Innebörden av facta supervenientia – Om omständighetens karaktär och tidpunkten för dess inträffande

Sammanfattning: The foundation of civil procedural law lays on the principle of res judicata. The scope of the legal force of a judgement, however, is not absolute. Res judicata is for example limited in time. Thus, may a circumstance not able to be brought up in an initial process, under certain circumstances, be brought up in a second without the hinder of res judicata. This even though the second process pertains to the same matter (samma sak). The temporal exception to res judicata is that of facta supervenientia. Circumstances incorporated by the principle of facta supervenientia break through the negative legal scope of a prior ruling allowing a circumstance of the same matter to be tried again. Even though facta supervenientia constitutes a well-established principle, it is not exactly clear what its definition entails. This thesis aims to explore the definition of facta supervenientia by exanimat-ing what type of circumstances its definition encompasses and the point in time in which these need to occur in order to be considered facta supervenien-tia. The essay also contains a presentation of what constitutes the “same mat-ter”. This, due to the topic’s relevance to res judicata and its limits. In all, I reach the conclusion that for a circumstance to be considered a factum superveniens, the circumstance ought to be that of a, to the matter relevant, legal fact that has occurred after the initial judgment has gained legal force. The findings speak to a clear divide between the possibility of a petition for a new trail (resningsansökan), and a new trial through facta supervenientia.