Hunter v. City of Des Moines

ALLBEE, Justice.

The important question which we confront in this appeal is whether offensive use of issue preclusion can be invoked where mutuality of the parties is lacking. The sole assignment of error here is predicated upon trial court’s denial of plaintiffs’ application for separate adjudication of law points; in that application they asserted defendant City of Des Moines should be precluded from relitigating the issues of its

negligence and of proximate cause in this action due to a judgment obtained against it by a different plaintiff in a prior negligence action which arose from the…