This page uses extracted PDF text. Text can misread numbers, dates or table columns. Check the PDF before quoting or interpreting it. Redacted areas remain redacted.
- 12 -
preclude the City from bringing separate claims that were ripe when it brought the initial suit.9
See generally Jones v. Morris Plan Bank, 168 Va. 284, 292 (1937) (holding that a suit on a
single default on an installment contract will bar separate actions on other defaulted installments
due when the suit is brought). The warrant in debt was filed in general district court on
December 8, 2022. The City was precluded from suing for the portion of the debt due before
that date—the last one being the November 4, 2022 bill due on November 28, 2022. The City
was not precluded from bringing a claim on the amount shown in the remaining five bills dated
from December 8, 2022, forward. The claims could have been brought together and, under these
facts, res judicata precludes a portion of the City’s second suit.
CONCLUSION
For these reasons, we hold that the current action stems in part from the same conduct,
transaction, or occurrence that formed the basis of the previous district court suit between the
parties. Res judicata therefore applies to preclude the City from bringing a subsequent action on
the portion of the debt that it could have included in its first action. As a result, the circuit court
erred by denying the plea in bar as to that portion of the claim. We reverse the judgment in part
and remand the case to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed in part and remanded.
9 In light of this holding, we do not reach Seaview’s alternative arguments that judicial
estoppel and the approbate-and-reprobate doctrine should apply to prevent the City from
claiming that each month represented an independent transaction because it merged different
billing periods in a single action. See generally Rebh v. Cnty. Bd., 303 Va. 379, 382 (2024) (per
curiam) (“Our doctrine of judicial restraint requires appellate courts to decide cases ‘on the best
and narrowest ground available.’” (quoting McGhee v. Commonwealth, 280 Va. 620, 626 n.4
(2010))). Jump to an indexed page (12 of 12)