Camacho

A husband and wife tag team who have used serial adversary proceedings to wrestle with a lender now find themselves pinned by the so-called “two dismissal rule” of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(B). In the course of seven bankruptcy cases, they filed three adversary proceedings asserting the same claim against the same defendants, the first two of which were voluntarily dismissed by notices of dismissal under Rule 41(a)(l)(A)(i). The unilateral second dismissal operates “as an adjudication on the merits” that ends the wrestling match in this court. Hence, the third adversary proceeding is DISMISSED.

The linchpin of the rationale is that the term “same claim” in Rule 41(a)(1)(B) means “claim” as used in the Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 24. That is, “same claim” is determined under a transactional analysis to include all rights of a plaintiff to remedies against a defendant with respect to all or any part of the transaction, or series of connected transactions, out of which the action arose. Here, all relief sought in the complaints arises out of a common nucleus of operative facts.

Facts

J. Pedro Zarate and Maria Villarreal Camacho are spouses who own,…