Bowers' Estate

Citations

• 240 Pa. 388
• 87 A. 711
• 1913 Pa. LEXIS 681

Syllabus

<p>Bes adjudícala — Public policy — Belated causes.</p> <p>1. A cause of action once finally determined, without appeal, between the parties, on the merits, by any competent tribunal, cannot afterwards be litigated by new proceedings either before the same or any other tribunal. This is a rule dictated by a public policy which demands that when a fact has been judicially and finally determined between the same parties, contention with respect thereto must , cease. The rule applies with the same strictness where the cause of action, while not technically the same, is nevertheless so related to the cause in the prior litigation that some matter, the establishment of which is essential to the recovery in the second, was determined in the first.</p> <p>Bes adjudícala — Failure of charitable gift — Alternative gift to executor — Finding of fact.</p> <p>2. Where the Orphans’ Court upon the adjudication of the first account of an executor decided as a fact that an alternative gift to him, in the event of the death of the testatrix within thirty days of the date of the will, with consequent failure of a gift to charity, was not void on the ground that it was a device or scheme adopted by the testatrix and participated in by the claimant to defeat the operation of the Act of April 26, 1855, P. L. 328, this question cannot be reopened upon the adjudication of the second account of the executor. The exact question of fact having been determined in the first proceeding, and no appeal having been taken, all controversy with respect thereto was finally closed: Guenther’s Appeal, 4 W. N. C. 41, distinguished.</p>