Supreme Court Rules That Post-Trial Motions Are Not Required to Preserve Appellate Review of Purely Legal Issues Denied at Summary Judgment
June 1, 2023
In Dupree v. Younger, 598 U.S. ___, 143 S. Ct. 1382 (2023), the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that a post-trial motion under Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is not required to preserve for appellate review a purely legal issue resolved at summary judgment.
In Dupree, three corrections officers attacked Kevin Younger (“Younger”) while he was being held as a pretrial detainee in a Maryland state prison. Younger accused Neil Dupree (“Dupree”), then a correctional officer lieutenant, of ordering the attack. Younger sued Dupree and other prison officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that they had used excessive force in violation of Younger’s Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. During the litigation, Dupree moved for summary judgment, arguing that discovery had shown Younger failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The district court denied the motion, finding there was no dispute that the Maryland prison system had internally investigated Younger’s assault, thereby satisfying the exhaustion requirement. The case proceeded to trial and Dupree did not present any evidence relating to his exhaustion defense, nor did he raise exhaustion in his Rule 50(a) motion, which the court denied. The jury found Dupree liable and awarded Younger $700,000 in damages. Dupree did not file a post-trial motion under Rule 50(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Dupree appealed a single issue to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit – the trial court’s rejection of his exhaustion argument at summary judgment. Based on Fourth Circuit precedent, a claim or defense rejected at summary judgment is not preserved for appellate review unless it was renewed in a post-trial motion – even when the issue is purely legal – and, as a result, the Fourth Circuit denied Dupree’s appeal. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
The Supreme Court started its analysis by noting that, generally, appellate court jurisdiction is limited to appeals from final decisions of district courts, and interlocutory orders that do not dispose of an entire case, such as a denial of summary judgment, are not immediately appealable. The Court explained, however, there are some interlocutory district court rulings that become unreviewable because of how litigation proceeds and the factual record develops, such as the denial of summary judgment on sufficiency-of-the-evidence grounds. Once a case proceeds to trial, the full record is developed and supersedes the record existing at the time of summary judgment. Therefore, the Court noted that fact-dependent appeals must be appraised in light of the complete trial record versus an appeal that is purely legal. It follows, and as held by the Court in Ortiz v. Jordan, 562 U.S. 180 (2011), that “[a] party must raise a sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim in a post-trial motion to preserve it for appeal.” Absent such a motion, “an appellate court is ‘powerless’ to review the sufficiency of the evidence after trial.”
Younger argued, and the Court ultimately rejected, that the Court should extend its holding in Ortiz to cover pure questions of law resolved in an order denying summary judgment. The Court, however, differentiated between “factual issues” determined at summary judgment and “purely legal issues” – that is, “issues that can be resolved without reference to any disputed facts.” In doing so, the Court noted that a trial will “wholly supplant” pretrial factual findings but will leave pretrial legal rulings “undisturbed.” Because a district court’s purely legal rulings are not superseded by later developments in trial, these rulings follow the general rule and merge into the “final judgment,” at which point they become reviewable. Therefore, a post-trial motion under Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is not required to preserve for appellate review a purely legal issue resolved at summary judgment.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Dupree is significant because it clarifies when it is necessary to file a post-trial motion pursuant to Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in order to preserve appellate review. Factual arguments rejected at summary judgment must be raised in a post-trial motion while purely “legal” arguments do not. As the Court recognized, however, the line between whether an argument is “factual” or “purely legal” is a “fair concern,” and prudent counsel should make sure to renew their arguments in a motion filed pursuant to Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure if the line between “factual” and “purely legal” is close.