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 motions 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) (emphasis 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 caution. 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 separate 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 majority 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.
