Sukut Construction, Inc. v. Cabot, Cabot & Forbes Land Trust

Opinion

THOMPSON, J.

This is an appeal from a summary judgment in favor of defendant landowner in plaintiff’s action to foreclose a mechanic’s lien. It raises the issue of the applicability of the bar of res judicata

[529]

where: (1) plaintiff filed a prior action to foreclose a mechanic’s lien asserting that the lien covered the same property as that involved in the case at bench or alternatively that the entire amount of the debt due plaintiff in the prior action from a contractor was secured by a mechanic’s lien on adjoining property owned by defendant; (2) a final judgment in the prior action determined that the entire debt of the contractor, part of which is here sued upon, was due to plaintiff, that only an allocable portion of the debt was the subject of the mechanic’s lien, and that the lien covered only the adjoining property; (3) at the close of the prior action, plaintiff recorded a new mechanic’s lien describing the real property excluded by the prior judgment; and (4) the case at bench represents plaintiff’s effort to enforce payment of the remaining portion of the contractor’s debt by foreclosure of the second lien.

We conclude that the doctrine of res judicata applies to bar plaintiff’s action in the case at bench. We also conclude that plaintiff’s contentions of trial court error in its manner of taking judicial notice of the prior action is unsupported by the record. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment.

Because the case at bar reaches us on review of a summary judgment, we recite the record in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the loser in the trial court, accepting as true all statements of fact included in declarations filed by plaintiff in opposition to the motion.

Plaintiff, Sukut Construction, Inc. (Sukut), is a licensed grading contractor. In the middle of 1971, Sukut entered into a contract to perform grading and “site construction” upon a tract of land owned by Allied-Canon Company (Allied). Allied financed the development of its property by a loan from defendant, Cabot, Cabot & Forbes Land Trust (Cabot). The loan was secured by a deed of trust. The site which was the subject of the Sukut contract and the Cabot deed of trust encompassed four adjoining parcels recorded as tract numbers 24946 and 23290 (the northerly tracts) and numbers 24981 and 24862 (the southerly tracts). Allied assigned the benefits of its grading contract to Cabot as additional security for the Cabot loan.