Umlauf v. Umlauf

Citations

• 117 Ill. 580
• 6 N.E. 455

Syllabus

<p>1. Former adjudication—whether a bar to a subsequent suit—as to identity of questions involved. Where an issue of fact is final!)' determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, its finding and determination are final and conclusive upon the parties and their privies in all subsequent litigation between them in which the same question arises, so long as the judgment remains unreversed or not otherwise set aside.</p> <p>2. But for the purposes of this rule it is not sufficient that the question arising in subsequent litigation is identical with the one decided, in some respects, only. It must be so in all respects. If there is an element in one of the questions which is not contained in the other, the rule does not apply.</p> <p>3. Same—;finding on bill for separate maintenance,, whether conclusive upon right to divorce. A decree dismissing the bill of a married woman for separate maintenance, is not conclusive against her husband’s right to a divorce upon the ground of subsequent desertion by the wife. The question whether a woman lived separate and apart from her husband without her fault, is not identical with the proposition that she willfully deserted and absented herself from him without any reasonable cause.</p> <p>4. On December 2, 1880, a wife filed her bill against her husband for a separate maintenance, which, on October 4, 1882, on a hearing, was dismissed; On February 12, 1883, the husband filed his bill against the wife for a divorce, charging her with willful and continuous desertion, “without any reasonable cause,” for a period of more than two years from December 2, 1880. On the hearing of the suit for divorce, the court admitted in evidence, against the wife’s objection, the pleadings and decree in the prior suit, and also excluded all evidence offered on her part tending to disprove the charge of willful desertion without reasonable cause: Held, that the court erred in admitting the record in evidence, and in the exclusion of the other offered