In the end three sets of proceedings were joined, heard and determined by the courts in Newfoundland, and Bethel Henderson was ordered to pay the sum of £26,650 to his former sister-in-law and her family.

In those proceedings Bethel Henderson sought to resist the claim, alleging that the decree of the Colonial Court was irregular.

He refused to allow Bethel Henderson to impugn the proceedings of the Colonial Court by seeking an injunction to restrain enforcement.

In a frequently cited passage, he held that: where a given matter becomes the subject of litigation in, and of adjudication by, a Court of competent jurisdiction, the Court requires the parties to that litigation to bring forward their whole case, and will not (except under special circumstances) permit the same parties to open the same subject of litigation in respect of matter[s] which might have been brought forward as part of the subject in contest, but which was not brought forward, only because they have, from negligence, inadvertence, or even accident, omitted part of their case.

The plea of res judicata applies, except in special cases, not only to points upon which the Court was actually required by the parties to form an opinion and pronounce a judgment, but to every point which properly belonged to the subject of litigation, and which the parties, exercising reasonable diligence, might have brought forward at the time.