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Peterson v. Newton (CA1 8/27/13)

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Does res judicata apply to a small-claims judgment? The court says “yes.”

Plaintiff took judgment against defendant in the small-claims division for injuries sustained in a car accident. For $2500 whole dollars. Apparently realizing her mistake, she then filed the same claim in Superior Court, so that court dismissed it.

On appeal she argued that res judicata shouldn’t apply to the small-claims division. The court says in ¶8 that she didn’t cite any authority, then beginning at ¶11 discusses for a couple of pages the authority she cited, Clusiau (2010), holding that under the facts of that case collateral estoppel didn’t apply to small claims. But collateral estoppel has different elements and so the court determines that Clusiau doesn’t apply. The general rule – the court cites the Restatement of Judgments and, what else is new, cases from such helpful jurisdictions as Connecticut, Missouri, and Idaho – is that res judicata does apply to courts of limited jurisdiction.

Plaintiff also argues that small claims couldn’t award the full amount of her damages. But filing there was voluntary – “we emphasize [her] intentional decision to initially [sic] pursue her case in small claims court” – it might have been a tactical decision, for example to get some money more quickly – and so she is bound by it.

Although the parties said “res judicata” the court is careful to say “claim preclusion” and offers a cite for it — a 2006 opinion from the Arizona Supreme Court that mentioned “claim preclusion, formerly referred to as res judicata” (sic, i.e., not italicized). Strange that our appellate courts have have used “res judicata” in  269 cases since then. We wonder over whom Judge Brown is announcing his intellectual superiority – you and me or the judges in those 269 cases. He also says “issue preclusion” when discussing Clusiau even though that case itself – from the old, dark days of 2010 – said “collateral estoppel.” He’s apparently too busy to have read this, since we can’t think of another good reason not to.

(link to opinion)

Reid v. Keifauver (CA1 8/27/13)

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A case about the firefighters’ rule.

Reid, a police officer, saw Keifauver roll her car and was injured when tried to help her out of it. He sued her for negligence under the rescue doctrine. The trial court granted defendant summary judgment on the firefighters’ rule. Reid appealed.

He argued, first, that the rule didn’t apply to him because he had no duty to help her escape the car; as to that he was merely a volunteer. That’s Espinoza (2006), which otherwise adopted the firefighters’ rule. But Reid was on duty (Espinoza had been off-duty) and had an obligation to “respond to and secure the accident scene.” He might not have had a duty to help but “the key to the analysis is whether Reid’s on-duty obligations as a law enforcement officer compelled his presence at the scene,” not what he did when he got there.

Reid next argued that the firefighters’ rule is about assumption of risk, which only the jury can consider. The Court of Appeals reads Espinoza as saying that it isn’t.

The amici want the firefighters’ doctrine abolished, which obviously CA1 can’t do so its not altogether clear why they were brought in at this level.

(link to opinion)

Wyckoff v. Mogollon Health Alliance (CA2 8/22/13)

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Division Two’s rare ventures into the field of published civil law often afford opportunity for snarky comment, though this time they’re as much about the lawyering as the judging.

Wyckoff sued her former employer Mogollon claiming that mold in the workplace made her sick. Mogollon defaulted but successfully moved to set aside the resulting judgment; it then won summary judgment based on the statute of limitations.. Wyckoff appealed both rulings; the court affirms.

On appeal Mogollon argued that the Court of Appeals could not consider the order setting aside default because it was an unsigned minute entry. But there was a final judgment – the summary judgment – and so the court takes jurisdiction of all related orders.

Mogollon also made an abatement argument regarding delay in serving the Complaint but had forgotten both to plead it and to argue it in the trial court.

(In other words, much of Mogollon’s brief was wasted in useless silliness. But what else is new? Courts have been complaining about this sort of thing for at least 100 years. Criticize judges as you will but the poor saps must spend much of their time reading brain-dead arguments that some lawyer charged a lot of money to make. Will the profession never have a serious talk with itself about why lawyers, even respected lawyers, continue to do these things?  You know the answer to that.  If the medical profession operated with the efficiency of the legal profession, we’d all be dead.)

Wyckoff argued that the trial court was wrong in finding the default judgment void, not voidable. But guess what? She hadn’t argued it below.

On the statute of limitations Wyckoff argued the discovery rule. The court spends a long paragraph explaining what that novel, abstruse concept is. In then tells us that “Arizona courts have not addressed the issue of the discovery rule in the specific context of toxic mold exposure.” But the court has read a lot of mold cases from other jurisdictions and “a general rule emerges”: the cause of action accrues when “the claimant experiences physical signs and symptoms of illness, knows that she has been exposed to mold, and knows that mold may present a health hazard.”

So, is this a special rule for mold? If so, why does mold need a special rule? How does it differ from the usual discovery rule? Or is it merely the application to these facts of our normal discovery rule? And if so, why not say that rather than pretend that mere Arizona law isn’t good enough for mold?

(The judges who read those brain-dead briefs always believe that their opinions are of higher quality.)

Although her doctors were at first unsure of the cause of her problems Wyckoff suspected mold even before she retired, which was more than two years before she filed. Judgment affirmed.

We’ll assume that the court published this as a reminder of the scope of its jurisdiction over final judgments, the unfortunate but more likely alternative being that it thought it was making some contribution to the discovery rule.

(link to opinion)