Court Opinion

ID: 9445351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:25:45.315341+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:13.083688
License: Public Domain

MAGRUDER, Chief Judge
(concurring) .
I concur. This case seems to me to present a very interesting question.
There are two distinct, though not unrelated, doctrines: (1) The obliga*686tion to give “full faith and credit” to the judicial proceedings of a state court, and in particular to the judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine in Lyle v. Bangor & Aroostook R. R. Co., 1954, 150 Me. 327, 110 A.2d 584, and (2) the principles of res judicata. The obligation to give such full faith and credit is imposed upon the several states by constitutional mandate in Article IY, Section 1, of the Federal Constitution. A corresponding obligation is imposed upon the federal courts by congressional mandate in 28 U.S.C. § 1738.
This full faith and credit obligation binds the .courts to give as full effect to the judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine as that judgment would have in the State of Maine. If, therefore, under the local law of Maine, the judgment of its Supreme Judicial Court affirming a compulsory nonsuit would stand as no legal barrier to the maintenance by the plaintiff of a second suit in the Maine courts on the same cause of action, then it would be no violation of the full faith and credit obligation for a federal court to entertain a second suit' on such cause of action.
But the- judicially formulated principles of res judicata are something else again. It is important to note that the cause of action sued on here, though the complaint might be filed either in a state court or in a federal court, is wholly created by federal law, that is, the Federal Employers’ Liability Act., There does not even exist any diversity of citizenship between the parties, though if such diversity did exist this would have been wholly coincidental and would not have transformed the case into a typical diversity of citizenship case. The substantive law to be applied to determine this case is federal law, to be formulated by the federal courts and ultimately by the Supreme Court of the United States, whatever might be the local law of Maine as to the effect, in Maine, of a compulsory -nonsuit. See our discussion in Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc., v. Amirault, 1 Cir., 1953, 202 F.2d 893, 896-897. Since this is an action under the Federal Employers’ . Liability Act, the federal law must be looked to in order to determine the applicable principles of res judicata, and to determine the extent to which res judicata is available as a defense to the action. That would be true even if the forum selected for bringing such an action is a state court. Determination of the state court not to bar the action on a defense of res judicata would not be binding as a matter of local law on the Supreme Court of the United States if it should choose to review the case on certiorari ; the latter court in such a situation would be free to take its own view as to the availability of res judicata as a defense to the federal cause of action. See Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., Inc., 1942, 317 U.S. 239, 63 S.Ct. 246, 87 L.Ed. 239.
- In this case there is no disagreement as to what happened in the state court in the prior action. The plaintiff presented his evidence, at the conclusion of which the defendant moved for an order of non-suit. This called for a judicial act and determination on the part of the trial judge, and his disposition of the motion depended upon whether, in his view, the plaintiff had shown enough to entitle him to a jury verdict on the issue of defendant’s negligence. The trial judge thought not, and entered the order of nonsuit. When this order came before the Supreme Judicial Court for review, that court had the same question before it. That question is commonly said to be a “question of law,” since it is one for the court to decide; nevertheless, it really calls for the exercise of a factual judgment. See Marshall v. Nugent, 1 Cir., 1955, 222 F.2d 604, 611. Plaintiff-appellant argued that he had shown enough in the trial court to go to the jury, and that the order of. nonsuit was therefore an improper invasion of the province of the jury, since there was sufficient evidence of negligence upon which reasonable men might differ in their conclusions. The Supreme Judicial Court took the same view of the evidence as did the trial judge, and therefore its judicial action was to overrule the exceptions to the *687order of non-suit. It could not have entered the judgment it did — a judgment which subsequently became final and not subject to further review in the Supreme Court of the United States — except upon a determination that the plaintiff’s evidence, looked at in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, was insufficient to take the case to the jury.
Now the plaintiff seeks to relitigate the same issue before a different tribunal, just as though the very issue had not already been determined against him— whether rightly or wrongly — as the basis of the adverse judgment rendered by the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine in the prior case. This is contrary to the most elementary principles of res judicata, and it certainly must be deemed to be contrary to the federal law of res judicata as a defense to a suit under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.
It may be that, even if the plaintiff was prepared in the court below to offer new evidence of negligence not already presented to the Maine courts, we might have to hold that the plaintiff’s prior unsuccessful action in the state courts, on the same cause of action, precludes maintenance of the present action, on federal principles of res judicata. We do not have to decide that point in this case, since the plaintiff disclosed to the trial judge below, at a pretrial conference, that he proposed to present to the jury only the same evidence which he produced in the prior action, and had no further evidence, hoping only to obtain a different judicial determination of the issue which inevitably would be presented, namely, whether the plaintiff had produced enough evidence entitling him to go to the jury. The proper disposition of this case, therefore, seems to me to be crystal-clear, whatever doubts I might entertain had the plaintiff sought to present to the federal court other evidence of negligence the force of which had not already been considered and passed upon by the state courts. Cf. Linton v. Perry Knitting Co., 1945, 295 N.Y. 14, 64 N.E.2d 270.
There remains a possible question of federal procedure. In Rule 8(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A., res judicata is included as one of the affirmative defenses to be set forth affirmatively by a defendant in his answer. The defendant did that in his original answer to the complaint filed in the court below. This answer set forth four defenses. The first defense stated that the complaint “fails to state a claim against defendant upon which relief can be granted.” The second was a general denial of the material allegations. The third pleaded that the action is res judicata because of the earlier final decision rendered by the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine upholding the involuntary nonsuit. The fourth, which was later abandoned, is now irrelevant. In a pretrial conference memorandum, the district court recites: “The defendant deleted entirely the third and fourth defenses from its Answer. It relies merely upon the first and second defenses.” At the pretrial conference it was also disclosed to the district judge that the plaintiff had already suffered an adverse determination in the state courts in an action in all respects identical to the cause of action now sought to be maintained before the federal court. Thereafter defendant made a motion, and amended motion, for summary judgment, stating that there was no genuine issue as to any material fact, since the Supreme Judicial Court in the earlier case had determined that the plaintiff’s own negligence was the sole proximate cause of his injuries, and since, as recited in the pretrial order, the plaintiff had no additional evidence to be presented in the pending action. Upon consideration of this motion, the district judge granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant. It seems to me that there was no procedural error in this, despite the fact that at the pretrial conference the defendant had specifically (and I think unnecessarily) deleted from its Answer the so-called third defense of res judicata. In this connection the district judge stated in his opinion: “The motion for summary judgment, as amended, is in effect based *688upon the failure of the plaintiff to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Ordinarily, a failure to state a claim is determined upon the complaint alone. In this case, however, the parties have submitted the record of the state court proceeding and the brief filed by the plaintiff with the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, and according to Rule 12(b) when matters outside the pleading are presented to and not excluded by the court, this defense may be determined upon a motion for summary judgment.”