Res judicata

“ The doctrine of res judicata rests at bottom upon the ground that the party to be affected, or some other with whom he is in privity, has litigated or had an opportunity to litigate the same matter in a former action in a court of competent jurisdiction. Southern Pacific R. R. v. United States, 168 U.S. 1, 48, 18 Sup. Ct. 18, 42 L. Ed. 355; Greenl. Ev. §§ 522, 523. The opportunity to be heard is an essential requisite of due process of law in judicial proceedings. ”

“ The effect of a judgment or decree as res judicata depends upon whether the second action or suit is upon the same or a different cause of action. If upon the same cause of action, the judgment or decree upon the merits in the first case is an absolute bar to the subsequent action or suit between the same parties or those in privity with them, not only in respect of every matter which was actually offered and received to sustain the demand, but also as to every ground of recovery which might have been presented. ”

“ The plea of res judicata applies, except in special cases, not only to the points upon which the court was required by the parties to form an opinion and pronounce a judgment, but to every point which properly belonged to the subject of litigation, and which the parties, exercising reasonable diligence, might have brought forward at the time.'
A party can no more split up defences than indivisible demands, and present them by piecemeal in successive suits growing out of the same transaction. ”

“ Yet we now hold that if a party, who is sent by the federal court to the state courts for a preliminary ruling, submits the whole problem to those courts-that is, the constitutional as well as the bare bones of the state law question-he is presumed to have elected to try his case there rather than in the federal courts, unless he expressly reserved the right to return to the federal tribunal. Perhaps the Court does that to avoid the consequences of res judicata. But res judicata is not a constitutional principle; it has no higher dignity than the principle we announce today. ”

“ If a party neither pleads nor proves what has been decided by a court of competent jurisdiction in some other case between himself and his antagonist, he cannot insist upon the benefit of res judicata, and this although such prior judgment may have been rendered by the same court. ”

“ Inasmuch, however, as the cases hereafter cited concern rights arising from claims already adjudicated, and since, in the cases where a res was at one time involved, the property was no longer in the possession of the court issuing the injunction, the theory of preventing an unseemly clash over physical possession has no basis. The principle for which the following authorities stand is that a court has the right to execute its decrees to avoid relitigation and forced reliance on res judicata. ”

“ As the judgment of this court turned upon the point that it was res judicata, only the arguments upon that subject will be reported.
The counsel for the plaintiff in error made the following points, amongst others:
VI. The validity of this title set up by the defendants is not res judicata, as maintained by counsel in the court below. The monition suit on which this pretension is founded could have no such effect, if the proceedings in the fifth District Court were a nullity. This seems clear upon principle. ”

“ A thing which ought not to have been done may nevertheless be perfectly valid when it is done. The penalty of nullity is not invariably imposed upon illegal acts. For example, a marriage may be irregularly celebrated, and yet valid; and a precedent may be contrary to established law, and yet authoritative for the future. See § 66.
31. Res judicata pro veritate accipitur. ”

“ Any other conclusion strikes down the very foundation of the doctrine of res judicata, and permits the state court to deprive a party of the benefit of its most important principle, and is a virtual abandonment of the final power of the Federal courts to protect all who come before them relying upon rights guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, and established by the judgments of the Federal courts. ”

“ But if that principle is inapplicable here it is nevertheless the general rule that res judicata is no defense where between the time of the first judgment and the second there has been an intervening decision or a change in the law creating an altered situation. 2 Freeman on Judgments (5th ed. 1925) § 713; Blair v. Commissioner, 300 U.S. 5, 9, 57 S.Ct. 330, 332, 81 L.Ed. 465; West Coast Life Ins. Co. ”

“ We have already seen how they are often merely the procedural equivalents of substantive rules which may have independent validity. They have also been of use in developing and modifying by way of legal fictions the narrow and perverted principles of the early law. As an illustration of their employment in modern law we may cite the maxim Res judicata pro veritate accipitur. A judgment is conclusive evidence as between the parties, and sometimes as against all the world, of the matters adjudicated upon. The courts of justice may make mistakes, but no one will be heard to say so. ”

“ I agree that 'the reasons for the judgment' given by the Supreme Court, and spread upon the record, in accordance with the Code of Practice, (art. 909,) are not to be taken as the judgment. But when the import of the judgment is equivocal or ambiguous, the opinion is important in determining the limits of the res judicata. ”

“ Hence this court, in preparing the rules of procedure for a limitation of liability, deemed it proper to allow a party seeking such limitation to contest any liability whatever. But this rule of procedure was not intended to abrogate, and indeed could not abrogate, the rule of law, that res judicata, or a matter once regularly decided between parties in a competent tribunal, cannot be again opened by either of them except in an appellate proceeding. ”

“ Petitioner argues that that case is distinguishable because here Congress provided an appeal. It contends that if the right to appeal is to be protected, the rigors of res judicata must be alleviated. Concededly the judgment in the first suit would be binding in the subsequent ones if an appeal, though available, had not been taken or perfected. ”

“ The Court has no more constitutional authority in civil cases than in criminal cases to disregard current law or to treat similarly situated litigants differently. In both, adherence to legal principle requires that we determine the rights of litigants in accordance with our best current understanding of the law. That current understanding may include judicial principles of res judicata and stare decisis and legislatively prescribed statutes of limitations that protect interests in reliance and repose. ”

“ The statute creates no new right beyond excluding the effect of the lapse of time, and, perhaps, the defense of res judicata and satisfaction under the acts of 1895 and 1869; it makes no admission, but simply provides for a trial on the merits. ”

“ They are confined entirely to an issue of choice of law: when the Court has applied a rule of law to the litigants in one case it must do so with respect to all others not barred by procedural requirements or res judicata. We do not speculate as to the bounds or propriety of pure prospectivity. ”

“ Whether a refusal to grant certiorari imports an opinion on any issue or not, the reason persists for requiring an application here from the state refusal before application to another federal court.
There should be no controversy over whether the refusal of certiorari 'would serve the purpose of an adjudication on the merits.' All the authorities agree that res judicata does not apply to applications for habeas corpus. The courts must be kept open to guard against injustice through judicial error. ”

“ After that assignment, he brought a new suit on the original cause of action, and signed his name to the petition. It was defeated by a plea of res judicata, and that the bill was merged in the judgment upon it. ”

“ They refer rather to cases where the new matter is not responsive to the allegations of the bill, and to new matter which is alleged by way of confession and avoidance; as where the alleged equities are admitted, and other facts are interposed by way of defense thereto. The plea of res judicata, filed herein, is responsive to the complaint. It concedes no equities whatever in the allegations of the complaint, but is an unequivocal denial of all the propositions upon which the complainant's equities rest. ”

“ Though in that opinion some reference was made by the court to the contentions of contract and res judicata, the court expressly declared that it would not make a 'final expression on the question,' but would leave that subject open for further consideration. ”

“ The assignments of error are eleven in number, and state in various forms of expression the contention that the judgment entered was erroneous because plaintiff was not accorded a proper hearing upon the issue of res judicata. ”

“ In the recore there are sixty assignments of error, involving many rulings of the trial court and the construction of the contract. We can only consider those which present the Federal question that, in failing to sustain the plea of res judicata, the court denied plaintiff a right arising under the laws of the United States. ”

“ The appellants might have appealed, but they were not bound to. We think that it requires a final judgment to sustain the application of the rule of the law of the case just as it does for the kindred rule of res judicata. ”

“ When an administrative agency is acting in a judicial capacity and resolves disputed issues of fact properly before it which the parties have had an adequate opportunity to litigate, the courts have not hesitated to apply res judicata to enforce repose. ”

“ And it may be conceded that the appellant in the case at bar is a privy to his predecessors in the suits which are pleaded as prior adjudications, and that res judicata applies to tax cases if the couse of action relied on is the 'thing' which was 'adjudged' in a prior suit. ”

“ Since the judgment entered in the Virginia Court by agreement or consent is res judicata in that State, it is res judicata and entitled to full faith and credit in this State. We are required under Art. ”

“ Wong Doo did present the question. There, the District Court had dismissed on res judicata grounds a second petition containing a due process claim that was raised, but not argued, in the first federal habeas petition. The petitioner "had full opportunity to offer proof of [his due process claim] at the hearing on the first petition," and he offered " [n] o reason for not presenting the proof at the outset. . . ." Wong Doo, 265 U.S., at 241, 44 S.Ct., at 525. ”

“ Justice Frankfurter. He did so, however, for an entirely different reason-that the prosecution was barred by res judicata-and he expressed no view on the issue whether '§ 241, as applied, is too vague and uncertain in scope to be consistent with the Fifth Amendment.' Williams I thus left the proper construction of § 241, as regards its applicability to protect Fourteenth Amendment rights, an open question. ”

“ As appellate review became available from a decision in habeas refusing to discharge the prisoner, courts began to question the continuing validity of the common-law rule allowing endless successive petitions. Church 602. Some courts rejected the common-law rule, holding a denial of habeas relief res judicata. See, e.g., Perry v. McLendon, 62 Ga. 598, 603-605 (1879) ; McMahon v. Mead, 30 S.D. 515, 518, 139 N.W. 122, 123 (1912) ; Ex parte Heller, 146 Wis. 517, 524, 131 N.W. 991, 994 (1911) . Others adopted a middle position between the extremes of res judicata and endless successive petitions. ”

“ I do not attempt to say whether departure from the rule of adherence to precedent was justified in such conditions. One judge dissenting held the view that the earlier decision should have been applied as the law of the case irrespective of its correctness, like the rule of res adjudicata. The conclusion of the majority of the court, whether right or wrong, is interesting as evidence of a spirit and a tendency to subordinate precedent to justice. ”

“ Besides pleading the decree of the state court as a bar, under the principle of res adjudicata, the defendants in error contend that, on the facts as found, the plaintiffs in error are entitled to no equitable relief. ”

“ Beyond all doubt it is the duty of the court to render the judgment required by law in the first instance, but the experience of ages makes it evident that mistakes in that behalf will sometimes occur, even in the courts of general jurisdiction, and hence the rule, which may be traced to the very origin of the common law, that a court may vacate and set aside an erroneous judgment, during the same term, and render in its stead the judgment required by law. ”

“ Can a court, without abuse of judicial discretion, wipe out all the property of the defendant before the court, and all the assets to which its creditors look, in an effort to reach and punish a party that is not before the court—a party that has not been convicted, has not been tried, has not been indicted even? Can an American judge, without abuse of judicial discretion, condemn any one who has not had his day in court? ”

“ To this judgment of restitution, this writ of error is awarded.
The judicial act authorizes this court to issue writs of error to bring up any final judgment or decree in a civil action or suit in equity, depending in the circuit court, &c.
This is not a final judgment in a civil action, nor a decree in a court of equity. It is no more than the action of a court on its own process, which is submitted to its own discretion. This court takes no jurisdiction in such a case. It is not, we think, given by the judicial act. ”