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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   36034 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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But if a defendant in a civil case makes a motion to exclude certain material from evidence because it's privileged, the judge appoints a master who determines that it isn't privileged, and the judge issues a ruling that the material isn't privileged and admits the material into evidence, the defendant can't argue in another, related, case that the material should be excluded because it's privileged.

So what you're referring to appears to be issue estoppel or collateral estoppel.

Collateral estoppel prevents a party to a lawsuit from raising a fact or issue which was already decided against him in another lawsuit.

But estoppel is broader than that, and includes equitable estoppel.

Equitable estoppel prevents one party from taking a different position at trial than she did at an earlier time if the other party would be harmed by the change.

I think non-courtroom situations may even lead to estoppel. For example, if you sell me property outside of court, that action may estopp you from later saying in court that the property wasn't yours at the time.

Anyways, I remain unsure whether estoppel may apply here or not. But, as an addmitted non-lawyer, I am extremely confident that estoppel is not limited to prior decisions.

Yes, I apologize, I should have clarified that I was referring to collateral estoppel, or issue preclusion, as it's mostly known nowadays. There are several kinds of estoppel but this is the one I brought up because it's the only one that could apply here; most estoppel doctrines are only superficially related and involve different areas of the law. Equitable estoppel is much different and is usually used in torts cases where one party misleads another party to act to his detriment. Your property example doesn't quite hit the mark because estoppel bars actions, not testimony. A better example involving land would be this: You buy a piece of property with a fence along what you assume is the boundary. You ask your neighbor whose side it's on and he tells you it's on your side, but this isn't the case. After you tear down the fence he has a survey done that shows the fence was actually on his side of the line. He's estopped from suing you for destruction of the fence. Keep in mind that the doctrine requires reliance and detriment; if you didn't tear down the fence and after the survey he merely told you that it was, in fact, on his side, you can't assert that your property line moved because he was initially mistaken. And even if you did tear down the fence and he was estopped from suing you, he'd still own the property up to the actual line. It should also be noted that equitable estoppel is an equitable doctrine, meaning there's no legal right to it—asserting the defense is merely a prayer to the court that legal remedies are insufficient but relief should still be granted based on fairness principles.

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