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Apodaca v. AAA Gas Co.3/11/2003
t the trial court, as well as LPGE, of any error in denying the motion, to wit: a granting of the motion would not prejudice LPGE. Three Rivers Land Co. v. Maddoux, 98 N.M. 690, 693, 652 P.2d 240, 243 (1982) ("It is the duty of the appellant to see that the record is properly before us. We will not consider matters not contained in the record on appeal.") (citations omitted), overruled on other grounds by Universal Life Church v. Coxon, 105 N.M. 57, 728 P.2d 467 (1986); see also Reeves v. Wimberly, 107 N.M. 231, 236, 755 P.2d 75, 80 (Ct. App. 1988). "Upon a doubtful or deficient record, every presumption is indulged in favor of the correctness and regularity of the trial court's decision, and the appellate court will indulge in reasonable presumptions in support of the order entered." Id.
The court's acknowledgment that the issue had been thoroughly briefed and argued pretrial suggests LPGE's pretrial position-that LPGE would need to do additional discovery to defend the claims and possibly add a third-party defendant-was the same at the end of the trial. Under these facts, there would have been a showing of prejudice: lack of an opportunity to defend and offer of additional evidence. We find the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Plaintiffs' Rule 1-015(B) motion.
Res Judicata and Collateral Estoppel
Plaintiffs appeal from the dismissal of their second complaint on res judicata and collateral estoppel grounds because they were denied a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issues in the first action when the trial court denied their motions to amend their claims against LPGE. A decision to grant summary judgment on preclusion principles is reviewed under a de novo standard. Wolford v. Lasater, 1999-NMCA-024, 4, 126 N.M. 614, 973 P.2d 866; Anaya v. City of Albuquerque, 1996-NMCA-092, 5, 122 N.M. 326, 924 P.2d 735.
Four elements must be present for res judicata to apply: "(1) the same parties or parties in privity; (2) the identity of capacity or character of persons for or against whom the claim is made; (3) the same subject matter; and (4) the same cause of action in both suits." Anaya, 1996-NMCA-092, 6; see also Wolford, 1999-NMCA-024, 5 (same); Three Rivers Land Co., 98 N.M. at 694, 652 P.2d at 244. The only disputed element in this case is whether the cause of action is the same. Plaintiffs argue that the initial lawsuit determined Defendant LPGE liability under negligence or products liability rather than its liability under the common law or the UPA for misrepresentations made regarding the valve. In Plaintiffs' view, these are separate and distinct claims.
New Mexico has adopted the "transactional analysis" under the Restatement (Second) of Judgments Sections 24 and 25 (1982) (hereinafter Restatement) to determine what constitutes a cause of action for res judicata purposes. Anaya, 1996-NMCA-092, 7. Under that analysis, res judicata precludes relitigation of any claim that arises out of "all or any part of the transaction, or a series of connected transactions, out of which the action arose." Restatement § 24(1). "What . . . constitutes a `transaction'. . . determined pragmatically, giving weight to such considerations as whether the facts are related in time, space, origin, or motivation, whether they form a convenient trial unit, and whether their treatment as a unit conforms to the parties' expectations or business understanding or usage." Id. § 24(2); Ford v. N.M. Dep't of Pub. Safety, 119 N.M. 405, 413, 891 P.2d 546, 554 (Ct. App. 1994). Under this approach, "a mere change in a legal theory does not create a new cause of action." Three Rivers Land Co., 98 N.M. at 695, 652 P.2d at 245. "This remains true al
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