Marjorie Long Conley v. the Hon. George L. Spillers, Judge

Summary

In an original prohibition proceeding, the West Virginia Supreme Court declined to compel the trial judge to enforce collateral estoppel based on the earlier gas-explosion litigation in Long v. City of Weirton and to grant the Conleys summary judgment. The court held that mutuality of parties is no longer an absolute requirement for collateral estoppel in West Virginia, that the Conleys' earlier role as guardians ad litem for their injured daughter creates no privity foreclosing their own personal-injury and loss-of-consortium claims, and that due process bars the intervening defendants, who were exonerated by the first jury, from asserting that judgment against the Conleys. Because the application of collateral estoppel rests on discretionary, fact-bound determinations, prohibition does not lie, and the writ was denied.