Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/405

 8MITH ». TOWN OF ONTAEIO. 891 �Bon as hîs agent, but the conclusiveness of the adjudication could not be overthrown in a subsequent action by proof of a "written authority wbich was not given upon the trial of the former action. �In short, whatever is merely matter of evidence becomes of no importance after the determination of the matter in issue. If these views are correct it is not difficult to determine what ■was the matter in issue or point in controversy in the pres- ent case. The issue was whether or not the acts of the agents in issuing the bonds were, in fact and in law, the acts of the defendant. It was determined that they were not. The point in controyersy was not how or whereby the acts of the agents became the acts of the principal, but whether they were so. The plaintiff sought to establish the issue in his favor by showing a statutory authority in the agents. Instead of doing this, the plaintiff might have shown that the defendant had adopted the acts done in his behalf. A subsequent ratifica- tion is equivalent to an original authorization. Either mode of proving the agency was permissible under the pleadinga, and the allegations of the pleadings in that behalf are the same in the present action as in the former one. The ultimate fact to be proved was the agency; the manner of proving it was merely a matter of evidence. The plaintiff can no more be permitted to re-open the matter in issue thus settled, by the new evidence which he offered here, than he could be by giving in evidence new or additional facts show- ing compliance with the statutory requirements. �Unless these conclusions express the correct view of the effect of a former adjudication, it would be wiser to abrogate ail the rules which comprise the law of estoppel relating to the conclusiveness of former judgments. They are intended to give permanence to established rights by ref using to re-open controversies which have once been tried, and in which the parties have had fuU opportunity to bring forward their proofs and present the merits of their case. If a controversy once tried and determined is to have no effect whenever different evidence upon the same matter in issue o»n b« produced, the ����