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United States v. Moser

Supreme Court of the United States · 1924 · Civil Procedure

Civil ProcedureRes JudicataIssue Preclusionres judicataissue preclusiondifferent demandssame partiesquestions of law

Facts

Moser claimed higher retired pay under a statute granting an officer with a creditable record who served during the Civil War retirement with the rank and three-fourths sea pay of the next higher grade. He had been retired after forty years of service from the date of his entrance into the Naval Academy, and his entitlement depended on whether his Naval Academy service counted as service during the Civil War. In three prior suits for salary installments, the Court of Claims had decided that same basic question in his favor against the United States. In this suit, the Government again argued that service as a cadet during the Civil War was not service within the meaning of the statute.

Issue

When successive suits between the same parties involve different installment claims, does res judicata bar the United States from relitigating the previously adjudicated question whether Moser's Naval Academy service constituted service during the Civil War? More specifically, can the Government avoid preclusion by characterizing the prior determination as merely a question of law?

Rule

When a subsequent action between the same parties involves a different claim or demand, a right, question, or fact distinctly put in issue and directly determined by a court of competent jurisdiction as a ground of recovery cannot be disputed again so long as the earlier judgment remains unmodified. Although parties are not estopped on a later different claim by a prior court's statement of an unmixed rule of law, they are precluded from relitigating a fact, question, right, or status previously adjudged, even if the earlier determination may have rested on an erroneous view or application of law.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Dana Ruiz, a retired firefighter in Phoenix, sued Desert Basin Retirement Fund for a January pension installment. She won after the court expressly determined that her two years in a city fire-training academy counted as "hazard service" under the pension statute. The judgment remains in force. Dana later sues the same fund for her March installment, and the fund again argues that academy time is not hazard service.

Should the fund be allowed to relitigate whether Dana's academy time qualifies as hazard service?

Explanation. When the later action is on a different claim or demand, the question is whether the same right, question, or fact was distinctly put in issue and directly determined in the earlier action. Here, the earlier judgment conclusively determined Dana's qualifying status as a ground of recovery, so that issue cannot be disputed again while the judgment remains unmodified. The case distinguishes this from a mere abstract statement of law.