The U.S. Supreme Court case Parklane Hosiery Co., Inc. v. Shore in 1978 revolved around the issue of collateral estoppel, a legal principle that prevents an issue from being re-litigated once it has been resolved in court. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had previously sued Parklane Hosiery for issuing a false and misleading proxy statement, which was found to be true by the court. In this subsequent class-action lawsuit brought on by stockholders led by Shore against Parklane Hosiery, they sought damages based on the same misleading proxy statement already ruled upon in the SEC suit. The main question before the Supreme Court was whether it is constitutionally permissible for a federal court to apply non-mutual offensive collateral estoppel - where plaintiff seeks to prevent defendant from relitigating issues defendant previously litigated unsuccessfully with another party - against a defendant over its objection. In ruling for Shore (the plaintiffs), Justice Potter Stewart delivered an opinion stating that there are no absolute constitutional barriers to applying non-mutual offensive collateral estoppel but noted that trial courts should have broad discretion as not all cases would be suitable due to fairness considerations.

In the dissenting opinion for Parklane Hosiery Co., Inc. v. Shore, Justice William Rehnquist disagreed with the majority's decision to allow offensive non-mutual collateral estoppel in certain cases where it would not be unfair to do so. He argued that this approach was inconsistent with traditional principles of res judicata and due process rights, which require a party to have had an opportunity to fully litigate an issue before being bound by a court's determination on it. Furthermore, he expressed concern about potential abuse of this rule by plaintiffs who might wait until another plaintiff has successfully litigated an issue before bringing their own suit based on that same issue - essentially allowing them to benefit from someone else's work without having taken any risk themselves.