The complaints filed in each of the three civil actions arose from the same events surrounding the infant’s death, made similar allegations of negligence, and posed similar claims for relief. However, each complaint sought relief from different defendants.
On May 5, 2017, before adding Memorial and MPPG to the Chatham County action, the Joyners dismissed the Fulton County actions – the lawsuit against Memorial first and, a few minutes later, the lawsuit against MPPG. On October 12, 2017, Leaphart and MPPG moved to dismiss the Chatham County action, invoking the two-dismissal rule of OCGA § 9-11-41 (a) (3) and arguing that the Joyners’ notices of voluntary dismissal in the two later-filed Fulton County actions resulted in an adjudication on the merits of the claims against Leaphart and MPPG, requiring their dismissal from the pending Chatham County action on res judicata grounds.
The Chatham County court granted the motion to dismiss and entered a final judgment in favor of defendants Leaphart and MPPG, which the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed. The Georgia Supreme Court then took up the matter.
OCGA § 9-11-41 (a) (3) provides: “A dismissal under this subsection is without prejudice, except that the filing of a second notice of dismissal operates as an adjudication upon the merits.” The plain text of the statute provides that the two-dismissal rule applies to actions, not to claims (the language “this subsection” references subsection (a), which, in turn, provides for the voluntary dismissal by a plaintiff of “an action,” making it clear that the General Assembly meant the two-dismissal rule to apply to the plaintiff’s entire action, not to individual claims).
The Georgia Supreme Court stated that after a trial court determines that the two-dismissal rule applies and that the second voluntary dismissal results in an adjudication on the merits, the trial court must then evaluate whether that adjudication bars the third action by applying the law of res judicata. Three prerequisites must be satisfied before res judicata applies: (1) identity of the cause of action, (2) identity of the parties or their privies, and (3) previous adjudication on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction. To obtain a dismissal of the third action, the defendant must do more than simply assert that the plaintiff has twice voluntarily dismissed a prior action: the defendant must demonstrate that the third action is barred by the doctrine of res judicata by showing that the other two prerequisites of the res judicata defense have been satisfied.
The Georgia Supreme Court held in its June 22, 2022 opinion: “In holding that the Joyners’ Chatham County action against Leaphart and MPPG was barred by the two-dismissal rule because it sought “recovery on the same claim [that] was brought and dismissed twice [in Fulton County], regardless of the parties named as defendants,” the Court of Appeals erred. It relied on precedent from that court that erroneously held that, so long as the second voluntarily dismissed action and the pending action shared common claims, the two-dismissal rule had “res judicata effect” that required the pending action to be dismissed. Not only did this precedent fail to properly apply the law of res judicata, it applied a former version of OCGA § 9-11-41 (a) (3), a version that contained the subsequently deleted “same claim” language. Therefore, we
reverse Division 2 of the Court of Appeals’ opinion, vacate the remainder of the opinion, and remand with instruction that the case be remanded to the trial court to reconsider, in light of this opinion, Leaphart and MPPG’s motion to dismiss.”
Source Joyner v. Leapheart, S21G0764.
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