Court Opinion

ID: 9623343
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:31:29.175319+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:20.981670
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in the dissent of TOWLES, Justice Pro Tern.
I am in complete agreement with that which Judge Towles has written. I write mainly to point out an Idaho case which well illustrates his caution that the state court should not dismiss outright the action on the possibility that the federal court may “ultimately determine that it did not have jurisdiction,” and “[wjithout another action pending in the state court it is highly conceivable that a litigant could lose his day in court through the operation of the Statute of Limitations.” Newland v. Edgar, 362 F.2d 911 (9th Cir. 1966), was just such a case where that very thing might have happened. On the appeal being heard on the merits, the circuit court ruled that the United States District Court had acted without any jurisdiction, and vacated the district court judgment. Federal jurisdiction had been claimed both under the bankruptcy act and diversity of citizenship plus jurisdictional amount. The circuit court found flaws in both. Had the action been brought in federal court, dismissal in that court would have left the plaintiff facing the plea in bar of the statute of limitations.
*528The majority of the Court who issue the Court’s opinion today seemingly prefer to remain oblivious to the fact that such happenings can and do take place. Law, logic and common sense ride with the opinion authored by Judge Towles. There is indeed no sound reason why the state court here could not have and should not have merely entered a stay of any further proceedings in that court until the matter was wholly concluded in the federal system, and “then properly consider the question of res judicata.” The sequence of events in the circuit court, i. e., the reversal of the district court judgment and remand for further proceedings including the amendment of pleadings, adequately serve to demonstrate the fallacy of the Court’s opinion in sustaining the trial court’s outright dismissal of the action. As the proof of the pudding is often to be found in the eating, the circuit court’s reversal established the wisdom of the well established rule, set forth by Judge Towles in his opinion.
My understanding of the majority’s philosophy is simply that a trial court is vested with discretion in such circumstances, and whether further proceedings are stayed until the outcome of the other suit in federal court, or whether the second suit is dismissed outright, this Court will not interfere. This I believe to be unsound. What happened in the instant case, and what transpired in the Newland case, well serve to mandate that the exercise of such discretion must be a considered one, one that is based on logic, and hopefully on the abundance of precedent as well, but more importantly, an exercise which is entitled to careful appellate review.
Mention should be made that the defense here involved “another action pending between the same parties for the same cause,” which, although found in I.R.C.P. Rule 12(b) as subparagraph (8), was not adopted from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, but rather came from former I.C. § 5-607(3), which provided for the right in a defendant to demur to a complaint which disclosed “[t]hat there is another action pending between the same parties for the same cause.” Apparently the Court for the first time used the nomenclature “issue in abatement” to describe the affirmative defense of another action pending in Sanderson v. Salmon River Canal Co., 34 Idaho 145, 162, 199 P. 999, 1004 (1921), appeal dismissed, 260 U.S. 755, 43 S.Ct. 94, 67 L.Ed. 497 (1922). The text, 1 Am.Jur.2d Abatement, Survival and Revival § 3 (1962) recognizes that “abatement” has more than one legal meaning, but that in connection with the defense of another action pending “abatement” is used loosely and interchangeably as a substitute for “stay of proceedings’-although the two are distinguishable by a number of things. Hence:
. . in proper circumstances the court may stay a proceeding pending the outcome of another proceeding although a strict plea in abatement could not be sustained.
“Where a question of abatement or stay arises in the domestic forum during determination of a pending action in another jurisdiction, a stay is merely a temporary cessation of the proceedings awaiting the outcome of the litigation in the other jurisdiction, while abatement is a complete dismissal or discontinuance of the action. The court may, in a proper case, stay proceedings until termination of the suit having priority, and, when the cause for abatement is removed, revive the suit if anything is left to be litigated. In the event of a stay of proceedings, the domestic proceedings may be resumed if the other matter is not diligently consummated to judgment in the other forum; but if so consummated, that judgment, if applicable, may be pleaded as res judicata in the domestic proceedings. On the other hand, if proceedings at the domestic forum are abated, and proceedings in the foreign jurisdiction are not prosecuted to culmination, an entirely new action must be instituted to bring the cause before the domestic forum.” Id. at § 43 (footnotes omitted).
The foregoing general statement of the law reflects the philosophy of the California courts from which I.C. § 5-607(3) was taken. The California courts have held that *529the affirmative defense of another action pending may result in an abatement, or may result in a stay of proceedings. The courts there recognize the general rule as set forth by Judge Towles in his opinion, where both suits are not within the same state, or not within the same judicial system, noting however that “ ‘the court in which the second action is brought may in its discretion stay or suspend that suit, awaiting decision in the first one, or, influenced by a spirit of comity, may refuse to entertain it, if the same relief can be awarded in the prior suit.’ ” Simmons v. Superior Court, 96 Cal.App.2d 119, 214 P.2d 844, 848 (Cal.App. 1950), quoting 1 Am.Jur. Abatement, Survival and Revival § 39 (1936).
From that statement I would take it to be the law that under the circumstances of the case the district court could not enter a dismissal where the other pending and prior suit is in the federal system, albeit in the District of Idaho, but can, and probably should, in a proper exercise of discretion, place the second action in abeyance awaiting the outcome of the earlier suit. In Simmons the California Court of Appeals laid out the history of another case, Dodge v. Superior Court, 139 Cal.App. 178, 33 P.2d 695, rehearing denied, opinion amended 139 Cal.App. 178, 34 P.2d 501 (1934), where the California district court stayed a proceeding in that state in favor of a prior action pending in Washington, and, after final judgment in Washington, which followed conclusion of the case on appeal in California, the California court then took up the matter, finding that the Washington judgment was in fact res judicata and binding on the plaintiff in the California action.
In conclusion, it would seem that the entry of an order by the trial court staying further proceedings until the final conclusion of the prior action in federal court, with leave to the respondents here to thereupon amend their answer, if necessary, to fully plead their defense of res judicata, based upon their federal court judgment, would be the only reasonable solution, and certainly would not bring on all the vexatious and harassing problems which seem to be the concern of the majority of this Court. Whether the ultimate federal judgment is or is not res judicata and hence a bar to any further claims by these plaintiffs is an issue which the plaintiffs are entitled to pursue. As with all litigation, it may be expensive. Such, however, does not justify the Court in upholding the dismissal of plaintiffs’ action in Idaho state court on the basis that another action between the parties is pending in the federal system.
Obviously, had the trial court entered a stay of proceedings, pending the final outcome of the action in federal court, all of the parties to this action from that time forward would have been relieved of any further expenditures until that outcome was obtained. By dismissing this action the trial court put the parties to the additional expense of this appeal in appellants’ justifiable effort to protect their position pending the determination of the action in another forum in another system.