Estoppel & Res Judicata

Red Judicata & Estoppel:

The plea of res judicata as a bar to an action belongs to the province of adjective law, ad litis ordinationem, but difference of opinion prevails among jurists as to whether the rule belongs to the domain of procedure or constitutes a rule of the law of evidence as furnishing a ground of estoppel. 

In England, and also in America, the rule is usually dealt with as belonging to the law of evidence, for there judgments in personam, which operate as res judicata, areas often treated as falling under the category of estoppels by record. 

Sir Fitz James Stephen, the distinguished jurist who framed our Indian Evidence Act (I of 1872), and whose views have been accepted by our Indian Legislature in framing Section 40 of that Act, adopted what seems the only logical and juristic classification by treating the rule of res judicata as falling beyond the proper region of the law of evidence, and as appertaining to procedure properly so called. That the effect of the plea of res judicata may, in the result, operate like an estoppel, by preventing a party to a litigation from denying the accuracy of the former adjudication, cannot be doubted. But here the similarity between the two rules virtually ends; and it is equally clear that the ratio upon which the doctrine of estoppel, properly so called, rests, is distinguishable from that upon which the plea of res judicata is founded. 

The essential features of estoppel are those which have found formulation in Section 115 of the Evidence Act, the provisions of which proceed upon the doctrine of equity (upon which Section 41 of the Transfer of Property Act is also based) that he who by his declaration, act, or omission has induced another to alter his position, shall not be allowed to turn round and take advantage of such alteration of that other's position. 

All the other rules to be found in Chapter VIII of the Evidence Act, relating to the estoppel of tenant, or of acceptors of bills of exchange, bailees or licensees, proceed upon the same fundamental principles. On the other hand, the rule of res judicata does not owe its origin to any such principle, but is founded upon the maxim nemo debet bis vexari pro una et eddem cauaa--a maxim which is itself an outcome of the wider maxim interest reipublicae ut sit finis litium. 

The principle of estoppel, proceeds upon different grounds, and the framers of the Indian Codes of procedure acted upon correct juristic classification in dealing with the subject of res judicata as appertaining to the province of procedure properly so called. 

Perhaps the shortest way to describe the difference between the plea of res judicata and an estoppel, is to say that whilst the former prohibits the Court from entering into an inquiry at all as to a matter already adjudicated upon, the latter prohibits a party, after the inquiry has already been entered upon, from proving anything which would contradict his own previous declaration or acts to the prejudice of another party, who, relying upon those declarations or acts, altered his position.

In other words, res judicata prohibits an inquiry in limine, whilst an estoppel is only a piece of evidence. Further, the theory of res judicata is to presume by a conclusive presumption that the former adjudication declared the truth, whilst "an estoppel," to use the words of Lord Coke, "is where a man is concluded by his own act or acceptance to say the truth," which means, he is not allowed, in contradiction of his former self, to prove what he now choses to call the truth. Thus the plea of res judicata proceeds upon grounds of public policy properly so called, whilst an estoppel is simply the application of equitable principles between man and man--two individual parties to a litigation.