Opinion ID: 105537
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Collateral Estoppel.

Text: There remains to be dealt with petitioner Schneiderman's claim based on the doctrine of collateral estoppel by judgment. Petitioner urges that in Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, a denaturalization proceeding in which he was the prevailing party, this Court made determinations favorable to him which are conclusive in this proceeding under the doctrine of collateral estoppel. Specifically, petitioner contends that the Schneiderman decision determined, for purposes of this proceeding, (1) that the teaching of Marxism-Leninism by the Communist Party was not necessarily the advocacy of violent overthrow of government; (2) that at least one tenable conclusion to be drawn from the evidence was that the Communist Party desired to achieve its goal of socialism through peaceful means; (3) that it could not be presumed, merely because of his membership or officership in the Communist Party, that Schneiderman adopted an illegal interpretation of Marxist doctrine; and finally, (4) that absent proof of overt acts indicating that Schneiderman personally adopted a reprehensible interpretation, the Government had failed to establish its burden by the clear and unequivocal evidence necessary in a denaturalization case. In the courts below, petitioner urged unsuccessfully that these determinations were conclusive in this proceeding under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, and entitled him either to an acquittal or to special instructions to the jury. He makes the same contentions here. We are in agreement with petitioner that the doctrine of collateral estoppel is not made inapplicable by the fact that this is a criminal case, whereas the prior proceedings were civil in character. United States v. Oppenheimer, 242 U. S. 85. We agree further that the nonexistence of a fact may be established by a judgment no less than its existence; that, in other words, a party may be precluded under the doctrine of collateral estoppel from attempting a second time to prove a fact that he sought unsuccessfully to prove in a prior action. Sealfon v. United States, 332 U. S. 575. Nor need we quarrel with petitioner's premise that the standard of proof applicable in denaturalization cases is at least no greater than that applicable in criminal proceedings. Compare Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U. S. 391; Murphy v. United States, 272 U. S. 630. We assume, without deciding, that substantially the same standards of proof are applicable in the two types of cases. Cf. Klapprott v. United States, 335 U. S. 601, 612. Nevertheless, for reasons that will appear, we think that the doctrine of collateral estoppel does not help petitioner here. We differ with petitioner, first of all, in his estimate of what the Schneiderman case determined for purposes of the doctrine of collateral estoppel. That doctrine makes conclusive in subsequent proceedings only determinations of fact, and mixed fact and law, that were essential to the decision. Commissioner v. Sunnen, 333 U. S. 591, 601-602; Tait v. Western Maryland R. Co., 289 U. S. 620; The Evergreens v. Nunan, 141 F. 2d 927, 928. As we read the Schneiderman opinion, the only determination essential to the decision was that Schneiderman had not, prior to 1927, adopted an interpretation of the Communist Party's teachings featuring agitation and exhortation calling for present violent action. 320 U. S., at 157-159. If it be accepted that the holding extended in the alternative to the character of advocacy engaged in by the Communist Party, then the essential finding was that the Party had not, in 1927, engaged in agitation and exhortation calling for present violent action. Ibid. The Court in Schneiderman certainly did not purport to determine what the doctrinal content of Marxism-Leninism might be at all times and in all places. Nor did it establish that the books and pamphlets introduced against Schneiderman in that proceeding could not support in any way an inference of criminality, no matter how or by whom they might thereafter be used. At most, we think, it made the determinations we have stated, limited to the time and place that were then in issue. It is therefore apparent that the determinations made by this Court in Schneiderman could not operate as a complete bar to this proceeding. Wholly aside from the fact that the Court was there concerned with the state of affairs existing in 1927, whereas we are concerned here with the period 1948-1951, the issues in the present case are quite different. We are not concerned here with whether petitioner has engaged in agitation and exhortation calling for present violent action, whether in 1927 or later. Even if it were conclusively established against the Government that neither petitioner nor the Communist Party had ever engaged in such advocacy, that circumstance would constitute no bar to a conviction under 18 U. S. C. § 371 of conspiring to advocate forcible overthrow of government in violation of the Smith Act. It is not necessary for conviction here that advocacy of present violent action be proved. Petitioner's demand for judgment of acquittal must therefore be rejected. The decision in Federal Trade Commission v. Cement Institute, 333 U. S. 683, 708-709, is precisely in point and is controlling. What we have said we think also disposes of petitioner's contention that the trial court should have instructed the jury that certain evidentiary or subordinate issues must be taken as conclusively determined in his favor. The argument is that the determinations made in the Schneiderman case are not wholly irrelevant to this case, even if they do not conclude it, and hence that petitioner should be entitled to an instruction giving those determinations such partial conclusive effect as they might warrant. We think, however, that the doctrine of collateral estoppel does not establish any such concept of conclusive evidence as that contended for by petitioner. The normal rule is that a prior judgment need be given no conclusive effect at all unless it establishes one of the ultimate facts in issue in the subsequent proceeding. So far as merely evidentiary or mediate facts are concerned, the doctrine of collateral estoppel is inoperative. The Evergreens v. Nunan, 141 F. 2d 927; Restatement, Judgments § 68, comment p. Whether there are any circumstances in which the giving of limiting instructions such as those requested here might be necessary or proper, we need not now determine. Cf. Bordonaro Bros. Theatres, Inc. v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 203 F. 2d 676, 678. It is sufficient for us to hold that in this case the matters of fact and mixed fact and law necessarily determined by the prior judgment, limited as they were to the year 1927, were so remote from the issues as to justify their exclusion from evidence in the discretion of the trial judge. Since there must be a new trial, we have not found it necessary to deal with the contentions of the petitioners as to the fairness of the trial already held. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.