311 U.S. 32 (1940)
Respondents brought this suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, to enjoin the breach by petitioners of an agreement restricting the use of land within a described area of the City of Chicago.1 The agreement had been entered into by some five hundred of the landowners.2 It stipulated that for a specified period no part of the land should be sold, leased to or permitted to be occupied by any person of the colored race.3 It provided that it should not be effective unless signed by the owners of 95 per centum of the frontage within the described area.4
Petitioners Hansberry, who are Negroes, have acquired and are occupying land in the restricted area formerly belonging to an owner who had signed the agreement.5 To the defense that the agreement had never become effective because owners of 95 per cent of the frontage had not signed it, respondents pleaded that that issue was res judicata by the decree in an earlier suit, Burke v. Kleiman, 277 Ill. App. 519, to which petitioners were not parties.6
The circuit court found that owners of only about 54 per cent of the frontage had signed the agreement.7 It ruled that the issue was res judicata and entered a decree for respondents.8 The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed this judgment.9 The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to resolve the constitutional question.10
Whether the Supreme Court of Illinois deprived petitioners of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment by adjudicating that they were bound by a judgment rendered in an earlier litigation to which they were not parties?11
It is a principle of general application in Anglo-American jurisprudence that one is not bound by a judgment in personam in a litigation in which he is not designated as a party or to which he has not been made a party by service of process.12 There is a recognized exception that the judgment in a class suit, to which some members of the class are parties, may bind members of the class who were not made parties to it, where they are in fact adequately represented by parties who are present.13
Yes. Application of this rule to the established facts demonstrates that petitioners were not parties to the Burke v. Kleiman suit and no privity exists with any party there.14 The Illinois Supreme Court treated the earlier suit as a class suit binding petitioners as members of the represented class.15 Yet the plaintiffs in that suit sought to enforce the restrictive covenant while petitioners' interest lies in resisting its performance, creating conflicting interests that prevent adequate representation of petitioners by the parties in the prior litigation.16
The procedure therefore fails to satisfy the requirements of due process.17
The adjudication by the Supreme Court of Illinois that petitioners were bound by the earlier judgment deprived them of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment.18