Also known as: facta probanda · fact to be proved · ultimate fact
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A fact to be proved. The proposition that one party affirms and the opposing party denies, which the tribunal must resolve on the basis of the evidence presented.
Prosecutors charged Daniel Price with robbing one teller during a credit-union takeover. The sole contested issue at trial was whether Price was among the masked gunmen. After the jury acquitted him, the state brought a new charge naming a second teller as the victim and offered the identical video and eyewitness testimony. The factum probandum remained whether Price was the perpetrator, so the acquittal barred relitigation of that proposition.
A public-figure plaintiff sued a television producer for defamation. To prevail, the plaintiff had to establish that the producer acted with actual malice when broadcasting the allegedly false statements. The factum probandum therefore centered on the producer's subjective awareness of probable falsity, and discovery into the producer's editorial process was permitted to test that proposition.
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Female job applicants challenged a height-and-weight requirement for prison guards. They had to prove that the requirement produced a substantially disproportionate exclusion of women and was not justified by business necessity. The factum probandum was the existence and legal significance of that statistical disparity.
A worker sued an electrical cooperative for negligence after suffering injury on the job. The cooperative asserted that the worker was its employee and therefore limited to workers'-compensation remedies. The factum probandum was the employment relationship, and the plaintiff was entitled to have a jury resolve that factual question.
An insurance company defended a life-insurance claim by asserting that the insured had never intended to travel to a distant state. The beneficiary offered letters written by the insured expressing plans to relocate. The factum probandum was the insured's state of mind at the time the letters were written.
A defendant stood trial for possessing stolen videotapes. The government sought to introduce evidence of an earlier burglary to prove the defendant's identity as the thief. The factum probandum remained whether the defendant was the person who committed the charged offense, and the prior-act evidence was admissible only if that proposition was genuinely disputed.
Factum probandum is the ultimate proposition that must be proved. Factum probans is the evidentiary material offered to establish that proposition. The distinction separates the claim the tribunal must decide from the items of proof used to support it.
When an acquittal necessarily resolves a particular factum probandum in the defendant's favor, the Double Jeopardy Clause prevents the state from relitigating that same proposition in a later prosecution, even if the second charge names a different victim or uses a different label.
No. If the second prosecution rests on the identical body of proof to establish the same ultimate fact that the first jury necessarily decided, the factum probandum remains unchanged and collateral estoppel bars relitigation.
…in each case largely one of degree and of fact—might reasonably reach an opposite conclusion from the Court of Appeals as to the ultimate fact whether the respondent was a statutory employer. At all events, the petitioner is plainly entitled to have an opportunity to try the issue under the Court of Appeals' interpretation. His…