Opinion ID: 1132298
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: claim preclusion is applicable to prevent relitigation of armstrong's claims to the land in suit against the same parties as those in prior litigation

Text: Because issue preclusion raises an insurmountable barrier to a collateral attack for the alleged jurisdictional deficiencies in the federal judgment, claim preclusion is available against Armstrong's attempt to relitigate her claim to the disputed land in the instant state-court action. Under the doctrine of claim preclusion, a final judgment on the merits bars a subsequent suit on the same cause of action. [24] Armstrong's land claims pressed by her in the federal and state courts are substantially identical. The only way she could avoid the effect of claim preclusion as a bar to the claims she raised against the same parties in her first lawsuit would be by asserting that the prior judgment was void for want of some jurisdictional element that has not been fully and fairly litigated as a disputed issue between the parties. As the federal-court judgment was impervious to Armstrong's collateral attack, the trial court properly rendered summary judgment against her. Judgment affirmed.