Lawyers: A question about claim preclusion?

Question

There is alot of caselaw about claims preclusion where claims have already been tried in a seperate case.

Is the law the same in a case that was appealed and remanded for trial? Are jury findings that were not appealed precluded if there is to be a new trial? There is evidence admissable in the new trial that was not admitted in the first trial - but it may be a stretch to argue that the new evidence is relevant to the one claim that may be precluded.

Caselaw appreciated

Let me clarify:

part of the remand was instruction to the trial court that evidence that was held inadmissable at the first trial (by motion in limine) should have been admitted

Answer 1

Res judicata, meaning "a thing decided," (also known as claim preclusion) functions to bar claims (ie lawsuits) arising out of the same transaction or occurrence that have already been addressed by a court and decided in prior litigation. For example if A sues B for a car accident and the court decides B is liable. Later B cannot turn around and sue A for the accident. His claim is barred because he should have brought his claim when A brought his. The courts do this to prevent never ending litigation, wait-and-see defendants, and promote judicial efficiency.

Claims are only barred if the court has made a decision based "on the merits" of the case and all appeals have been exhausted. A decision on the merits simply means that there is nothing left for the judicial system to do except enforce the judgment.

An example closer to your situation: A sues B for the car accident and for defamatory statements B made after the accident. The jury finds for A on the accident and B on the defamation. A appeals the defamation verdict and gets a remand for a new trial. The new trial will only address what he appealed (the defamation). B cannot now raise any defenses to the accident because that issue has been decided on the merits and was not appealed (therefore all appeals have been exhausted on that issue).

So answering you questions in turn:

(1) The law is the same.

(2) Because the decision of the jury in the first case was not appealed and assuming the remand order only covers part of the original claim not the entire claim, relitigation of the issue would be barred. However, if the retrial is for the whole claim (ie all issues) then RJ will not apply.

(3) Because there is new admissible evidence there is a chance that the court will reconsider the issue, but only if the evidence is material and could not have been discovered through due diligence prior to the previous decision by the jury. Courts are very very reticent to do this, because of the judicial policy of letting jury verdicts stand. (like one in a million) So the evidence needs to be spectacular along the lines of evidence of fraud or jury tampering.

You have stated the evidence may not actually address the claim so I'm betting you have very little chance of getting the issue reconsidered and will be barred by RJ.

As for case cites, the library is under construction and I don't have access to Westlaw or Lexis right now so can't help you with that, sorry.

Good Luck.

P.S. I amended the answer because I misunderstood the original scenario, thinking you were a third party not one of the original parties in the prior lawsuit. Therefore, I thought that collateral estoppel would apply. Sorry for any resulting confusion.

Answer 2

Ty 1 has done an excellent job. I have only one point to add: If the new case is a continuation of the "old" case the the doctrine of "law of the case" may apply. "Law of the case" mandates that once an issue is decided in a lawsuit that issue and the law it was based on can not be revisited later on in the case, unless a appellate court orders a remand on that issue. "Law of the case" is more preclusive than claims preclusion in that one can revive a precluded claim if the underlying law has changed, "law of the case" freezes the applicable law as it was when the issue was first tried.

Giving citations is useless as these doctrines vary a bit from state to state. My California citations have only a 1 in 50 chance of being useful to you.