Fate v. Dixon

649 F. Supp. 551

Forest L. FATE, Plaintiff, v. Ernest DIXON, Sheriff of County of Person, et al., Defendants.

No. 85-1638-CRT.

United States District Court, E.D. North Carolina, Raleigh Division.

December 1, 1986.

Memorandum and Recommendation September 25, 1986.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Edwin Walker, Raleigh, N.C., for plaintiff.

Tyrus V. Dahl, Jr., Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice, Winston Salem, N.C., James W. Tolin, Jr., Toling & Long, Roxboro, N.C., for defendants.

ORDER

BRITT, Chief Judge.

On 25 September 1986 Magistrate Alexander B. Denson filed his memorandum and recommendation with regard to the motion by defendants for summary judgment. Both plaintiff and defendants have filed objections to the recommendation, and the matter is now before the court for ruling.

A de novo review of the record convinces the court that the well-reasoned recommendation of Magistrate Denson is, in all respects, in accordance with law. Therefore, the objections are overruled and the court adopts the recommendations of Magistrate Denson, which are incorporated herein by reference, as its own. Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that:

1. As to defendant, "Director of Internal Affairs Division of Person County," this action is hereby dismissed;

2. As to defendant, Michael Ruffin, County Manager, this action is hereby dismissed;

3. Except as above noted, the motion of defendants for summary judgment is denied.

MEMORANDUM AND RECOMMENDATION

ALEXANDER B. DENSON, United States Magistrate.

The plaintiff contends that there was deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs while he was in the Person County jail between January 9 and January 12, 1984. That same year he filed a § 1983 action in this court, # 84-137-CRT, against several defendants about the incident, which action was tried before the undersigned and a jury. Judgment was entered for the defendants on the jury verdict on October 17, 1985 and affirmed by the Fourth Circuit on appeal. This new action is based on the same incident, but against different defendants, none of whom was a party to the prior action. These defendants have now filed a Motion for Summary Judgment contending that the prior action precludes plaintiff from maintaining this one. The motion is now ripe for ruling.

Legal evolution has supplanted the once familiar terms of res judicata and collateral estoppel with the more modern ones of "claim preclusion" and "issue preclusion." Although cases and commentators frequently observe that these concepts are confusing,¹ they may be stated with some precision — and, hopefully, succinctness and clarity — here, as they arguably apply to the decision now before the court.

Claim preclusion is the equivalent of res judicata and it bars relitigation of causes of action which were brought, or might have been brought in a prior action between the parties in which there was a final judgment. Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153, 99 S.Ct. 970, 973, 59 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979). Issue preclusion replaces collateral estoppel and applies when the second action is brought on a different cause of action than the first. Issues actually litigated in the prior action may not be litigated anew in the second. Migra v. Warren City School District Board of Education, 465 U.S. 75, 104 S.Ct. 892, 894, n. 1, 79 L.Ed.2d 56 (1984). Both of these concepts must be considered in this ruling.

A. Claim Preclusion

It is necessary to recite some of the facts so that the legal analysis may be fully and more easily understood. Plaintiff alleged in the prior action, and alleges here, that he had been a prisoner housed in the Franklin County jail when he was transferred to the Person County jail for a court appearance on January 9, 1984. He suffered from asthma and a sinus condition and he had appropriate medicine for these ailments at the Franklin County jail. When he was transferred to the Person County jail, his medicine was not taken with him, perhaps because it was mistakenly assumed that his stay in Person County would be only a few hours. In any event, he alleges that he asked for his medicine and complained of asthma and sinus attacks but was deprived of the medicine and treatment until his transfer back to Franklin County on January 12, 1984. In the first suit, plaintiff named three of the Person County deputy sheriffs as defendants. The case went to trial and the jury found that none of the named defendants was deliberately indifferent to plaintiff's medical needs. Some of the evidence which was adduced at trial suggested that others may have been more culpable than the defendants named in the pro se complaint.

Thus plaintiff filed this action against the Sheriff of Person County, another deputy sheriff, the county manager, and "Director of Internal Affairs Division of Person County." None of the defendants in this action was a party in the former action.

The defendants argue that the issues in the present action could have been asserted in the prior action and that under the applicable law they are barred. In support of this position, defendants quote from an opinion by Judge James C. Fox of this court in Stewart v. Hunt, 598 F.Supp. 1342 (E.D.N.C.1984):

A judgment on the merits is conclusive not only as to matters actually litigated and determined, but also as to all matters properly within the scope of the pleadings which could and should have been adjudicated at that time ...

at p. 1340.²

The answer to this argument, of course, is that the first action contained no pleadings as to the present defendants. So, even though Judge Fox was undoubtedly correct in the Stewart case, that holding is not relevant to the ruling before this court, since the liability of these defendants was not "properly within the scope of the pleadings" in the first case.

It is clear that defendants are relying on the doctrine of claim preclusion, since there is no contention that the first jury passed on the issue of whether these named defendants were indifferent to plaintiff's serious medical needs.

The Fourth Circuit has clearly defined the elements of res judicata, or claim preclusion:

As applied, the essential elements of the doctrine are generally stated to be (1) a final judgment on the merits in an earlier suit, (2) an identity of the cause of action in both the earlier and the later suit, and (3) an identity of parties or their privies in the two suits.

Nash County Board of Education v. The Biltmore Company, 640 F.2d 484, at 486 (4th Cir.1981).

The second element is missing here, that of identity of the causes of action in the two suits. The claim in the first action that certain individuals were deliberately indifferent to plaintiff's serious medical needs is a totally different cause of action than the claim in this suit that other persons were deliberately indifferent to plaintiff's serious medical needs. "A single plaintiff has as many causes of action as there are defendants to pursue." 18 C. Wright, A. Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 4407 at 52, 53 (1981). A plaintiff may bring successive actions against multiple defendants liable for the same injury, although he may be barred from relitigating an issue decided against him in a prior suit. Webb v. Distefano, 575 F.Supp. 639, 641 (D.Neb.1983). This rule applies whether plaintiff won or lost the prior action against the other defendants.³

It is perhaps stated best in the Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 49:

A judgment against one person liable for a loss does not terminate a claim that the injured party may have against another person who may be liable therefor.

It is also worth quoting portions of the Official Comment to that section:

a. Rationale. When a person suffers injury as the result of the concurrent or consecutive acts of two or more persons, he has a claim against each of them. If he brings an action against one of them, he is required to present all of the evidence and theories of recovery that might be advanced in support of the claim against that obligor.... Correlatively, if judgment is rendered against him, he is barred from bringing a subsequent action against the obligor ... But the claim against others who are liable for the same harm is regarded as separate. Accordingly, a judgment for or against one obligor does not result in merger or bar of the claim that the injured party may have against another obligor.

* * * * * *

When the claimant thus brings consecutive actions against different persons liable for the same harm, the rendition of the judgment in the first action does not terminate the claims against other persons who may be liable for the loss in question....

It is true, as Judge Murnaghan of the Fourth Circuit has observed, "The Restatement, of course, binds no one. But it is persuasive." Dracos v. Hellenic Lines, Ltd., 705 F.2d 1392 (1983) (Judge Murnaghan dissenting).

The Tenth Circuit has even stated that an argument along the lines of defendants here was "frivolous," noting that "plaintiff has a separate cause of action against each defendant and is not precluded from acting against one by judgment against another." McClelland v. Facteau, 610 F.2d 693 at p. 695, n. 1, (10th Cir.1979) (reh. denied, 1980). Other courts which have considered the question have agreed that this is the law. See, e.g., Landrigan v. City of Warwick, 628 F.2d 736 (1st Cir.1980) (A civil rights action against two towns and three police officers was not barred by a prior state court action against one of the officers arising out of the same incident.); Gill & Duffus Services, Inc. v. A.M. Nural Islam, 675 F.2d 404 (D.C.Cir.1982) ("As a rule, `the rendition of a judgment against one of two or more persons liable for a loss does not terminate a claim that the injured party may have against any other person who may be liable therefor.'")

So, although it is true as Judge Fox observed in Stewart, that a judgment is conclusive as to all matters within the scope of the pleadings which...