Supreme Court Case May Make Civil Litigants ‘Unlucky’

摘要

In an odyssey 19 years in the making,the U.S.Supreme Court recently heard arguments over Lucky Brand Dungarees’use of the phrase”Get Lucky,”in an underre-ported case in which the decision could affect all civil litigation.The case,Lucky Brand Dungarees Inc.v.Marcel Fashion Group Inc.,began as a trademark dispute and morphed into a challenge that could drive up the costs and times of lawsuits themselves.At the heart of the dispute is the issue of whether a nonasserted legal defense from a previously concluded case can be argued in subsequent litigation,or if it is barred under the legal principal known as”claim preclusion"(sometimes referred to as res judicata).