Page:United States Reports, Volume 24.djvu/308

300 the plaintiffs, allowed by the Court. It does not appear to us, that any such estoppel arises from this allegation in the record. The record itself certainly does not constitute a technical estoppel, for it is res inter alios acta. The most that can be said is, that it is proper evidence to prove who the plaintiffs at that time deemed to be landlord, and, therefore, admissible to rebut the presumption that the present defendant was the landlord. But, certainly, the evidence was not conclusive upon either party. It was open to the plaintiffs to show, that, in point of fact, the present defendant was the real landlord, that the admission in the record was founded in mistake of the facts, or that J. C. F. Chirac was a sub-landlord under Reinicker, or his superior landlord. What would have been the effect of such proof is not for this Court to determine. We think, then, that the evidence offered by the plaintiffs was admissible upon general principles; and we see no estoppel which excludes it in this particular case. The directions of the Circuit Court were, on this point, erroneous.

If it had appeared upon the record, that the evidence offered by the plaintiffs was solely to connect the defendant with the ejectment, so that the recovery would be conclusive upon him in the same manner as if he had been a party on the record, and, as such, admitted to defend, and actually defending the suit, the case might have required a very different consideration. We have already intimated an opinion, that notice of an ejectment suit, or defence of the suit, by a