When a party voluntarily dismisses a matter with prejudice, does the prior judgment or order dismissing the action have preclusive effect?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from Harris v. Eslinger, D075513 (Cal. App. 2020):

However, as the italicized words from the block quotation from Campanella, above, demonstrates, the Campanella court expressly recognized that where a right is released in the first suit, the prior judgment will have preclusive effect if the other elements of res judicata are satisfied. (Campanella, supra, 204 Cal. at p. 521.) When a party voluntarily dismisses a matter with prejudice, the party thereby releases the right that he is asserting in the underlying action by way of a retraxit and the judgment or order dismissing the action has preclusive effect. (See Rice v. Crow (2000) 81 Cal.App.4th 725, 733-734 [stating that "[a] dismissal with prejudice is the modern name for a common law retraxit," and that "[i]t has been frequently held that a judgment or order dismissing an action, based upon a stipulation or agreement of the parties settling and

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