West Palm Beach Trustee Tips: Avoid Re-litigating OLD Issues with the Doctrine of Claim Preclusion. September 9, 2015 West Palm Beach Appeals Case.

Often times in a trust dispute issues carry over from a prior claim against a  trustee or trust. Is the other side trying to revive old issues that you already won in West Palm Beach probate court? Chances are these claims are barred by a judicial doctrine known as claim preclusion. If you want to learn how to throw out the old settled matters in your trust dispute you may want to check out this case that was just filed by the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

Revisiting Past Issues

• The goal of a Court is to resolve issues and bring about a final judgment on certain issues.
• Often times though trust disputes are not so easily settled.
• When a company sues another company for breach of contract the companies can stop working together in the future with little problem.
• In a trust dispute though you are still going to see that trustee or beneficiary again. 
• In fact they are probably your family, so you may a few awkward Thanksgivings to look forward to.
• Often new issues arise and they tear the Band-Aid off the old wounds.
• The problem is that litigation can get expensive and you do not want to revisit old issues that you have won.
• So what can you do?
• Experienced Palm Beach probate litigators know that there are judicial doctrines that prevent a litigant from wasting the Court’s time in issues like this.
• Have you heard of claim preclusion?

Aronowitz v. Home Diagnostics Inc.

• This was an appeal to the Fourth District Court of Appeal following a order of final summary judgment in a Broward County Court.
• One party had brought claims of breach of a licensing contract but the other side argued that the issues had already been litigated in a federal court.
• Claim preclusion can be brought up even if the claim was previously litigated in another venue or court. 
• That means it could have been in Federal Court, another State Court or even in arbitration!
• Use claim preclusion to save yourself time and attorney fees, if you already won the fight, do not fight it twice.

Want to learn more about how claim preclusion works in West Palm Beach?

Check out the entire case of Aronwitz v. Home Diagnostics Inc. by clicking here.