Term: 2019
Docket: 18-1086
Lucky Brand Dungarees Inc. v. Marcel Fashion Group Inc.
- Pro
18-1086 LUCKY BRAND DUNGAREES, INC. V. MARCEL FASHIONS GROUP, INC. DECISION BELOW: 898 F.3d 232 CERT. GRANTED 6/28/2019 QUESTION PRESENTED: In serial litigation between two parties, timetested principles of claim preclusion and issue preclusion govern when parties mayand may not litigate issues that were, or could have been, litigated in a prior case. This Court has held that, in a subsequent case between the same parties involving different claims from those litigated in the earlier case, the defendant is free to raise defenses that were not litigated in the earlier case, even though they could have been. The Federal Circuit, Eleventh Circuit, and Ninth Circuit have all held the same in recent years. Their reasoning is straightforward: Claim preclusion does not bar such defenses, because the claims in the second case arise from different transactions and occurrences from the first case, and issue preclusion does not bar them either, because they were never actually litigated. The Second Circuit, however, has now held the opposite. Under the Second Circuit's "defense preclusion" rule, defendants are barred from raising such defenses even if the plaintiff’s claims are distinct from those asserted in the prior case and the defenses were never actually litigated. The question presented is: Whether, when a plaintiff asserts new claims, federal preclusion principles can bar a defendant from raising defenses that were not actually litigated and resolved in any prior case between the parties. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 17-0361-cv
The U.S. Supreme Court case Lucky Brand Dungarees Inc. v. Marcel Fashion Group Inc., 2019, revolved around a long-standing trademark dispute between the two clothing companies. The issue at hand was whether Lucky Brand Dungarees was barred by "defense preclusion" from arguing that its use of certain trademarks did not infringe on Marcel's rights because the argument could have been made in an earlier lawsuit but wasn't fully pursued then. Defense preclusion is a legal principle that prevents a party from raising defenses in later litigation that were or could have been raised in prior litigation against the same adversary over similar issues. In this case, however, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Lucky Brand and held that defense preclusion does not apply where different claims are presented across suits and one suit raises new matters which were not necessarily decided by judgment in another suit.
In the Supreme Court case of Lucky Brand Dungarees Inc. v. Marcel Fashion Group Inc., there was no dissenting opinion recorded as the decision was unanimous, with all justices agreeing on the outcome and reasoning of the case. The court ruled in favor of Lucky Brand, stating that a party cannot be barred from raising defenses that were not previously litigated and resolved in an earlier lawsuit between the same parties. This ruling clarified how claim preclusion principles apply to defenses raised in trademark infringement lawsuits.
