Kenneth W. DePratt and Barbara DePratt, Plaintiffs-Respondents-Petitioners v. West Bend Mutual Insurance Co., a…

Summary

The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the DePratts' second negligence action against Sergio — alleging Sergio was independently negligent in failing to inform his crane operator about OSHA regulations — was barred by res judicata based on the summary judgment for Sergio in the first action, which had proceeded under respondeat superior and the safe-place statute and was affirmed on appeal. Adopting the transactional view of a 'claim' embodied in secs. 24 and 25 of the Restatement (Second) of Judgments, the court concluded both actions arose from the same transaction, so the second claim, which could have been litigated in the first proceeding, was precluded. Because the case was resolved on preclusion grounds, the court did not decide whether genuine issues of material fact precluded summary judgment. The court adopted the court of appeals' res judicata analysis as its own opinion and affirmed, remanding with directions to enter summary judgment for the defendants.