Issue Preclusion Research Articles

Юридическая хроника

The April Legal Chronicle describes the main events of March 2024 in the field of foreign sanctions against Russia, criticises the practice of Russian courts on the issues of liability of banks and clients when making money transfers under sanctions, analyses the problems of issue preclusion of a judicial act in a criminal case for civil proceedings in the light of the recently adopted definition of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, and considers the consequences of the Constitutional Court’s recognition of the provisions of Article 221 of the Tax Code as unconstitutional.

Issue Preclusion Out of the U.S. (?) The Evolution of the Italian Doctrine of Res Judicata in Comparative Context


 
 
 

Reluctance or Apathy? Examining Georgia's Continued Adherence to a Strict Mutuality Issue Preclusion Doctrine

The common law doctrine of issue preclusion, also known as collateral estoppel, prevents parties from re-litigating an issue in subsequent lawsuits if a prior judgment already conclusively decided the issue. Issue preclusion traditionally required strict mutuality of parties; the first and second lawsuits had to involve the exact same litigants. Although the majority of jurisdictions now allow nonmutual issue preclusion, Georgia continues to require identity of parties. Despite recently reaffirming this requirement, the Georgia Supreme Court has not thoroughly analyzed the merits of the rule. This paper examines the history and evolution of issue preclusion and the mutuality element, distinguishes offensive and defensive assertions of issue preclusion, reviews the current application of nonmutual preclusion in federal courts, compares Georgia mutuality law to the case law of other states, considers the policy arguments favoring and disfavoring strict mutuality, and explores why the Georgia Supreme Court has not addressed the nationwide trend towards allowing nonmutual issue preclusion. The paper argues for changing Georgia law to allow nonmutual defense issue preclusion in civil litigation and advises practitioners on practical avenues for achieving that goal.

Realization of res judicata principle in civil proceedings: the experience of foreign countries


 The article is devoted to the analysis of res judicata as an essential element of the legal certainty. Res judicata is considered to be one of the main guaranties of the legal certainty principle in civil procedure which allows a stability of the court decisions in democratic society and increase the public confidence to judiciary. 
 The author analyzes national characteristics of the realization of the principle of res judicata in civil procedure of foreign countries. The author explores the preclusion effect of court decisions, highlighting two effects of the res judicata principle: positive and negative one. The negative effect of res judicata is aimed at preventing the re-consideration of identical disputes between the parties if the dispute has already been resolved by the court, in turn, the positive effect of res judicata allows the parties to refer to circumstances that have already been established by a court decision in the dispute between them, in new proceedings, where they are involved.
 It is concluded that there are significant differences in the understanding of this principle in common law and civil law legal systems. The common law countries have a broad understanding of the res judicata principle, which includes positive and negative effects, and is implemented through such institutions as the claim preclusion and the issue preclusion. Civil law countries follow a narrow approach to understanding of res judicata principle, which is limited only by the negative effect and is reflected in the claim preclusion, which blocks filing an identical claim if there is a final court decision on the dispute between the parties.
 In common law jurisdiction there is a wider conception of the “claim”, according to which it is understood in the context of entire dispute and comprise all claims based on the legal relationship between the parties, whether or not they were the subject of court proceedings. At the same time in civil law countries identity of the claims can be notified with the help of the triple identity test, which contains the identity of the subject of the claim, the identity of the cause of action and the identity of the parties of the claim.

The Current Status of the Preclusive Effects of Judgments in the Federal Court System of the United States of America

Res judicata law in the United States of America has a long, extensive and complex history. The aim of this paper is to provide at least a working summary of some of the most important aspects of the current res judicata law in the federal court system of the United States. The flexible discovery, pleading and joinder rules have given rise to more expansive res judicata law. The paper will discuss what exactly constitutes a judgment; how the federal courts deal with finality of judgments in multiple party and multiple claim cases; the final judgment rule; the form of judgments; the methods to enter judgments and significance of entry of judgments; together with a detailed overview of the doctrine of res judicata itself, including the separate, but related twin doctrines of claim preclusion and issue preclusion.

National Injunctions and Preclusion

Critics of national injunctions are lining up. Attorney General Jeff Sessions labeled these injunctions “absurd” and “simply unsustainable.” Justice Clarence Thomas called them “legally and historically dubious,” while Justice Neil Gorsuch mockingly referred to them as “cosmic injunctions.” Scholars in leading law reviews have called for their demise. Critics argue that national injunctions encourage forum shopping, unfairly burden the federal government, and depart from the history of equity. They also claim that national injunctions contradict the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Mendoza to exempt the federal government from offensive nonmutual issue preclusion—a doctrine that permits nonparties to benefit from a prior finding against a party from an earlier case. Critics are right to identify the connection between national injunctions and nonmutual preclusion. Both of these doctrines describe when judgments can benefit nonparties. But critics are wrong to see Mendoza as an argument against national injunctions. For one thing, the rise of nonmutual preclusion that prompted Mendoza undercuts crucial arguments against national injunctions by offering an alternative explanation for the absence of analogous injunctions in the history of equity. For another, Mendoza was not preordained; instead, it was a highly policy-driven decision. And Mendoza’s policy arguments were dubious when it was decided and even more dubious today. Scrutinizing these arguments should make us less comfortable in extending Mendoza to a new context—as the Supreme Court may be poised to do. Indeed, this Article goes one step further. The Supreme Court or Congress should take advantage of the attention on nonparty relief to reconsider, and overrule, Mendoza. Federal-government litigants do not deserve special treatment with respect to preclusion in every case, and the existing rules of preclusion adequately protect the interests purportedly at stake in Mendoza. Moreover, rejecting Mendoza has feedback effects for the national-injunctions debate. Overruling Mendoza would not only reduce the need for national injunctions (because preclusion could do some of the work) but also provide a framework for limiting national injunctions without eliminating them completely. This is especially important given recent decisions that make relying on class actions a tenuous response. More generally, overruling Mendoza would create a system that is fairer to governmental and nongovernmental litigants alike while reaffirming each branch’s role in the making of national policy.

Civil Justice From Criminal Courts?: The Role of Issue Preclusion in § 1983 Fourth Amendment Probable Cause Claims

Civil Justice From Criminal Courts?: The Role of Issue Preclusion in § 1983 Fourth Amendment Probable Cause Claims

A Minimalist Solution to Williamson County

Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson County relegated takings claims coming under the Fifth Amendment to a second-class of federal rights. Before a takings plaintiff can sue in federal court, she must first seek compensation through an “adequate state procedure.” Many federal courts have held that requirement means a takings litigant must first seek compensation through state courts if that state provides an inverse condemnation proceeding. But if a takings litigant sues in state court, she will be unable to sue in federal court because of issue preclusion. This effectively shuts the federal courthouse door to many property owners. Only two Supreme Court justices have indicated any interest in revisiting Williamson County. Therefore, land use attorneys who are concerned about federal court access for takings plaintiffs should craft a case that would attract the Court’s attention. This Article argues that land use lawyers should present the Court with a case in which the property owner has used a non-judicial procedure to seek compensation (e.g., asking for compensation from a county board). The Court could then rule that such a non-judicial procedure, such as seeking compensation from a county board, is an “adequate state procedure” that satisfies Williamson County’s requirements. This ruling would minimize the negative effects that Williamson County has wrought on takings plaintiffs.

The "Broadest Reasonable Interpretation" and Applying Issue Preclusion to Administrative Patent Claim Construction

Inventions are tangible. Yet patents comprise words, and words are imprecise. Thus, disputes over patents involve a process known as “claim construction,” which formally clarifies the meaning of a patent claim’s words and, therefore, the scope of the underlying property right. Adversarial claim construction commonly occurs in various Article III and Article I settings, such as district courts or the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). When these proceedings ignore each other’s claim constructions, a patent’s scope can become inconsistent and unpredictable. The doctrine of issue preclusion could help with this problem. The Supreme Court recently reemphasized in B & B Hardware v. Hargis Industries that administrative decisions can have issue preclusive effect. But district courts and the PTAB use formally different legal standards in claim construction, where the district court takes a narrower view of a patent’s scope. This Note contends that a claim construction determination made by the PTAB under the “broadest reasonable interpretation” standard should, indeed, be the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim. To facilitate uniformity and public notice, issue preclusion should be applied such that the PTAB’s “broadest reasonable interpretation” is an outer interpretive bound of a patent’s scope in subsequent district court litigation.

Analyse Comparative / Comparative Perspectives

The article analyses the objective limits of res judicata in the French, Italian and Belgian legal systems, with references to the German and English systems. The changes in the case-law of these countries are conditioned by the unstable equilibrium between several fundamental principles, such as contradiction, legal certainty, party disposition, procedural economy, fairness, and the relations between civil proceedings and substantive law. The necessity to safeguard the stability of judgments (e.g. claim preclusion and issue preclusion) and to save judicial resources at all costs creates reciprocal influences between the different systems. These influences are essential not only in foreseeing the possible evolutions of these procedural models, but also from the perspective of the European Code of Civil Procedure imagined by the European Parliament, which tasked the Commission with presenting a legislative proposal regarding the shared minimum standards for civil proceedings. According to the Parliament, these standards should constitute the core of the future Code. The abandonment of the Eventualmaxime and the introduction even in France and in Belgium of the principle of orality on the one hand and the application of the preclusion of Zeuner, although in an improper manner, in Italy, Germany and Austria on the other hand may pave the way for the construction of the said European Code starting from an indispensable unitary notion of the “subject matter of the litigation”.

Allen v. Breyers: The Missouri Supreme Court's 2016 Decision Adds Clarity (and Confusion) to Insurers' Duty and Right to Defend Their Insureds

In a previous paper, I suggested that the Missouri Supreme Court had adopted a forfeiture penalty for insurers that breached the duty to defend. This paper revises that position based on the December 2016 Missouri Supreme Court decision of Allen v. Bryers in which the court held that to recover damages beyond the applicable liability insurance policy limits, the insured (or an assignee) would have to demonstrate the insurer had acted in bad faith. However, the court confirmed a forfeiture approach up to the liability insurance policy limits. Where an insurer breaches its the duty to defend in a liability insurance policy, the insurer is bound by the result in the underlying case up to its policy limits. The court used an analysis similar to issue preclusion, holding that the insurer is bound by all facts actually litigated and determined in the underlying case. The paper explains this decision, and points out some uncertainty created by the opinion regarding what constitutes bad faith behavior by an insurer under Missouri law with regard to the duty to defend and as to what more beyond unreasonable conduct is required to demonstrate bad faith. The paper concludes by placing the Missouri approach it in its national context by comparing it to the approach by the Restatement of the Law, Liability Insurance. Section 19 of the Restatement also imposes a forfeiture up to the policy limits but only if the breach of the duty to defend was without a reasonable basis. In addition, the Restatement recognizes a kind of safe harbor for insurers who defend under a reservation of rights, while in Missouri an insurer is not entitled to reserve its right while at the same time providing a defense (unless the insured specifically consents).

The Issue Preclusive Effect of Arbitration Awards

Courts in the United States have two primary means (in addition to individual adjudication) by which to resolve disputes in which numerous claimants have claims against a defendant that raise the same or similar issues. The first is the class action, in which the class representative brings suit on behalf of similarly situated but absent plaintiffs. A judgment in the class action (assuming that a class has been certified) binds the defendant and the absent class members. Since the Supreme Court’s decisions in Concepcion and Italian Colors, however, businesses can reduce if not avoid the risk of class actions by using arbitration clauses with class arbitration waivers in their standard form contracts with consumers and employees. When businesses use such contract provisions, disputes are to be resolved in individual arbitration, with no aggregation of claims either in arbitration or in court. The second primary means of resolving duplicative litigation of similar claims is the doctrine of issue preclusion (also referred to as collateral estoppel). Issue preclusion bars a party from relitigating an issue that was resolved in a prior case involving the same party or parties. The issue must have been fully and fairly litigated and actually decided in the prior case, and only a party to the prior litigation or one in privity with a party is bound by the prior judgment. But a non-party to the prior case can, in appropriate circumstances, rely on issue preclusion against a party to the prior case (what is called “nonmutual issue preclusion”) and preclude relitigation of the issue — i.e., hold the other party bound by the resolution of that issue in the prior case. This paper examines the extent to which arbitration awards have issue preclusive effect, such that issue preclusion might substitute for class actions when businesses use arbitration clauses with class waivers. It further suggests that the law governing issue preclusion in arbitration might develop in ways parallel to the law governing class actions and arbitration: with businesses using “issue preclusion waivers” to avoid the issue preclusive effect of awards, consumers and employees challenging such waivers as unenforceable, and businesses relying on FAA preemption in response.

Controversy over Issue Preclusion in Russia’s Criminal Procedure: Can Common Law Offer a Solution?

Even though Russia’s new Code of Criminal Procedure of 2001 had from the very beginning contained the article titled ‘Preclusive Effects,’ it was not until a decision by the Constitutional Court of 2008 that the doctrine of issue preclusion was, in its proper sense, reinstated in Russian criminal law, barring facts definitively established in a civil trial from relitigation in criminal proceedings. Despite heavy criticism that came down on the Constitutional Court for what was seen by law enforcement agents as unwarranted judicial activism, the Russian Parliament soon amended the article in line with the interpretation offered by the Court. This, however, did not end the controversy as critics raised a valid point: an automatic transfer of facts from civil proceedings with a priori more lenient requirements of proof is likely to distort outcomes, harming defendants, the prosecution, and, ultimately, societal interests. This article will turn for apotential solution to common law, which has been able to avoid this problem by clearly distinguishing between different standards of proof applicable in civil v. criminal litigations. It will be shown, using the United States as an example, how courts can effectively use issue preclusion to pursue a number of legitimate objectives, such as consistency of judgments and judicial economy, with due account for the interests of parties in proceedings. At the same time, issue preclusion appears an inappropriate and ineffective means to combat arbitrariness of the judiciary – the end which Russia’s Constitutional Court and law makers arguably had in mind when introducing the doctrine into Russian law.

Process Considerations in the Age of Markman and Mantras

This article asserts that although notions of uniformity and certainty have always been part of patent law parlance, since the Federal Circuit's decision in Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., these noble ends have achieved mantra status. In Markman, the Federal Circuit, in the name of uniformity and certainty, characterized claim interpretation as a question of law subject to de novo review, thus positioning itself as the arbiter of claim meaning. If the Federal Circuit is unwilling to exercise greater obeisance toward district court claim interpretations, this article argues that to achieve uniformity and certainty in the context of de novo review the Federal Circuit should entertain interlocutory appeals of Markman hearings. Accordingly, this article proposes that the Supreme Court, pursuant to the Rules Enabling Act, promulgate a rule specifically permitting or requiring the Federal Circuit to hear an interlocutory appeal of a district court claim interpretation decision. The Federal Circuit, which has a special duty to promote uniformity and certainty, cannot have it both ways; that is, the court cannot employ a de novo standard of review on the one hand, and, on the other hand, refuse to entertain interlocutory appeals. Furthermore, acceptance of interlocutory appeals would foster early certainty and promote settlement negotiations. Consistent with this proposal, this article also recommends that district courts, when applicable, apply the doctrine of issue preclusion to their sister courts' claim interpretation decisions. The application of issue preclusion would promote uniformity at the district court level, and coupled with interlocutory review, would promote early certainty.

The Rebirth of Federal Takings Review? The Courts' 'Prudential' Answer to Williamson County's Flawed State Litigation Ripeness Requirement

This article addresses recent developments in the law of takings arising from the courts’ application of the rule, articulated in Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U.S. 185 (1985), that a property owner must sue for damages in state court to ripen a Fifth Amendment takings claim. The article reviews the confusion and inequity caused by this “state litigation” ripeness rule, and the Supreme Court’s and lower federal courts’ recent attempts to weaken the rule, so as to allow some takings claimants to litigate in federal court. Williamson County’s state litigation ripeness doctrine requires property owners to litigate for just compensation in state court before they can file a federal takings claim in federal court. But in practice, this rule interacts with other jurisdictional principles, such as federal claim and issue preclusion, in a manner that bars property owners from raising state-court ripened takings claims in federal court. As a result, plaintiffs must file their Fifth Amendment takings claims in state court. Yet, this opens the door for defendants to leverage removal principles and Williamson County to entirely deprive a takings plaintiff of any judicial forum for their case. If a defendant removes a state court takings case to federal court, it prevents the plaintiff from litigating in state court - the only available forum under Williamson County - and brings the removed claim to the federal forum in an unripe state; i.e., prior to full exhaustion of state court litigation. Federal courts often dismiss such removed takings cases, leaving the plaintiff without access to the courts for their Fifth Amendment takings claim. The article explains that these problems arise from a jurisdictional understanding of the state litigation rule and that the Supreme Court has abandoned this view. The Court has transformed the state litigation rule from a strict jurisdictional rule into a discretionary ripeness concept. The article highlights how federal courts are using the new, conception of Williamson County to decline to require state litigation for takings ripeness and defends this approach. It concludes that the courts' application of Williamson County as a discretionary, prudential ripeness doctrine provides them with a basis to spare takings plaintiffs from the worst injustices of the state litigation rule until the Supreme Court finally puts this rule where it belongs: in the waste pile of failed constitutional doctrines.

Issue Preclusion Effect of Class Certification Orders

This paper addresses the peculiarities of issue preclusion in class action litigation, particularly after the approval of the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law of Aggregate Litigation in 2010 and the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Smith v. Bayer Corp. in the summer of 2011. After discussing the reasons why orders that deny class certification cannot have issue-preclusive effect, this paper analyses proposals to address the problem.

'Domesticating' the New York Convention: the Impact of the Federal Arbitration Act

International arbitration is a world of multiple interfaces among legal orders, marked by significant tensions at specific pressure points. It is the purpose of much, if not most scholarship in international arbitration to seek to resolve such tensions. In this article the author deals with a set of pressure points that has recently been brought to the surface in a particularly comprehensive and systemic manner, in the context of the Restatement of the US Law of International Commercial Arbitration: the clash between, on the one hand, the New York Convention and thus the international model of international arbitration and, on the other hand, the basic US federal legislation on international commercial arbitration and thus the US model on international arbitration. This clash, the author shows, becomes manifest with regard to issues including: awards made in the United States but whose enforcement is nevertheless governed by the New York Convention; the preclusive effects for other courts of a court’s decision on the scope of an arbitration agreement; the common law notion of collateral estoppel (issue preclusion—preclusive effects for other courts and tribunals of factual and legal findings) as opposed to the Convention’s focus on res judicata (claim preclusion); the application of forum non conveniens in actions to enforce an award; treating interim measures as awards; and the role of state public policy as opposed to federal public policy.

The Analytical Turn in Nineteenth-Century Legal Thought

This essay seeks to account for the introduction of the analytical method into Anglo-American legal thinking in the 19th century and to identify some of the doctrinal consequences of this mode of problem-solving. I focus on a particular sense of analysis – the disaggregation into components of seemingly unified entities, not previously seen as composites. On this view, a discussion of U.S. law as involving federal law and state law does not involve analysis, but a discussion of privacy as including decisional and spatial aspects would involve analysis. The term analysis long predates the nineteenth century, but had previously been used by lawyers to mean investigation or classification rather than disaggregation. Drawing on research by John Pickstone, I show that the technique, though not unheard of before the 19th century, was taken up in a wide array of scientific disciplines circa 1780-1840, particularly in chemistry. This helps to explain its diffusion into other intellectual spheres, including law. The 19th-century analytical revolution had a profound effect on the Anglo-American legal system, its doctrines, and its approach to problem-solving, to such an extent that modern lawyers’ views about their professional competences, and their beliefs about what constitutes a persuasive legal argument, would be radically different without this feature. The analytical approach is evident in contemporary thinking about statutory drafting and interpretation, constitutional law, and administrative law, as well as the common law. Because it is beyond the scope of a single essay to delineate these effects fully, I focus here on the changes associated with the introduction of elements into 19th-century jurisprudence, in a pattern that reveals some of the most visible results of the analytical approach. Part I discusses the rise of analysis in science and the law around the beginning of the nineteenth century. Part II shows how issue preclusion (in res judicata) was reconceived in the course of the 19th century, morphing from a doctrine focused on the relitigation of particular facts, to a doctrine concerned with legal issues, now understood as involving legal conclusions based on facts. Part III addresses the reconceptualization of criminal offenses as consisting of elements, a development that led to new ways of thinking about burdens of proof and the role of mens rea in criminal liability. A concluding section reflects briefly on the implications of this approach to legal science. The argument shows that legal science may be profitably studied not only by looking at the statements of lawyers such as David Hoffman, Simon Greenleaf, and George Sharswood, who took pains to insist that they were being scientific, but also by looking to particular instances in which lawyers adopt scientific methods, even if they do not call attention to this practice, and even if they make no claims about legal science.

Issue Preclusion under Contemporary Russian Law: A New Interpretation

Issue Preclusion under Contemporary Russian Law: A New Interpretation

Evidentiary Foul Play: The Roles of Judge and Jury in Responding to Evidence Tampering

For at least two centuries, Anglo-American courts have responded to a party's evidence tampering by allowing the opponent to argue to jurors that they should draw an adverse inference against the offending party in deciding the merits of the case. This essay argues that it is time that the use of such inferences be radically curtailed, not only because of the ambiguities and risks of prejudice that such inferences entail, but more importantly because they involve a confusion of roles in which the jury is enlisted to participate in the management of the pre-trial conduct of litigants. This management is properly the job of the judiciary, and there are more than adequate tools for this purpose in the form of discovery sanctions, such as issue preclusion, monetary awards, and dismissals or defaults.