Non-Party Preclusion

When can a court bind a person who is not present before the court? Due process requires that before a person's rights are adjudicated they be afforded notice and an opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner. The Supreme Court has also said, on numerous occasions, that a basic principle of our legal system is that every person is entitled to his day in court. So how can it be that people can be bound by a lawsuit that they haven't participated in? The problem is an increasingly important one in the age of mass litigation. When large numbers of people sue it is simply impossible to give each one of them their "day in court" as a practical matter. There just aren't enough days in the year or judges on the bench. As a result, courts sometimes find themselves looking to expand the doctrine of non-party preclusion to limit the influx of similar lawsuits into the courts. The limits of preclusion doctrine is the subject of the two cases you are reading for today: Taylor v. Sturgell and Hansberry v. Lee.