61 A.2d 180 | N.J. | 1948
The question here is whether the doctrine of res judicata is applicable. *706
The action is for damages ensuing from a collision on a public highway between an automobile owned by defendant Frank Antonucci and operated by his son and co-defendant, Thomas, and a motor bus owned by plaintiff but leased to Hudson Transit Lines, Inc., and in the latter's exclusive possession and control by its servant and agent at the time of the mishap. Frank Antonucci counter-claimed for the damages to his vehicle. There was a jury verdict for plaintiff and judgment thereon; and defendant's sole ground of appeal is that there was error in the denial of their prayer for leave to interpose a supplemental answer pleading in bar a judgment in favor of Frank Antonucci in an action for the damage to his automobile which had been made the subject of the counter-claim herein brought by him against plaintiff's lessee, Hudson Transit Lines, Inc., in the District Court of the Essex County Judicial District after the commencement of the instant action. The later action was the first to be tried. The plaintiff herein was not a party to that action.
It is said, in a word, that "privity is a concomitant of the lessor-lessee relationship," and thus the "controversy" in the case at hand "was between the same parties and their privies and involved the same issue," and therefore the judgment of the District Court is res judicata of all the issues raised in this action.
There is privity of estate or interest between the lessor and the lessee of personal property; but the doctrine of resjudicata does not for that reason serve to bar plaintiff's action. Privity is simply mutual or successive relationship to the same rights of property. Privity within the view of the rule of res judicata ordinarily means identity of interest, through succession to the same rights of property involved in the prior litigation. Compare Ludy v. Larsen,
The judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction on a question of law or fact, or on a question of mixed law and fact, once litigated and determined, is, so long as it stands unreversed, conclusive upon the parties and their privies, *707
not only as to the subject of the particular action, but also as to all future litigation touching the subject-matter. This is so even though the prior and subsequent litigations involve different things, if there be substantial identity in the subject-matter of the two. Where the right to relief in the one suit shall rest upon the same point or question which, in essence and substance, was litigated and determined in the prior suit, the parties and their privies are concluded, "not only as to every matter which was offered and received to sustain or defeat the claim or demand, but as to any other admissible matter which might have been offered for that purpose." Paterson v. Baker,
A landlord and tenant have separate and distinct estates in the demised lands; and each has a right of action for a tortious injury to his own particular estate or interest, but not for injury to the estate or interest of the other. Tinsman v. TheBelvidere Delaware Railroad Co.,
Yet the bailor also has a right of action for injury to his reversionary interest in the property, enforceable even before the termination of the bailment. New York and L.E. and W.Railroad Co. v. New Jersey Electric Railway Co.,
The modern view is that a bailor at will may sue for the conversion of or for harm to the chattel, and recover full damages, and a valid judgment against him on the merits bars a subsequent action by the bailee against the third person to the same extent as if the first action had been by the bailee; while a bailor for a term may recover only for the harm done to his reversionary interest, leaving the bailee free to prosecute an action for the injury done to his possessory interest.Restatement, Judgments, § 88. The bailee's right to recover damages for the entire injury to the property rests, not upon the doctrine of agency or respondeat superior, but upon his special property therein arising out of the exclusive right of possession and his actual possession or right of possession thereof at the time of such loss and injury, and his *709
liability over. Pendleton v. Benner Line, supra; Metal PackageCorporation of New York v. Osborn,
Thus, the judgment of the District Court against the bailee for negligence does not constitute a bar to the instant action. The rule of collateral estoppel is not invocable in these circumstances. There is no such identity or privity of parties as to render the judgment in the District Court conclusive of the issue joined herein. Compare Hornstein v. Kramer Bros. FreightLines, 133 Fed. Rep. (2d) 143. The record does not reveal whether the bailment here was at will or for a term; but that is immaterial, for the judgment invoked is not one in favor of the bailee for the injury to the chattel, but against the bailee for the damage to Antonucci's automobile.
In this view, we have no occasion to consider the rule applied in Bergin v. Ganley,
Judgment affirmed.
For affirmance — THE CHANCELLOR, CHIEF JUSTICE, BODINE, DONGES, HEHER, COLIE, WACHENFELD, EASTWOOD, BURLING, JACOBS, WELLS, DILL, FREUND, McLEAN, SCHETTINO, JJ. 15.
For reversal — None.