ABSTRACT
The rule at common law is that a judicial finding in one case is inadmissible, in another case between different parties, to prove the facts on which the first decision was based. The reason for this is that it would be unjust for someone to have his rights affected by litigation to which he was not a party and in which, therefore, he could not be heard. This appears from the unanimous opinion of all the judges in The Duchess of Kingston‘s case,1 that:
... as a general principle … a transaction between two parties in judicial proceedings ought not to be binding upon a third; for it would be unjust to bind any person who could not be admitted to make a defence, or to examine witnesses, or to appeal from a judgment he might think erroneous; and therefore the depositions of witnesses in another cause in proof of a fact, the verdict of the jury finding the fact, and the judgment of the court upon the facts found, although evidence against the parties and all claiming under them, are not, in general, to be used to the prejudice of strangers.
