Res judicata or res iudicata (RJ), also known as claim preclusion, is the Latin term for "a matter [already] judged", and may refer to two concepts: in both civil law and common law legal systems, a case in which there has been a final judgment and is no longer subject to appeal; and the legal doctrine meant to bar (or preclude) continued litigation of such cases between the same parties, which is different between the two legal systems. In this latter usage, the term is synonymous with "preclusion".
In the case of res judicata, the matter cannot be raised again, either in the same court or in a different court. A court will use res judicata to deny reconsideration of a matter.
The legal concept of res judicata arose as a method of preventing injustice to the parties of a case supposedly finished, but perhaps mostly to avoid unnecessary waste of resources in the court system. Res judicata does not merely prevent future judgments from contradicting earlier ones, but also prevents litigants from multiplying judgments, so a prevailing
Plaintiff could not recover
Damages from the
Defendant twice for the same injury.
For
res judicata to be binding, several factors must be met:
- identity in the thing at suit;
- identity of the cause at suit;
- identity of the parties to the action;
- identity in the designation of the parties involved;
- whether the judgment was final;
- whether the parties were given full and fair opportunity to be heard on the issue.
Res Judicata
