Adjudicate

To settle in the exercise of judicial anthority. To determine finaliy. Synonymous with @djudge in its strictest Bense.

To determine in the exercise of judicial power; to pronounce judgment in a case. Adjudicated. Judicially determined: as, an adjudicated — case, bankrupt. Adjudication. Determination by judicial authority. Former adjudication. Judicial determination of a matter previously in litigation. When the judgment, rendered in the former trial between the same parties, is used as a technical estoppel, or is relied upon by way of evidence as conclusive per se, it must appear, by the record of the prior suit, that the particular controversy sought to be concluded was necessarily tried and determined — that is, if the record of the former trial shows that the verdict could not have been rendered without deciding the particular matter, it will be considered as having settled that matter as between the parties; and where the record does not show that the matter was necessarily and directly found by the jury, evidence aliunde consistent with the record may be received to prove the fact; but, even where it appears extrinsically that the matter was properly within the issue controverted in the former suit, if it be not shown that the verdict and judgment necessarily involved its determination, it will not be concluded.^ The former adjudication is a finality, concluding ' P. ddjorner, to put off to another day. ' La Farge v. Van Wagenen, 14 How. Pr. 58 (1857). "Wilson V. Lott, 5 Fla. 308 (1863). •Van Dyke v. State, 22 Ala. 60 (1853); 6 Wheat. 109. » Trammell v. Bradley, 37 Ark. 379 (1881); 1 Bl. Com. 187. •State V. Price, 11 N. J. L. 818 (1830); Blaufus v. People,'69 N. Y. Ill (1877). ' Packet Company u. Sickles, 5 Wall. 598 (1866), cases. Nelson, J.; Aurora City v. West, 7 id. 102-3 parties and privies, as to every matter received to sustain or to defeat the claim, and as to what might have been offered for that purpose. But where the second action is upon a different demand, the former judgment is an estoppel only as to the matters in issue upon the determination of which the finding was rendered.^ A judgment of a court of competent jiirisdiction, upon a question dh'eotly involved in one suit, is conclusive as to that question in another suit between the same parties. But to this operation of the judgment it must appear, from the face of the record or be shown by extrinsic evidence, that the precise question was raised and determined in the former suit. If there be any uncertainty on this head in the record,— as, for example, if it appears that several distinct matters may have been litigated, upon one or more of which the judgment may have passed, without indicating which of them was litigated and upon which the judgment was, rendered, — the whole 'subject-matter of the action will be at large, and open to new contention, unless this uncertainty be removed by extrinsic evidence showing the precise point involved and determined. To apply the judgment and give effect to the adjudication actually made, when the record leaves the matter in doubt, such evidence is admissible.^ When the second suit involves other matter as well as the mattei's in issue in the former action, the former judgment operates as an estoppel as to those things which were in issue there, and upon the determination of which the first verdict was rendered. Extrinsic evidence, when not inconsistent with the record and not impugning its verity, is admissible to show that a former action involved matters in issue in the suit on trial, and were necessarily determined by the first verdict.^ If a former adjudication is not pleaded as an estoppel evidence may be received to show the truth.* It cannot be said that a case is not an authority on one point because, although that point was properly presented and decided, something else was found in the end which disposed of the whole matter.' See Adjo- DiOATtjs, Res, etc.