Supreme Court of the United States June 13, 1996, 95-386 (Richards v. Jefferson County)

Justice Stevens

delivered the opinion of the Court.

In

Hansberry

v.

Lee,

311 U. S. 32, 37 (1940), we held that it would violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to bind litigants to a judgment rendered in an earlier litigation to which they were not parties and in which they were not adequately represented.