Court Opinion

ID: 9478844
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:00:25.786344+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:39.450526
License: Public Domain

*1047JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur but think needed precision in applying our en banc opinion in Nilsen warrants special emphasis.
First, Nilsen is not only binding, it is sound and, as the Court points out, it is applicable whether the first and second Federal Courts are one and the same, different, both in the same state, or in different states.
Statutes of limitations do not operate abstractly. Rather each pertains to a particular cause of action. Thus a 6-year statute of limitations for a Written contract would not be applicable to a suit for personal injuries with a 2-year statute of limitations.
Here the Louisiana suit was in redhibition 1 to which a 1-year prescriptive period applies. Strictly speaking what, and all, the Louisiana Federal Court determined was the plaintiffs redhibitory action was prescribed since that was the only Louisiana claim which was asserted. At that stage, no rights under Mississippi law were presented. The Louisiana Federal Court did not, nor could it then, determine that any Mississippi claim (cause of action) did or could exist. Also at that stage, the Mississippi Federal Court would had to have given res judicata effect only to the Louisiana Federal Court decision that the Louisiana claim for redhibition was time barred. Hence, the Mississippi Federal Court was correct in saying that the Louisiana Federal Court’s decision that the Louisiana redhibitory action was prescribed did not compel a finding of res judicata by the Mississippi Federal Court.
But this was all changed by the plaintiff’s misguided decision to try to persuade the Louisiana Federal Court that Mississippi, not Louisiana, law applied. The Louisiana Federal Court held that Louisiana, not Mississippi, law applied. This Court of Appeals affirmed that decision. Steve Thompson Trucking, Inc. v. Dorsey Trailers, Inc., 841 F.2d 394 (5th Cir.1988) (unpublished opinion).
This was the classic case2 of the first Court determining an issue that was squarely and necessarily presented, namely that the Louisiana law of redhibition applied and not the law of Mississippi. “When an issue of fact or law is actually litigated and determined by a valid and final judgment, and the determination is essential to the judgment, the determination is conclusive in a subsequent action between the parties, whether on the same or different claim.” Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 27 (1982). That became binding on the Mississippi Federal Court which could no longer determine that it really was a Mississippi cause of action with a 6-year statute of limitations.
The Court gets to the right result by the wrong route. The doctrine of res judicata rests on precision. Our rationale should be equally precise.

. La.C.C. arts. 2534, 2546.

. See, e.g., Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 27 comment c, illustration 6.