Collateral Estoppel and Party Mutuality

Lack of party mutuality does not bar collateral estoppel. That’s what the Connecticut Appellate Court concluded in Pollansky v. Pollansky, which will be officially released on January 26, 2016. The Appellate Court cited two Connecticut Supreme Court decisions from the 1990s for the propositions that “the mutuality requirement has … been widely abandoned as an ironclad rule” and “important notions of judicial economy are served by abandon[ing] … the doctrine of mutuality.” That surprised me a little, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Intra-family disputes drag me down and this one is no different. Mom and Dad bought some property in the ’60s and began operating a sand and gravel business on it. Son worked with Dad in the business from Son’s teenage years through Dad’s retirement in 1992. After Dad retired, Mom and Dad let Son and his wife use the property for their own businesses. Dad died in 2010 and Mom became the property’s sole owner.  That’s when the problem started. Mom, then in her eighties, needed some additional retirement income. She wanted to sell or rent the property, which meant that Son and his wife would have to vacate. Son refused to do that, maintaining that Dad had promised him the property.

Mom commenced a summary process action to evict Son. Son claimed in a special defense that Dad had granted Son an ownership interest in the property. The trial court entered a judgment of immediate possession for Mom. Son appealed and the Appellate Court affirmed.

Son then commenced an action against Mom and others alleging breach of contract, unjust enrichment, quantum meruit and adverse possession. The trial court determined that res judicata barred Son’s breach of contract claim and collateral estoppel barred his other claims.

Arguments on Appeal

Son argued that res judicata did not apply to his breach of contract claim because it was not litigated in the summary process action. He provided two reasons. First, he claimed that when the summary process court asked, the parties were in agreement that Son’s property ownership claim was not before the court notwithstanding Son’s special defense. Son quoted a portion of the summary process transcript where the court and counsel discussed a “property” claim. Second, Son claimed that two of the defendants in this case were not parties to the summary process action so there was no mutuality of parties. (The opinion doesn’t explain whether these two other defendants are family — I’m assuming they are Son’s aunts or sisters).

Son also argued that many of the issues in his other counts were not fully and fairly litigated in the summary process action and thus not precluded by collateral estoppel.

Appellate Court’s Conclusions

Even though it received relatively little attention, I’m starting with the mutuality of parties issue because I think it is the most interesting aspect of the opinion.  The Appellate Court first noted that the trial court did make a mistake in concluding that res judicata barred the contract claim against the non-Mom defendants. The Appellate Court said it’s actually barred by collateral estoppel. The record showed that the substance of the contract claim was fully and fairly litigated in the summary process action and the summary process court’s denial of Son’s ownership special defense was necessary to its judgment.

With those elements out of the way, the court turned to mutuality and said lack of party mutuality does not bar collateral estoppel in Connecticut. It cited Torres v. Waterbury, 249 Conn. 110 (1999) and Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Jones, 220 Conn. 285 (1991) for the proposition that the mutuality requirement has been abandoned because it promotes judicial inefficiency. So, it didn’t matter that the non-Mom defendants were not parties to the summary process action.

As for Son’s other claimed reason for the inapplicability of res judicata — that his contract claim expressly was not before the summary process court, the Appellate Court consulted the transcript. It noted that colloquy outside the snippet Son quoted confirmed that the “property” issue that the summary process court did not decide was a personal property issue, not a real property issue. Son’s counsel conceded this point in oral argument before the Appellate Court.

The Appellate Court also concluded that Son was collaterally estopped to assert his other claims against Mom.

Impact

I think abandoning the mutuality requirement is fine, as long as it is mutual. I wouldn’t like to see Plaintiff 2, who could have, but didn’t, join with Plaintiff 1 in an action against Defendant, be permitted to bring a new action against Defendant after Plaintiff 1 loses.

About the Photo

I used this photo because I thought the truck in the photo looked like a truck that might have been used in Dad and Mom’s sand and gravel business in the ’60s.