248
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
N. W. 2d 250, 253 (quoting Storey v. Meijer, Inc., 431 Mich. 368, 373, n. 3, 429 N. W. 2d 169, 171, n. 3 (1988)), cert. denied, 516 U. S. 964 (1995). "Although there is a trend in modern law to abolish the requirement of mutuality, this Court reaffirmed its commitment to that doctrine in 1971 in [Howell v. Vito's Trucking & Excavating Co., 386 Mich. 37, 191 N. W. 2d 313]. Mutuality of estoppel remains the law in this jurisdiction . . . ." Lichon v. American Universal Ins. Co., 435 Mich. 408, 427-428, 459 N. W. 2d 288, 298 (1990) (footnote omitted). Since the Bakers were not parties to the Michigan proceedings and had no opportunity to litigate any of the issues presented, it appears that Michigan law would not treat them as bound by the judgment. The majority cites no authority to the contrary.
It makes no difference that the judgment in question is an injunction. The Michigan Supreme Court has twice rejected arguments that injunctions have preclusive effect in later litigation, relying in no small part on the fact that the persons against whom preclusion is asserted were not parties to the earlier litigation. Bacon v. Walden, 186 Mich. 139, 144, 152 N. W. 1061, 1063 (1915) ("Defendant was not a party to [the prior injunctive] suit and was not as a matter of law affected or bound by the decree rendered in it"); Detroit v. Detroit R. Co., 134 Mich. 11, 15, 95 N. W. 992, 993 (1903) ("[T]he fact that defendant was in no way a party to the record is sufficient answer to the contention that the holding of the circuit judge in that [prior injunctive] case is a controlling determination of the present").
The opinion of the Court of Appeals suggests the Michigan court which issued the injunction intended to bind third parties in litigation in other States. 86 F. 3d 811, 820 (CA8 1996). The question, however, is not what a trial court intended in a particular case but the preclusive effect its judgment has under the controlling legal principles of its own State. Full faith and credit measures the effect of a judgment by all the laws of the rendering State, including author-
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