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8 

DUPREE v. YOUNGER 

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 mo-
tions 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) (em-
phasis 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 cau-
tion.  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 sep-
arate  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 ma-
jority  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.