Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/402

 38S FEBEBili BSFOBÏBB. �by the agents of the defendant without authority, their aets were afterwards ratified by their principal. �In a recent case, of controlling authority, (Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U. S. 351,) the rules which furnish the test whether or not a former adjudication ia an estoppel, havo been defined bo explicitly as to remôve the uncertainty which bas existfcd in a class of cases as to which there bave been many coniiicting expressions. The general rule, that the judgment of a court of concurrent jùrisdiction is as a plea, a bar, or as evidence conclusive between the same parties upoa the same matter, directly in question in another court, haa been repeated in ail the adjudications since it was enunciated by Lord Chief Justice De Grey in the Duchess of Kingston's Case; but many authorities are f ound which declare that the estoppel applies not onjy to points upon which the court was actually required to form an opinion and pronounce judgment, but also to every point which belonged to the subject of the issue, and which the parties might have brought f orward at the time. Perhaps no more striking illustration of the extent to which this doctrine has been carried can be found, than in the decisions of the court of appeals of this state, where it ia held that a recovery by a surgeon for professional services is conclusive in bis favor when subsequently sued for malprac-: tice in periorming such services, although the point whether the services were properly performed was not presented or contested in the former suit. Gates v. Preston, 41 N. Y.: 113; Blair v. Bartlett, 75 N. Y. 150. It is unnecessary to refer to cases like Davia v. Hedges, Law Eep. 6 Q. B. 687, and Mondei V. Steele, 8 Mees & W. 858, which are directly to the contrary effect ; but there are expressions of opinion in cases in the supreme court prior to Cromwell v. County of Sac, which indi- cate that the estoppel extends not only to the matters of fact and law which were decided in the former action, but also to the grounds of recovery or defence which might have been but were not presented. Beloitv. Moi-gan, 1 Wall. 619; AU' rora v. West, 7 Wall. 106. �In Cromwell v. County of Sac, howôver, the conolusivenesa ����