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Civil Procedure-Judgements-Mutuauty As Requirement For Assertion Of Collateral Estoppel Against Claimant Who Was Claimee In Prior Action, William E. Wickens

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff corporations, the sole shareholder of which was their president, sued defendant insurers to recover for the alleged theft of the corporations' furs. In an earlier criminal action, the president (conceded by the corporations to be their mere alter ego for purposes of res judicata) had been convicted of attempted grand theft, conspiracy to commit grand theft, and the filing of fraudulent insurance claims for loss of the same furs; it was there determined that the president had staged the theft of the furs. In plaintiffs' civil action, the superior court rejected defendants' plea of collateral estoppel as to the …