East Cambridge Savings Bank v. Wheeler

We consider again the largely uncharted realm of judicial estoppel, a concept that precludes a party in certain circumstances from asserting a position in one proceeding that is contrary to a position that the party previously asserted successfully in another proceeding. See Fay v. Federal Nat’l Mortgage Ass’n, 419 Mass. 782, 787-788 (1995). In the Fay case, we said that “we would apply the doctrine of judicial estoppel at least where a party had successfully asserted his or her inconsistent position in a previous proceeding” (emphasis in original). Id. at 788. There, the plaintiff was not…