuries received by her husband emanating from the alleged negligence of Westinghouse. Westinghouse established that the injuries were in fact caused by the negligence of a fellow employee of Bray and the trial court sustained a general demurrer to Mrs. Bray’s complaint. Thereafter, Bray himself brought suit against Westinghouse seeking recovery for his own injuries. His complaint in effect was a restatement of the allegations of negligence contained in his wife’s earlier suit for loss of consortium. This court sustained the trial court’s grant of Westinghouse’s demurrer on the basis that any issue of liability attaching to Westinghouse had already been adjudicated adversely as to Mr. Bray. Even though the former judgment did not qualify as an estoppel by judgment because the parties were different, the prior judgment was a binding precedent because the controlling issue in the second case (103 Ga. App. 783) (the cause of Mr. Bray’s injuries) had already been adjudicated (102 Ga. App. 803) under sub*391stantially similar allegations.
In Russ Transport v. Jones, 104 Ga. App. 612 (122 SE2d 282), the employee of Russ Transport was involved in a collision with a car driven by Mrs. Jones. Russ Transport sued Mrs. Jones in federal court and she counterclaimed for her personal injuries received in the collision. The jury returned a verdict resulting in a discharge of all liability of Russ Transport to Mrs. Jones on her cross complaint and a discharge of all liability of Mrs. Jones to Russ Transport on its complaint. Thereafter, Mr. Jones sued Russ Transport for recovery of medical expenses and loss of consortium. This court, in allowing the husband’s suit, held that neither the parties nor the issues were the same in the two suits. While in the first suit the wife was seeking damages for personal injuries, the husband in the second suit was seeking lost services, different damages. Thus husband and wife lacked privity in their respective lawsuits. See in this regard Armstrong Furniture Co. v. Nickle, 110 Ga. App. 686 (140 SE2d 72) and Blakewood v. Yellow Cab Co. of Savannah, 61 Ga. App. 149 (6 SE2d 126). Subsequently in Stapleton v. Palmore, 162 Ga. App. 525 (291 SE2d 445), the lack of necessity of privity between spouses was again recognized where one suit was for personal injuries (with an adverse result) and the second suit was for loss of services.
However, it had been recognized in Hightower v. Landrum, 109 Ga. App. 510, 514 (136 SE2d 425) that the right of a spouse to recover for loss of consortium due to injuries incurred by the other spouse cannot arise unless the right to consortium was adversely affected by the other spouse’s injuries and those personal injuries arose from acts for which liability attaches. This is a recognition of the rule announced in the second Bray case, 103 Ga. App. 783, supra, that if the spouse seeking loss of consortium sues first alleging that certain acts of negligence caused the other spouse’s injuries and receives an adverse judgment, the injured spouse is barred from a second suit seeking damages for personal injuries because the very acts of negligence upon which liability is to attach have already been litigated with an adverse result.
Thus it is apparent that whether we must seek and apply findings of privity as required in a bar of estoppel by judgment and thus in effect apply res judicata or whether no question of privity is involved because a prior binding precedent attaches depends upon whether the first suit was simply based upon the injured spouse’s personal damages or based solely upon loss of consortium and the second suit was not relitigating the exact same issues of liability. Stapleton v. Palmore, 250 Ga. 259 (297 SE2d 270); Hightower, supra; Bray, 103 Ga. App. 783, supra. As previously recognized, there is no privity in separate suits by spouses for they seek different damages for different injuries except in those cases such as the two Bray cases where *392though different damages were sought, the damages were based upon the same identical allegations of negligence which had been considered and received an adverse result in a court of competent jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court on certiorari of this court’s decision in 162 Ga. App. 525, in the Stapleton v. Palmore case, 250 Ga. 259, supra, clearly recognized this dichotomy. It further amplified and gave direction where a case involved the issue of lack of privity as between the two differing causes of action by concluding (as did this court in the earlier decision at 162 Ga. App. 525) that where the two spouses bring their suit simultaneously, the same jury reaching a finding as to both spousal complaints of a lack of actionable negligence by the defendant as to the injured spouse, likewise must find no liability as the loss of consortium claim, for the issue of negligence and liability has been litigated adversely as to both claims (consistent with the Bray and Hightower rationale). Because of the problems created by spouses bringing their separately based actions before different juries (thus not derivative in effect) as contrasted with bringing their separately based actions before the same jury (thus making the consortium claim wholly derivative), it concluded that joinder of such actions was required to obviate the disparate and confusing results, though failure by the parties to require joinder would not change the possibility of adverse results.
This analysis of the above discussed consortium cases forces the conclusion that this state recognizes, accepts, and will apply the doctrine of binding precedent under appropriate circumstances. The earlier cases decided and discussed herein point unerringly to the result reached by this court in the case of Lowe Engineers v. Royal Indem. Co., 164 Ga. App. 255, 259 (297 SE2d 41). In that case, we stated that the doctrine of binding precedent provides where the issue of liability has been litigated in an earlier trial before a court of competent jurisdiction upon the same facts and same issues as between the litigating parties with positive results and those parties must now look to the same facts as relied upon in that previously adjudicated result, the former judgment, although not res judicata, estoppel by judgment nor collateral estoppel as to the present action because the parties are different, does indeed constitute a binding precedent because the controlling issue has already been litigated under substantially similar allegations.
In this case, Norris was called as a witness and unsuccessfully sought to show his acts were not negligent and did not cause the accident which resulted in injury to Atlanta and West Point’s employee; rather that Atlanta and West Point was negligent in the maintenance and efficacy of the warning signal and grade crossing. He now seeks to relitigate that exact same issue upon the same facts. Mrs. Norris also *393seeks loss of consortium, a separate action admittedly, but filed as a joint action and thus her action is subject to the same result as her husband’s. Hightower v. Landrum, supra.
Though the railroad moved for summary judgment on principles of res judicata and collateral estoppel, the trial court simply granted the railroad summary judgment. In light of the applicability of the doctrine of binding precedent, we conclude the judgment of the trial court is proper and legal for an appropriate reason. Thus, we will affirm the decision regardless of the speculation that there may be a possibly erroneous reason for such judgment. Argonaut Ins. Co. v. Cline, 138 Ga. App. 778, 782 (4) (227 SE2d 405).

Judgment affirmed.

Bánke, C. J., Deen, P. J., Sognier, Pope, and Benham, JJ., concur. Deen, P. J., Pope, and Beasley, JJ., concur specially. McMurray, P. J., and Carley, J., dissent.