STARE DECISIS

Stare decisis simply means that a judgment reached in one case should be applied to successive ones in
which the facts are substantially identical, even though the parties may be different. Like cases ought
to be decided alike.
Stare decisis works as a bar only against issues litigated in a previous case. It is based on the principle
that once a question of law has been examined and decided, it should be deemed settled and closed to
further argument.

RES JUDICATA
Literally means "a matter adjudged; a thing judicially acted upon or decided; a thing or matter settled by
judgment". This doctrine establishes the rule that an existing final judgment or decree rendered on the
merits, without fraud or collusion, by a court of competent jurisdiction, upon any matter within its
jurisdiction, is conclusive of the rights of the parties or their privies, in all other actions or suits in the
same or any other judicial tribunal of concurrent jurisdiction on the points and matters in issue in the
first suit. It rests on the principle that parties should not be permitted to litigate the same issue more
than once; that when a right or fact has been judicially tried and determined by a court of competent
jurisdiction, so long as it remains unreversed, it should be conclusive upon the parties and those in
privity with them in law or estate.
The following requisites must concur:
1. The former judgment or order must be final;
2. The judgment or order must be on the merits;
3. It must have been rendered by a court having jurisdiction over the subject matter and the parties; and
4. There must be, between the first and the second actions, identity of parties, of subject matter and of
cause of action.

LITIS PENDENCIA
Litis pendencia is a ground for the dismissal of a civil action which arises where two actions are pending
between the same parties for the same cause of action, so that one of them becomes unnecessary and
vexatious. It exists when the following requisites are present:
1. Identity of the parties in the two actions;
2. substantial identity in the causes of action and in the reliefs sought by the parties;
3. and the identity between the two actions should be such that any judgment that may be
rendered in one case, regardless of which party is successful, would amount to res judicata in
the other.

LAW OF THE CASE

Law of the case provides that whatever is once irrevocably established as the controlling legal principle
or decision, continues to be the law of the case between the same parties in the same case, whether
correct on general principles or not, so long as the facts on which such decision was predicated continue
to be the facts of the case before the court.
In the law of the case, the first judgment is generally not yet final.