LAW 607 Lecture Notes - Lecture 61: Illinois Central Railroad, Res Judicata, Collateral Estoppel
1 Jun 2020
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Actually litigated: unlike claim preclusion, issue preclusion applies only to issues that were actually presented to the court in the first action, 1. Because of this requirement, default judgments and dismissals do not have any issue preclusion effect (other than on the narrow issue of whether the defendant defaulted): 2. Again, there is no concept of merger in issue preclusion. Actually decided: perhaps the most difficult question in issue preclusion is determining what the first court actually decided. Plaintiffs often rely on alternative theories of recovery, and defendants may impose defenses to a claim. If a particular fact must have been decided in a particular way for the court to reach the result, issue preclusion will apply to that question. 2d 1078 (1979), sets out a relatively straightforward application of this rule. P and his wife were injured by a train at a grade crossing.
