- 15 - Trust owned the 567 PCAB shares, and Mary Maggos merely had a life estate interest in the income of the Trust corpus. Respondent, with a great deal of justification, asks this Court to preclude petitioner from arguing that decedent had only a limited interest in the redeemed PCAB shares. Respondent argues that this is a new issue that petitioner is improperly raising for the first time on brief, and the Court should apply the doctrine of judicial estoppel9 to prevent petitioner’s taking a position on the “ownership” of the PCAB shares that is inconsistent with petitioner’s position in the District Court litigation. Petitioner’s argument that decedent had less than a full beneficial ownership interest in the 567 shares of PCAB common stock is not mentioned in the petition, amended petition, memorandum filed in response to our pretrial order of July 15, 1997, or petitioner’s pretrial memorandum that was submitted just prior to trial. In fact, petitioner’s pleadings and the pretrial memorandum assert that decedent was “owner and/or beneficial owner” of the PCAB shares. Petitioner took the same position in the District Court litigation. We have no doubt that 9The doctrine of judicial estoppel is also known as the doctrine of preclusion of inconsistent positions. See Helfand v. Gerson, 105 F.3d 530, 534 (9th Cir. 1997). In this opinion, for convenience, we adopt the term “judicial estoppel” when referring to the doctrine.Page: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Next
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