Supreme Court Rules Purely Legal Issues from Summary Judgment Remain Available for Appeal

Federal law limits appeals to “final decisions of the district courts.” 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The limitation on reviewing final dispositions presupposes that an appeal of a final judgment “brings up all antecedent issues,” In re Kilgus, 811 F.2d 1112, 1115 (7th Cir. 1987), including all interlocutory orders. Kurowski v. Krajewski, 848 F.2d 767, 772 (7th Cir. 1988).

Even so, the circuits were split over whether purely legal claims denied at summary judgment were reviewable on appeal after a jury trial even though the claims were not reasserted in a post-trial motion. With last week’s unanimous decision by the Supreme Court in Dupree v. Younger, No. 22-210, there is no requirement that the claims be reasserted.

In the case, Respondent Kevin Younger sued a Maryland correctional officer for permanent injuries he suffered from three guards allegedly under orders to attack him while in pretrial detention. The complaint accused Petitioner Neil Dupree of issuing the order.

Dupree moved for summary judgment, arguing that Younger was obliged to exhaust administrative remedies before suing. The district court denied the motion because the state prison system had concluded an internal investigation of the assault. Besides, the guards were convicted of the assault.

Dupree did not present evidence on his exhaustion defense at trial. The jury found Dupree and his codefendants liable and awarded $700,000 in compensatory damages. Dupree did seek a post-verdict renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law. When he appealed based on the failure-to-exhaust issue, the Fourth Circuit dismissed his appeal based on its own precedent that requires preservation of summary-judgment issues through a post-trial motion.

The Supreme Court’s decision by Justice Amy Coney Barrett held that no post-trial motion is necessary to preserve the issue for appeal if summary judgment was based on a purely legal ruling because those decisions are not superseded by subsequent case developments. The Court distinguished summary judgment based on the sufficiency of the evidence, because the record becomes further developed at trial. Moreover, an appellate court derives no benefit from presenting the legal issue to the district court a second time after trial because it cannot be expected that something at trial would have changed the court’s mind on an issue for which facts are immaterial.

In vacating and remanding the case to the Fourth Circuit, the Supreme Court left it to the lower court to determine whether administrative exhaustion is a fact-dependent issue and thus eligible for appeal without preservation.

The decision has clear practical importance, helping practitioners know whether the absence of post-trial motions dooms an appeal. The battle over whether the summary-judgment concerned a legal issue without evidentiary predicates now begins.