Smith v. Wood

Eberhardt, Judge.

This is not a plea of res judicata (though it springs from and is a part of that doctrine), for under that plea a former adjudication is a bar as to all matters placed in issue or which might have been placed in issue between the same parties, or their privies, upon the same cause of action. Rather, it is a plea of estoppel by judgment, sometimes referred to as “collateral estoppel,” or as “estoppel by verdict.” Under that branch of the doctrine the former adjudication is a bar if the same issues were litigated by the parties or their privies in the previous action, though it…