Opinion ID: 1873693
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: Andrew Has Waived Disqualification Issues Under the Law-of-the-Case Doctrine

Text: The law-of-the-case doctrine reflects the principle that an issue that has been litigated and decided in one stage of a case should not be relitigated in a later stage. [21] The doctrine promotes judicial efficiency and protects parties' settled expectations by preventing parties from relitigating settled issues within a single action. [22] The doctrine applies with greatest force when an appellate court remands a case to an inferior tribunal. [23] Upon remand, a district court may not render a judgment or take action apart from that which the appellate court's mandate directs or permits. [24] Under the mandate branch of the law-of-the-case doctrine, a well-recognized waiver rule has emerged: [A] decision made at a previous stage of litigation, which could have been challenged in the ensuing appeal but was not, becomes the law of the case; the parties are deemed to have waived the right to challenge that decision, for [i]t would be absurd that a party who has chosen not to argue a point on a first appeal should stand better as regards the law of the case than one who had argued and lost. [25] An issue is not considered waived if a party did not have both an opportunity and an incentive to raise it in a previous appeal. [26] But this condition was satisfied as Andrew clearly had incentive to raise the disqualification issues in Pennfield I after the district court ruled against him on these claims. Also, we have recognized that an exception to the law-of-the-case doctrine applies if a party shows a material and substantial difference in the facts on a matter previously addressed by an appellate court. [27] But Andrew did not allege any new facts to support his claims, and we need not decide whether to apply any exceptions here because Andrew did not raise any to the district court.