Fischer v. Lawyers Title Corp.

Syllabus

The plaintiff property owner sought to recover damages in two actions for, inter alia, fraudulent concealment of cause of action pursuant to statute (§ 52-295), claiming that various defendant insurance brokers and agen- cies were liable for a $2 million judgment rendered in a prior action by intentionally misrepresenting and fraudulently concealing, inter alia, which of the defendants was the party financially responsible to the plaintiff. In the prior action, the plaintiff claimed that the defendants failed to procure adequate insurance coverage with respect to the plain- tiff's property, resulting in expenditures by the plaintiff to remediate the property following the discovery of environmental contamination. Although the plaintiff secured the judgment against L Co. in the previous action, he had been unable to collect the judgment and, thereafter, filed the present two actions, claiming that the defendants withheld the identity of the individual or entity that brokered the insurance policy to force the plaintiff to attempt to obtain a judgment against a defendant without assets. After the present actions were consolidated, the trial court granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment on the ground that the plaintiff's claims were barred by the doctrine of res judicata. On the plaintiff's appeal to this court, held that the trial court did not err in concluding that the plaintiff's claims in the present actions were barred by the doctrine of res judicata: the prior action was rendered on the merits in favor of the defendants, the parties to both the prior action and the two present actions were the same or in privity, the plaintiff had ample opportunity to discover and to litigate which of the defendants was liable for the procurement of inadequate insurance coverage in the prior action, and actually did so and secured a judgment, and the same underlying claim was at issue in the prior action and the present actions; as the claims in all the actions stemm