Opinion of the Court.

it was the real ground of decision, and not used to give color only to a refusal to allow the bar of the decree. It cannot be doubted that if Chapman and Stryker had, after the rendition of the decree, got from the Homestead Company permission to use its payments as a defence to the actions brought against them for the taxes, and in consideration thereof had promised to repay what had been advanced for that purpose, a new cause of action would have arisen, to which the decree would not have been a bar. That is in substance what the Supreme Court held was done. The county sued Chapman and Stryker for the taxes which had been levied on their lands, assuming that the payments made by the Homestead Company did not discharge them from their liability as the true owners. To this suit Goodnow, as the assignee of the Homestead Company, was a party, and in his pleadings he insisted that if they refused to pay the county because his assignor had already made the pay. ment, then they would be bound to him for the amount advanced by the company for that purpose. Such being his claim on the record, Chapman and Stryker, each in his own suit, set up as a defence "that all of said taxes were duly

paid by said Iowa Homestead Company as soon as the same became due, and said defendant was no longer liable therefor." This the court held to be equivalent to an election by Chapman and Stryker to treat the payments by the company as payments by themselves, and to imply a promise of reimbursement for the advances made. Whether this conclusion was correct or not depends on the tax laws of the State and the principles of general law applicable to such facts, and not on the Constitution or laws or authority of the United States. What was done was not affected by the decree because it was done afterwards. It was in the opinion of the court a new promise, as the money of the Homestead Company was in effect used by the defendants themselves to meet their own liabilities. The fact that the company gave the money to the county for the taxes could not of itself be made a ground of action against the defendants, because the court in the other case, to which they and the company were parties, had decided otherwise, and there had been at the time no election by them

Opinion of the Court.

to treat this act of the company as done for them. It was only when this election was made that the liability arose, and as that was after the decree, the new liability was not affected by what had been adjudicated before. The court did not refuse to give faith and credit to the decree, but it acted upon a new cause of action with which the decree had no legal connection. That decree is a bar to the cause of action upon which it was based, but not to a different cause of action arising afterwards.

Neither can we consider whether the court below erred in allowing the county to come in as a party to the suit, and in giving judgment upon the new cause of action which arose after the original suit was begun. The question presented by the new pleadings was a real question in the case, as adjudged by the court, and the manner of getting it in is no more the subject of review here than the decision upon it afterwards.

We are aware that a right or immunity set up or claimed under the Constitution or laws of the United States may be denied as well by evading a direct decision thereon as by positive action. If a Federal question is fairly presented by the record, and its decision is actually necessary to the determination of the case, a judgment which rejects the claim, but avoids all reference to it, is as much against the right, within the meaning of § 709 of the Revised Statutes, as if it had been specifically referred to and the right directly refused. But if a decision of such a question is rendered unnecessary by the view which the court properly takes of the rest of the case, within the scope of the pleadings, the judgment is not open to review here. Chouteau v. Gibson, 111 U. S. 200; Adams Co. v. Burlington & Missouri Railroad, 112 U. S. 123, 127. Such, in our opinion, were these cases, so far as the question arising out of the prior adjudication in Homestead Co. v. Valley Railroad is concerned. The Federal question involved in that decree lay behind the alleged new promise, and as the new promise was sustained and a judgment given against the defendants on that account, the effect of the decree did not necessarily enter into the determination of the cause.

Inasmuch, therefore, as there is no Federal question presented

Opinion of the Court.

by this branch of the cases, and there was no error in the decision of that involved in the other, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Iowa in each of the cases is

Affirmed.

LITCHFIELD v. GOODNOW'S ADMINISTRATOR.

ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF IOWA.

Argued November 1, 1887. - Decided December 5, 1887.

Stryker v. Goodnow, ante, 527, applied as to the effect of Wolcott v. Des Moines Co., 5 Wall. 681.

The plaintiff in error's intestate was not a party to Homestead Company v. Valley Railroad, nor in privity with those who were parties, and was not bound by the proceedings; and, as estoppels to be good must be mutual, the Homestead Company and its assignees were not bound.

THIS was a suit to recover taxes paid under circumstances which are set forth in Stryker v. Goodnow, ante, 527. The cause was argued with Stryker v. Goodnow. The case is stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. C. II. Gatch for plaintiff in error. Mr. William Connor was with him on the brief.

Mr. George Crane for defendant in error.

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WAITE delivered the opinion of the

court.

This suit was brought by Edward K. Goodnow, assignee of the Iowa Homestead Company, in his lifetime, against Grace H. Litchfield, in her lifetime, to recover the amount of taxes for the years 1864 to 1871, both inclusive, paid by the Homestead Company on certain tracts of Des Moines River lands held and owned by her, by and through conveyances from the Des Moines Navigation and Railroad Company. For a general statement of the facts reference is made to Stryker v. Crane, ante, 527. The taxes were paid before the decree in Homestead

Opinion of the Court.

Company v. Valley Railroad, 17 Wall. 153, and the assignment was made to Goodnow afterwards. As defences to the action, the prior adjudication in that case was pleaded in bar, and also the statute of limitations based on the decision as to title in Wolcott v. Des Moines Company, 5 Wall. 681, the same as in Stryker v. Crane.

Both these defences were overruled by the Supreme Court of the State, and judgment was entered in that court for the amount of taxes paid and interest. Goodnow v. Litchfield, 63 Iowa, 275.

As to the Federal question arising on the statute of limitations, it is only necessary to refer to what was said on that subject in Stryker v. Crane, ante, 527. There was no error in the decision of the court below on that point.

The defence of prior adjudication is disposed of by the fact that Mrs. Litchfield was not a party to the suit in which the adjudication relied on was had. At the time of the commencement of the suit she was the owner of her lands, and they were described in the bill, but neither she nor any one who represented her title was named as a defendant. She interested herself in securing a favorable decision of the questions involved as far as they were applicable to her own interests, and paid part of the expenses; but there was nothing to bind her by the decision. If it had been adverse to her interest, no decree could have been entered against her personally either for the lands or the taxes. Her lands were entirely separate and distinct from those of the actual parties. A decree in favor of or against them and their title was in no legal sense a decree in favor of or against her. She was indirectly interested in the result, but not directly. As the questions affecting her own title and her own liability for taxes were similar to those involved in the suit, the decision could be used as a judicial precedent in a proceeding against her, but not as a judgment binding on her and conclusive as to her rights. Her rights were similar to, but not identical with, those of the persons who were actually parties to the litigation.

Greenleaf, in his Treatise on the Law of Evidence, Vol. I, § 523, states the rule applicable to this class of cases thus:

Opinion of the Court.

"Under the term parties, in this connection, the law includes all who are directly interested in the subject matter, and had a right to make defence, or to control the proceedings, and to appeal from the judgment. This right involves also the right to adduce testimony, and to cross-examine the witnesses adduced on the other side. Persons not having these rights are regarded as strangers to the cause. But to give full effect to the principle by which parties are held bound by a judgment, all persons who are represented by the parties and claim under them, or in privity with them, are equally concluded by the same proceedings. We have already seen that the term privity denotes mutual or successive relationship to the same rights of property. The ground, therefore, upon which persons standing in this relation to the litigating party are bound by the proceedings to which he was a party is, that they are identified with him in interest; and whenever this identity is found to exist, all are alike concluded. Hence, all privies, whether in estate, in blood, or in law, are estopped from litigating that which is conclusive on him with whom they are in privity." The correctness of this statement has been often affirmed by this court: Lovejoy v. Murray, 3 Wall. 1, 19; Robbins v. Chicago City, 4 Wall. 657, 673; and the principle has been recognized in many cases. Indeed, it is elementary. Hale v. Finch, 104 U. S. 261, 265; Railroad Company v. National Bank, 102 U. S. 14, 22; Butterfield v. Smith, 101 U. S. 570.

In the condition of parties to the record during the whole course of the litigation between the Homestead Company and those who were named as defendants, Mrs. Litchfield had no right to make a defence in her own name, neither could she control the proceedings, nor appeal from the decree. She could not in her own right adduce testimony or cross-examine witnesses. Neither was she identified in interest with any one who was a party. She owned her lands; the parties to the suit owned theirs; her rights were all separate and distinct from the rest, and there was no mutual or successive relationship between her and the other owners. She was neither a party to the suit, nor in privity with those who were parties;