stating that party may not bring identical cause of action against one defendant and then bring subsequent action against closely related defendants
How later courts described this case
- stating that party may not bring identical cause of action against one defendant and then bring subsequent action against closely related defendants
- noting that the test for privity is whether there is a sufficiently close relationship between the party to the prior litigation and the nonparty against whom the prior judgment is being used
- “Privity states no reason for including or excluding one from the estoppel of a judgment. It is merely a word used to say that the relationship between the one who is a party on the record and another is close enough to include that other within the res judicata.”
- “[W]here . . . res judicata is invoked against a plaintiff who has twice asserted essentially the same claim against different defendants, courts have . . . enlarged the area of res judicata beyond any definable categories of privity between the defendants.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
GOODRICH, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
While I agree with the result reached in this case, the grounds upon which it is reached by the majority present a theory of res judicata which seems to me somewhat unusual. I should like to avoid commitment upon accepting these grounds until such commitment becomes a necessary part of the decision of a case.
The difference between Judge Hastie’s analysis and my own will be brought out by the following hypothetical case:
A brings an action against B for infringement of a patent. B defends on the ground that the alleged patent was void and obtains judgment. A brings an action for infringement of the same patent against C who seeks to interpose the judgment in favor of B as res judicata, but setting up no relation with B.
I gather that Judge Hastie would say that A has had his day in court, has lost and should not have another chance. On this I should, as at present advised, disagree. The hypothetical case put is Illustration 10 to Section 93 of the Restatement of Judgments.
My view of the law is that a man having had his day in court is collaterally estopped by the judgment rendered in the lawsuit as against his opponent. He is likewise es-topped as to persons sufficiently close to that opponent to make it fair to have the estoppel run against them also. This last phrase is, I take it, what is meant by “privity.” Privity states no reason for including or excluding one from the estoppel of a judgment. It is merely a word used to say that the relationship between the one who is a party on the record and another is close enough to include that other within the res judicata.
I think that here the relationship between the operating ship company and the United States was close enough so that what binds one should bind the other and, by the same token, what frees one should free the other as against the same plaintiff. So I think Bruszewski was bound in second suit by the judgment against him in the first.
As I read the Restatement of Judgments the views set out above are supported by the propositions stated and discussed in Sections 93 and following. And Grief v. Dullea, 1944, 66 Cal.App.2d 986 , 153 P.2d 581 , seems right on the point.