- 83 -
foster certainty in and reliance on judicial action. See Monahan
v. Commissioner, 109 T.C. 235, 240 (1997). This Court, in Peck
v. Commissioner, supra at 166-167, prescribed the following five
conditions that must be satisfied before applying collateral
estoppel to a current factual dispute (the Peck requirements):
(1) The issue in the second suit must be identical
in all respects with the one decided in the first suit.
(2) There must be a final judgment rendered by a
court of competent jurisdiction.
(3) Collateral estoppel may be invoked against
parties and their privies to the prior judgment.
(4) The parties must actually have litigated the
issues and the resolution of these issues must have
been essential to the prior decision.
(5) The controlling facts and applicable legal
rules must remain unchanged from those in the prior
litigation. [Citations omitted.]38
Collateral estoppel may be used in connection with matters
of law, matters of fact, and mixed matters of law and fact. See
Meier v. Commissioner, 91 T.C. 273, 283 (1988). Moreover, its
focus is on the identity of issues, not the identity of legal
proceedings, so that it may apply to issues of fact or law
previously litigated even though the claims differ. See Bertoli
v. Commissioner, 103 T.C. 501, 508 (1994)(citing Meier v.
Commissioner, 91 T.C. at 286). Collateral estoppel cannot apply
38The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit used a similar
test to determine whether collateral estoppel applied. See Klein
v. Commissioner, 880 F.2d 260, 262-263 (10th Cir. 1989).
Page: Previous 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011