Merchants Mutual Insurance v. Arzillo

Gibbons, J. (dissenting).

The issue to be resolved is whether defendant should be precluded from litigating in this case the question of whether he “recklessly and wantonly damaged [the] building belonging to plaintiff’s subrogor when he intentionally caused a fire to start which caused great damage”. Specifically, we must decide whether defendant should be collaterally estopped from litigating this issue as framed in the complaint, because of a prior plea of guilty to arson in the fourth degree interposed by defendant, arising from a fire which occurred on June 18, 1978 in a building owned by…