GOODRICH
v.
THE CITY
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
Goodrich sued the City of Chicago in admiralty for damages after his steamer sank in the Chicago River due to a sunken wreck that the city allegedly had a duty to remove and negligently failed to do so. The Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of the admiralty libel because the plaintiff had previously brought the same claim in an Illinois state court action that resulted in a final judgment, and the doctrine of res judicata barred the subsequent admiralty suit based on the identical cause of action.
© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Mr. Justice S WAYNE delivered the opinion of the court.
In the view which we have taken of the case, it will be necessary to consider but a single point.
The appellants filed their libel to recover damages for the sinking of their steamer Huron, in the Chicago Liver, near its mouth. The casualty was caused by the steamer running against a sunken wreck. The libel alleges that it was the duty of the city to have it removed, and that it was guilty of negligence in not having done so. It alleges further, that the city entered upon the work of removal, but abandoned it before the result was accomplished.
Among the. defences set up by the hnswer of the respondent was, that of á final judgment in the Supreme Court of Illinois, upon a general demurrer to a declaration in an action at law by the appellants against the respondent for the same cause of action.
The court below sustained the defence, and upon this ground, and another not necessary to be stated, dismissed the libel.
The record of the action at law is found among the proofs in this case. Upon a careful examination of the declaration and of the libel, we are constrained to say, there is no such difference in the cases which they respectively make as can take this case' out of the operation of the principles of res adjudícala.
*
Whatever the result might be here, if this obstacle were out óf the way, we have no choice but to apply the law in this as in other cases.
Decree aeeirmed, with costs.
*
Duchess of Kingston’s Case and the notes, 2 Smith’s Leading Cases. 424; Bendernagle v. Cocks, 19 Wendell, 208.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
N. Pac. Ry. Co. v. Slaght, 205 U.S. 122 (U.S. 1907)…d Palouse Railway Company alleged a title in fee simple, and'the truth of the allegation could be determined as well by demurrer as by proof, and the samé legal consequences followed from it. Clearwater v. Meredith, 1 Wall. 25; Goodrich v. The City, 5 Wall. 566; Aurora City v. West, 7 Wall. 82; Black on Judgments, § 707; Freeman on Judgments; 267, and cases hereinbefore cited. ' The record shows that the demurrer was not upon merely formal or technical defects, but went to the merits. - It was directed to…
-
Harding v. Harding, 198 U.S. 317 (U.S. 1905)
-
Green v. Bogue, 158 U.S. 478 (U.S. 1895)…case made his election. He submitted his alleged grievance to a court of competent jurisdiction.' He had his day in court. The identical'matter was adjudged against him.” The same principle-has been often applied by this court. Goodrich v. The City, 5 Wall. 566; Robb v. Vos, 155 U. S. 13. It is further urged that these two proceedings were not legally identical because the parties vrere not wholly the same, and that Mrs. Green did not join in the exceptions, and that Edward Green, who had joined, withdrew…