Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 48.0

10 

MOORE v. HARPER 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

judgment have preclusive effect; if a defendant obtains a fi-
nal 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 “re-
visit[ed]” Harper I ’s determination of a “crucial issue in this 
case,” ___ N. C., at ___, 886 S. E. 2d, at 399; overruled Har-
per I ’s determination of that issue; and affirmed the very 
same final judgment for petitioners that Harper I had re-
versed.4 

How  could  petitioners  still  be  injured,  and  what  more
could this  Court possibly do  for  them?  The  majority sug-
gests  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 in-
junction  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 bind-
ing:  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 
—————— 

4 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.