RES JUDICATA
res judicata (rays joo-di-kay-t<<schwa>> or -kah-t<<schwa>>). [Latin “a thing adjudicated”]
1. An issue that has been definitively settled by judicial decision. [Cases: Judgment 540, 584,
585. C.J.S. Judgments §§ 697–700, 702–703, 749, 752.] 2. An affirmative defense barring the
same parties from litigating a second lawsuit on the same claim, or any other claim arising from
the same transaction or series of transactions and that could have been — but was not — raised in
the first suit. • The three essential elements are (1) an earlier decision on the issue, (2) a final
judgment on the merits, and (3) the involvement of the same parties, or parties in privity with the
original parties. Restatement (Second) of Judgments §§ 17, 24 (1982). — Also termed res
adjudicata; claim preclusion; doctrine of res judicata. Cf. COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL. [Cases:
Judgment 540, 584, 948(1). C.J.S. Judgments §§ 697–700, 702–703, 752, 930–931, 933.]
“ ‘Res judicata’ has been used in this section as a general term referring to all of the ways in
which one judgment will have a binding effect on another. That usage is and doubtless will
continue to be common, but it lumps under a single name two quite different effects of judgments.
The first is the effect of foreclosing any litigation of matters that never have been litigated,
because of the determination that they should have been advanced in an earlier suit. The second is
the effect of foreclosing relitigation of matters that have once been litigated and decided. The first
of these, preclusion of matters that were never litigated, has gone under the name, ‘true res
judicata,’ or the names, ‘merger’ and ‘bar.’ The second doctrine, preclusion of matters that have
once been decided, has usually been called ‘collateral estoppel.’ Professor Allan Vestal has long
argued for the use of the names ‘claim preclusion’ and ‘issue preclusion’ for these two doctrines
[Vestal, Rationale of Preclusion, 9 St. Louis U. L.J. 29 (1964)], and this usage is increasingly
employed by the courts as it is by Restatement Second of Judgments.” Charles Alan Wright, The
Law of Federal Courts § 100A, at 722–23 (5th ed. 1994). [Blacks Law 8th]