Dupree v. Younger ( 2023 )

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2022 1
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
DUPREE v. YOUNGER
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 22–210. Argued April 24, 2023—Decided May 25, 2023
Respondent Kevin Younger claims that during his pretrial detention in
a Maryland state prison, petitioner Neil Dupree, then a correctional
officer lieutenant, ordered three prison guards to attack him. Younger
sued Dupree for damages under 42 U. S. C. §1983, alleging excessive
use of force. Prior to trial, Dupree moved for summary judgment under
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a), arguing that Younger had failed
to exhaust administrative remedies as required by law. Rule 56 re-
quires a district court to enter judgment on a claim or defense if there
is “no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is enti-
tled to judgment as a matter of law.” The District Court denied the
motion, finding no dispute that the Maryland prison system had inter-
nally investigated Younger’s assault, and concluding that this inquiry
satisfied Younger’s exhaustion obligation. At trial, Dupree did not pre-
sent evidence relating to his exhaustion defense. The jury found
Dupree and four codefendants liable and awarded Younger $700,000
in damages. Dupree did not file a post-trial motion under Rule 50(b),
which allows a disappointed party to file a renewed motion for judg-
ment as a matter of law. He appealed a single issue to the Fourth
Circuit: the District Court’s rejection of his exhaustion defense. The
Fourth Circuit—bound by its precedent which holds that any claim or
defense rejected at summary judgment is not preserved for appellate
review unless it was renewed in a post-trial motion—dismissed the ap-
peal.
Held: A post-trial motion under Rule 50 is not required to preserve for
appellate review a purely legal issue resolved at summary judgment.
In Ortiz v. Jordan, the Court held that an order denying summary
judgment on sufficiency-of-the-evidence grounds is not appealable af-
ter trial. 562 U. S. 180, 184. Because the factual record developed at
2 DUPREE v. YOUNGER
Syllabus
trial “supersedes the record existing at the time of the summary-judg-
ment motion,” ibid., it follows that a party must raise a sufficiency
claim in a post-trial motion in order to preserve it for appeal, id., at
191–192. That motion allows the district court to take first crack at
the question that the appellate court will ultimately face: Was there
sufficient evidence in the trial record to support the jury’s verdict?
The same is not true for pure questions of law resolved in an order
denying summary judgment. These conclusions are not “supersede[d]”
by later developments in the litigation, id., at 184, and so such rulings
merge into the final judgment, at which point they are reviewable on
appeal, Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706, 712. The re-
viewing court does not benefit from having a district court reexamine
a purely legal pretrial ruling after trial, because nothing at trial will
have given the district court any reason to question its prior analysis.
Younger’s counterarguments are unpersuasive. Ortiz does not hold,
as Younger contends, that any order denying summary judgment—
whether decided on legal or factual grounds—is unreviewable under
28 U. S. C. §1291. While an interlocutory order denying summary
judgment is typically not immediately appealable, §1291 does not in-
sulate interlocutory orders from appellate scrutiny, but rather delays
their review until final judgment. And while Younger insists there
should be no two-track system of summary judgment, in which factual
and legal claims follow different routes, nothing in Rule 56 supports
his argument for uniformity. On the contrary, fitting the preservation
rule to the rationale (factual or legal) underlying the summary-judg-
ment order is consistent with the text of Rule 56. It also makes sense:
Factual development at trial will not change the district court’s pre-
trial answer to a purely legal question, so a post-trial motion require-
ment would amount to an empty exercise. Finally, while Younger pre-
dicts that a separate preservation rule for legal issues will prove
unworkable because the line between factual and legal questions can
be “vexing” for courts and litigants, Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456
U. S. 273, 288, experience demonstrates that Younger overstates the
need for a bright-line rule. “Courts of appeals have long found it pos-
sible to separate factual from legal matters.” Teva Pharmaceuticals
USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 574 U. S. 318, 328. Here, the Court does not
decide whether the issue Dupree raised on appeal is purely legal, and
remands for the Fourth Circuit to evaluate that question in the first
instance. Pp. 4–9.
Vacated and remanded.
BARRETT, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023) 1
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 22–210
_________________
NEIL DUPREE, PETITIONER v.
KEVIN YOUNGER
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
[May 25, 2023]
JUSTICE BARRETT delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Ortiz v. Jordan, we held that an order denying sum-
mary judgment on sufficiency-of-the-evidence grounds is
not appealable after a trial. 562 U. S. 180 (2011). Thus, a
party who wants to preserve a sufficiency challenge for ap-
peal must raise it anew in a post-trial motion. The question
presented in this case is whether this preservation require-
ment extends to a purely legal issue resolved at summary
judgment. The answer is no.
I
A
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure empower district
courts to direct the entry of judgment before, during, or af-
ter trial. Before trial, the defendant can file a motion to
dismiss the complaint based on certain defenses, such as
lack of jurisdiction or failure to state a claim upon which
relief can be granted. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 12(b). If the dis-
trict court denies that motion (or any other Rule 12 motion),
the case advances to discovery for the parties to marshal
evidence supporting their claims and defenses. During or
2 DUPREE v. YOUNGER
Opinion of the Court
after that process, either party can move for summary judg-
ment under Rule 56, which requires a district court to enter
judgment on a claim or defense if there is “no genuine dis-
pute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(a).
If the plaintiff ’s claims survive summary judgment, the
case proceeds to trial. After the presentation of evidence,
but before the case is submitted to the jury, Rule 50(a) au-
thorizes either party to move for judgment as a matter of
law.1 This standard largely “mirrors” the summary-judg-
ment standard, the difference being that district courts
evaluate Rule 50(a) motions in light of the trial record ra-
ther than the discovery record. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby,
Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 250–251 (1986).
If the district court does not grant the motion, then the
jury will render a verdict. After the verdict, Rule 50(b) per-
mits a disappointed party to file a renewed motion for judg-
ment as a matter of law (which may also include a request
for a new trial under Rule 59). The next step for a party
who fails to obtain post-trial relief is an appeal.
B
While Kevin Younger was being held as a pretrial de-
tainee in a Maryland state prison, three corrections officers
assaulted him. Younger believed that Neil Dupree, a for-
mer lieutenant in the prison, had ordered the attack. He
sued Dupree and other prison officials for damages under
42 U. S. C. §1983, alleging that they had used excessive
force in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment due process
rights.
Dupree moved for summary judgment, arguing that
Younger had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies
as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U. S. C.
——————
1 If the parties waive their rights to a jury or seek relief that does not
entitle them to a jury, the district court will hold a bench trial, which is
governed by Rule 52.
Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023) 3
Opinion of the Court
§1997e(a). The District Court denied the motion. It noted
factual disagreements between the parties about whether
Younger had adhered to Maryland’s Administrative Rem-
edy Procedure but concluded that it “need not resolve
[those] disputes.” Younger v. Green, Civ. No. 16–3269 (D
Md., Dec. 19, 2019), App. to Pet. for Cert. 42a. Instead, the
court observed that there was “no dispute” that the Mary-
land prison system had internally investigated Younger’s
assault. Ibid. And it held that this inquiry satisfied
Younger’s exhaustion obligation.
The case then proceeded to a jury trial. Dupree did not
present any evidence relating to his exhaustion defense, nor
did he invoke exhaustion in his Rule 50(a) motion, which
the District Court denied. The jury found Dupree and four
of his codefendants liable and awarded Younger $700,000
in damages. Dupree did not file a post-trial motion under
Rule 50(b).
Dupree appealed a single issue to the Fourth Circuit: the
District Court’s rejection of his exhaustion defense at sum-
mary judgment. Unfortunately for Dupree, the appeal was
over before it began. Fourth Circuit precedent maintains
that 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 a purely legal
one. Varghese v. Honeywell Int’l, Inc., 424 F. 3d 411, 422–
423 (2005). Bound by this precedent, the panel dismissed
the appeal.
The Fourth Circuit’s decision further cemented a conflict
among the Courts of Appeals over whether a purely legal
challenge resolved at summary judgment must be renewed
in a post-trial motion in order to preserve that challenge for
appellate review. We granted certiorari to resolve the dis-
agreement.2 598 U. S. ___ (2023).
——————
2 Compare Rothstein v. Carriere, 373 F. 3d 275, 284 (CA2 2004) (post-
trial motion not required to preserve claims of purely legal error); Frank
4 DUPREE v. YOUNGER
Opinion of the Court
II
A
The jurisdiction of the Courts of Appeals under 28
U. S. C. §1291 is limited to “appeals from . . . final decisions
of the district courts.” Interlocutory orders—those that do
not dispose of the whole case, like denials of summary judg-
ment—are typically not immediately appealable under
§1291.3 Instead, the “general rule is that ‘a party is entitled
to a single appeal, to be deferred until final judgment has
been entered, in which claims of district court error at any
stage of the litigation may be ventilated.’ ” Quackenbush v.
Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706, 712 (1996); see also 15A C.
Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Proce-
dure §3905.1 (3d ed. 2022) (generally, “an appeal from final
judgment opens the record and permits review of all rulings
that led up to the judgment”).
Some interlocutory district-court rulings, however, are
unreviewable after final judgment because they are over-
——————
C. Pollara Group, LLC v. Ocean View Inv. Holding, LLC, 784 F. 3d 177,
187 (CA3 2015) (same); In re AmTrust Financial Corp., 694 F. 3d 741,
750–751 (CA6 2012) (same); Chemetall GMBH v. ZR Energy, Inc., 320
F. 3d 714, 719–720 (CA7 2003) (same); Banuelos v. Construction Labor-
ers’ Trust Funds for Southern Cal., 382 F. 3d 897, 902–903 (CA9 2004)
(same); Wolfgang v. Mid-America Motorsports, Inc., 111 F. 3d 1515, 1521
(CA10 1997) (same); Feld v. Feld, 688 F. 3d 779, 783 (CADC 2012)
(same), with Ji v. Bose Corp., 626 F. 3d 116, 127–128 (CA1 2010) (post-
trial motion required to preserve claims of pure legal error); Varghese v.
Honeywell Int’l, Inc., 424 F. 3d 411, 422–423 (CA4 2005) (same); Feld
Motor Sports, Inc. v. Traxxas, L. P., 861 F. 3d 591, 596 (CA5 2017)
(same); American Builders Ins. Co. v. Southern-Owners Ins. Co., 56
F. 4th 938, 950 (CA11 2023) (same); see also New York Marine & Gen.
Ins. Co. v. Continental Cement Co., 761 F. 3d 830, 838–839 (CA8 2014)
(post-trial motion not required to preserve “preliminary” legal issues).
3 The collateral-order doctrine recognizes exceptions to this rule. For
instance, an interlocutory order denying qualified immunity is some-
times immediately appealable. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 530
(1985).
Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023) 5
Opinion of the Court
come by later developments in the litigation. As Ortiz ex-
plains, one such ruling is the denial of summary judgment
on sufficiency-of-the-evidence grounds. 562 U. S., at 184.
Factual challenges depend on, well, the facts, which the
parties develop and clarify as the case progresses from sum-
mary judgment to a jury verdict. Thus, “[o]nce the case pro-
ceeds to trial, the full record developed in court supersedes
the record existing at the time of the summary-judgment
motion.” Ibid. So after trial, a district court’s assessment
of the facts based on the summary-judgment record be-
comes “ancient history and [is] not subject to appeal.” Em-
press Casino Joliet Corp. v. Balmoral Racing Club, Inc., 831
F. 3d 815, 823–824 (CA7 2016). Fact-dependent appeals
must be appraised in light of the complete trial record.
It follows, Ortiz holds, that a party must raise a suffi-
ciency-of-the-evidence claim in a post-trial motion to pre-
serve it for appeal. 562 U. S., at 191–192. Appellate review,
by its nature, requires a lower court decision to review.
Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U. S. 868, 895 (1991) (Scalia,
J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (the
“very word ‘review’ presupposes that a litigant’s arguments
have been raised and considered in the tribunal of first in-
stance”). This is especially important for factual challenges
based on the trial record, which “cal[l] for the judgment in
the first instance of the judge who saw and heard the wit-
nesses and has the feel of the case which no appellate
printed transcript can impart.” Cone v. West Virginia Pulp
& Paper Co., 330 U. S. 212, 216 (1947). The filing of a post-
trial motion under Rule 50 allows the district court to take
first crack at the question that the appellate court will ulti-
mately face: Was there sufficient evidence in the trial record
to support the jury’s verdict? Absent such a motion, “an
appellate court is ‘powerless’ to review the sufficiency of the
evidence after trial.” Ortiz, 562 U. S., at 189 (quoting
Unitherm Food Systems, Inc. v. Swift-Eckrich, Inc., 546
U. S. 394, 405 (2006)).
6 DUPREE v. YOUNGER
Opinion of the Court
B
Younger urges us to extend Ortiz’s holding to cover pure
questions of law resolved in an order denying summary
judgment. We decline the invitation.
While factual issues addressed in summary-judgment de-
nials are unreviewable on appeal, the same is not true of
purely legal issues—that is, issues that can be resolved
without reference to any disputed facts. Trials wholly sup-
plant pretrial factual rulings, but they leave pretrial legal
rulings undisturbed. The point of a trial, after all, is not to
hash out the law. Because a district court’s purely legal
conclusions at summary judgment are not “supersede[d]” by
later developments in the litigation, Ortiz, 562 U. S., at 184,
these rulings follow the “general rule” and merge into the
final judgment, at which point they are reviewable on ap-
peal, Quackenbush, 517 U. S., at 712.
That difference explains why a summary-judgment mo-
tion is sufficient to preserve legal but not factual claims. As
Ortiz explains, an appellate court’s review of factual chal-
lenges after a trial is rooted in the complete trial record,
which means that a district court’s factual rulings based on
the obsolete summary-judgment record are useless. A dis-
trict court’s resolution of a pure question of law, by contrast,
is unaffected by future developments in the case. From the
reviewing court’s perspective, there is no benefit to having
a district court reexamine a purely legal issue after trial,
because nothing at trial will have given the district court
any reason to question its prior analysis. We therefore hold
that a post-trial motion under Rule 50 is not required to
preserve for appellate review a purely legal issue resolved
at summary judgment.
C
Younger’s counterarguments do not persuade us other-
wise. First, he argues that under Ortiz, an order denying
summary judgment is not a “final decision” under §1291
Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023) 7
Opinion of the Court
and cannot be appealed, regardless of whether the motion
was decided on legal or factual grounds. We agree that a
denial of summary judgment is “simply a step along the
route to final judgment,” and so is typically not immediately
appealable. Ortiz, 562 U. S., at 184. But §1291 does not
insulate interlocutory orders from appellate scrutiny; it
simply delays review until final judgment. Richardson-
Merrell Inc. v. Koller, 472 U. S. 424, 430 (1985) (noting that
some errors in interlocutory orders “go uncorrected until
the appeal of a final judgment”). Indeed, the Ortiz Court
expressly declined to address whether summary-judgment
denials on purely legal issues are reviewable. 562 U. S., at
190. That caveat would have made little sense had the
Court authoritatively decided that all summary-judgment
denials are meaningless passthroughs that appellate courts
should ignore.
Next, Younger complains that Dupree’s rule creates a
two-track system of summary judgment, in which factual
and legal claims follow different routes. Summary judg-
ment is summary judgment, Younger insists, so the claims
should all travel the same line. But nothing in Rule 56 de-
mands such uniformity. On the contrary, the Rule provides
that summary judgment is appropriate when “the movant
shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material
fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of
law.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(a) (emphasis added). Rule 56
thus contemplates that the court will sometimes deny the
motion because the facts are genuinely in dispute and other
times because the law does not support the movant’s posi-
tion. Fitting the preservation rule to the court’s rationale
(factual or legal) is therefore consistent with the text.
It also makes sense. Because a purely legal question is,
by definition, one whose answer is independent of disputed
facts, factual development at trial will not change the dis-
trict court’s answer. (Granted, the district court might
backtrack, but if the question is purely legal, that is because
8 DUPREE v. YOUNGER
Opinion of the Court
of law books, not trial exhibits.) So what would a repeat-
motion requirement for legal questions typically amount to?
For litigants, a copy and paste of summary-judgment mo-
tions into post-trial format. For district courts, the tedium
of saying no twice. There is no reason to force litigants and
district courts to undertake that empty exercise.
Rule 56 aside, Younger insists that Rule 50 supports him.
Under this Rule, a district court can grant judgment as a
matter of law if it finds that “a reasonable jury would not
have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the
party on that issue.” Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 50(a), (b) (em-
phasis added). Therefore, Younger says, a Rule 50 motion
is an appropriate vehicle for raising purely legal issues once
a case proceeds to trial. Maybe so, but this argument is
beside the point: Even if a party can raise legal issues in a
Rule 50 motion, nothing in the Rule requires her to do so.
Finally, Younger predicts that a separate preservation
rule for legal issues will prove unworkable because the line
between factual and legal questions can be “vexing” for
courts and litigants. Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U. S.
273, 288 (1982). That’s a fair concern, and it would not be
surprising if “prudent counsel . . . make sure to renew their
arguments in a Rule 50 motion” out of an abundance of cau-
tion. Feld v. Feld, 688 F. 3d 779, 783 (CADC 2012). But
Younger overstates the need for a bright-line rule in this
area. “Courts of appeals have long found it possible to sep-
arate factual from legal matters.” Teva Pharmaceuticals
USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 574 U. S. 318, 328 (2015).
Though there will be edge cases, the experience of the ma-
jority of circuits demonstrates that the Courts of Appeals
are up to the task. See n. 2, supra. And for all the virtues
of bright-line rules, Younger’s would come at a steep cost:
the loss of appellate review for unwary litigants who think
it futile to relitigate an already-rejected legal argument.
Cite as: 598 U. S. ____ (2023) 9
Opinion of the Court
III
The Fourth Circuit was wrong to hold that purely legal
issues resolved at summary judgment must be renewed in
a post-trial motion. We need not decide whether the issue
Dupree raised on appeal is purely legal—the Court of Ap-
peals may evaluate that and any other properly preserved
arguments in the first instance. We therefore vacate the
judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.