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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.