Collateral Estoppel
Collateral estoppel is an important doctrine in the fields of criminal law and civil procedure.
In criminal law, collateral estoppel protects criminal defendantsfrom being tried for the same issue in more than one criminal trial through the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment. As established in Benton v. Maryland, collateral estoppel is binding on both federal and state governments through incorporation by way of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In civil procedure, collateral estoppel refers to the application of res judicata principles through issue preclusion. For issue preclusion, a party can utilize collateral estoppel to prevent another party from re-litigating any issue that has been validly, finally, and actually determined on the merits in a previous case.
In deciding if any given issue has already been determined, the court will consider whether that issue was essential to the previous holding. Under this test, any issue previously raised in court which would change the outcome of the case had it been decided differently is deemed actually determined.
Validity and finality for the purposes of collateral estoppel are determined by whether the first case would survive a collateral attack. Common reasons why a case may not survive a collateral attack include a lack of personal jurisdiction, a lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and a failure of due process in the first case.
There are two forms of issue preclusion/collateral estoppel - offensive and defensive:
- Defensive issue preclusion occurs when the party being sued raises collateral estoppel.
- As established in Bernhard v. Bank of America,defensive issue preclusion does not require mutuality.
- In other words, a person who was not a party to the initial case can raise issue preclusion.
- For example, if a court determines that Frank cannot recover in a lawsuit against Sally because Frank was negligent, then Susan can raise collateral estoppel as to Frank’s negligence if she too is sued by Frank.
- Offensive issue preclusion occurs when the party who initiates the lawsuit/claim raises collateral estoppel against the defendant in a previous case.
- Offensive issue preclusion generally does require mutuality; meaning it can only be used by parties to the initial lawsuit, though a few exceptions exist.
- For example, if a court determines that Frank can recover against Sally because Sally was negligent, Susan generally cannot raise collateral estoppel as to Frank’s negligence in a second case against Frank.
- Courts have broad discretion as to whether they will allow non-mutual offensive issue preclusion, with a few common justifications outlined in Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore.
- These justifications include misaligned incentives in the first case, different procedural factors in the first case than in the second case, and whether the plaintiff in the second case could have easily joined the first case.