Thomas, J., dissenting
judgment have preclusive effect; if a defendant obtains a final judgment based on one defense, the court’s rejection of alternative defenses is not preclusive in a later action). At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the clearest proof that Harper I was not a final judgment is Harper III—which “revisit[ed]” Harper I’s determination of a “crucial issue in this case,” ___ N. C., at ___, 886 S. E. 2d, at 399; overruled Harper I’s determination of that issue; and affirmed the very same final judgment for petitioners that Harper I had reversed.[1]
How could petitioners still be injured, and what more could this Court possibly do for them? The majority suggests that the interlocutory injunction issued in Harper I still harms petitioners, see ante, at 7, 10–11, but that idea is untenable. To start, the majority overlooks that the injunction only ran against the conduct of defendants-respondents—the state officials who actually implement election laws—not petitioners as legislators. See Berger, 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 2). Next, the majority fails to consider what it would mean if the injunction is still binding: that defendants-respondents are liable to “be held in contempt and put in jail” if they ever implement the 2021 Act, Richmond Cty. Bd. of Ed. v. Cowell, 254 N. C. App. 422, 426, 803 S. E. 2d 27, 30–31 (2017), even though Harper III dismissed this suit’s challenge to the Act as “beyond the reach of [North Carolina’s] courts,” ___ N. C., at ___, 886 S. E. 2d, at 431 (internal quotation marks omitted). That
- ↑ These facts refute the majority’s dismissive reference to Harper III as “a distinct decision concerning remedies,” as well as any suggestion that Harper III was “another case” than Harper I for res judicata purposes. Ante, at 9–10 (internal quotation marks omitted). Harper I and Harper III involved exactly the same case, and there is “only one final judgment per case.” Chaka v. Lane, 894 F. 2d 923, 924 (CA7 1990) (Easterbrook, J.); see also Insurance Co. v. Dunn, 19 Wall. 214, 225 (1874) (“To say that there can be two final judgments upon the same pleadings, in the same cause, in the same court, … involves a solecism”). In this case, it was not Harper I.
