Tucker v. Rohrback

Decided October 2, 1864

Michigan Supreme Court · decided 1864-10-02

This was an appeal to the Circuit Court from the judgment of a Justice of the Peace. In the Circuit, it was referred, and the referee reported, among other things, that this claim had been litigated in a prior suit, before.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““That a judgment, to constitute a bar to a claim in a subsequent action, must be rendered upon the merits, upon the same matter in issue, and between the same parties or their privies, is unquestionable. ’ ’”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Reid v. Gooden, Zak v. Gray

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1864-10-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently May 1949

12 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Martin Ch. J.:

¶1That a judgment, to constitute a bar .to a claim in a subsequent action, must be rendered upon the merits,, upon the same mattér in issue, and between the same parties or their privies, is unquestionable.

¶2In the present case, testimony was offered, and received, tending to show that a portion of the property here in litigation had been the subject of a former suit,, between this same plaintiff, and the defendant and his-, wife, and that judgment was given therein. What that judgment was, or upon what founded, we are not informed. It may have been rendered upon the merits,, or for misjoinder of parties,- or other collateral reason. *76We are not sufficiently informed respecting- it to attribute to it any force, or to determine its character. We only know, that it was a judgment against other parties than the one now before us as defendant.

¶3The judgment is reversed, with costs, and a new trial ■ordered.

The other Justices concurred in the result.