Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1996
Abstract
What is a fact, and who gets to say what a fact is? These questions lurk beneath and animate the doctrine of collateral estoppel, or (as we modem types say) issue preclusion, in the law of civil procedure. But neither courts nor scholars have faced these basic questions head-on in considering the efficacy of a doctrine that literally exports findings of fact from one case to other unrelated cases. Instead, discussions about collateral estoppel have focused on the "fairness" of applying the doctrine, particularly in terms of the party to be bound by the predetermined fact and whether it had a "full and fair" opportunity to litigate the issue in the former suit. Somehow, amazingly, this area of the law has remained analytically untouched by the epistemological upheaval that has revolutionized (some might say scandalized) 20th century philosophy, literary criticism and, to a great extent, jurisprudence-postmodernism
Recommended Citation
31 Val. U. L. Rev. 43 (1996).
Source Publication
Valparaiso University Law Review