Court Opinion

ID: 9459642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:27:07.053454+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:15.740057
License: Public Domain

SPOTTSWOOD W. ROBINSON, III, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
I join in Judge Leventhal’s opinion in to to but I believe Judge Bazelon also makes a strong point. It simply cannot be assumed that an ordinary pro se litigant is conversant with the intricacies of collateral estoppel or summary judgment. That is not to suggest that these wholesome doctrines are to be cast aside simply because the litigant is a layman. It is to say, however, that the presence of such a litigant may summon the court *513to the minor effort needed to make sure that they do not become traps for the legally unlearned.1
We have long recognized that laymen cannot be held to the standards of. performance expected of members of the bar.2 Collateral estoppel is not an inexorable rule of law, and where a lay litigant may not be aware of the need to oppose an assertion of fact, the court’s failure to indicate the consequences may promote just that ■ kind of unfairness which gives reason for refusing to recognize a bar from the ensuing judgment.3
I think, then, that if the fact that Stebbins was an unrepresented layman were the only pivotal consideration in the case, we would have to proceed, as Judge Bazelon does, to determine whether Stebbins was so knowledgeable that the absence of such a warning was nonprejudicial. I do not reach that question, however, because I agree with Judge Leventhal that an estoppel could not arise here, and reversal is in any event required.

. Compare Amsden v. United States, 175 F.Supp. 147, 148-149, 146 Ct.Cl. 809 (1959) ; Adams v. Pearson, 411 Ill. 431, 104 N.E.2d 267, 272 (1952) ; State ex rel. White Pine Sash Co. v. Superior Court, 145 Wash. 576, 261 P. 110, 111 (1927) ; White v. Adler, 289 N.Y. 34, 43 N.E.2d 798, 802 (1942).

. See Johnson v. United States, supra note 1; Fulwood v. Clemmer, 111 U.S.App.D.C. 184, 186 n. 5, 295 F.2d 171, 173 n. 5 (1961) ; Smith v. United States, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 169, 170, 270 F.2d 921, 922 (en bane 1959).

. Compare Johnson v. United States, 132 U.S.App.D.C. 4, 405 F.2d 1072 (1968).