Opinion ID: 741849
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Waiver of the willfulness and claim identicality issues

Text: 30 The district court held that, even assuming it had the power to decide the willfulness and claim identicality issues on remand, NEC had waived those issues by failing to raise them in the first appeal. Slip opinion at 5. We disagree. 31 The district court reasoned that, although NEC could not have appealed or cross-appealed from the favorable JMOL of non-infringement, it could have briefed the issues of willfulness and claim identicality in its response to Laitram's appeal on infringement and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit could have properly considered them in Laitram II. The issue here, however, is not what NEC could supposedly have argued, but rather what it was required to argue, or indeed could properly have argued. 32 Both the district court in its opinion and Laitram in its brief cite to many cases where an appellant was held to have waived issues for purposes of a second appeal that it could have raised in its own first appeal. Both the district court and Laitram, however, ignore the fact NEC was the appellee in Laitram II. Appellees do not select the issues to be appealed. Appellees, in addition, are at a procedural disadvantage in appeals because they can neither file reply briefs nor choose when to appeal. The policies pointed to by both the district court and Laitram--avoidance of piecemeal litigation and conservation of judicial resources--are less implicated when the party against whom waiver is asserted is the appellee. Indeed, these same policies may counsel for not forcing an appellee to raise all possible issues in an appeal. See, e.g., Crocker v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc., 49 F.3d 735, 741 (D.C.Cir.1995) (forcing appellees to put forth every conceivable alternative ground for affirmance might increase the complexity and scope of appeals more than it would streamline the progress of the litigation). The court in Crocker, noting that cross-appeals are not necessary when a party merely presents an alternative basis for affirmance, stated: 33 Thus, full application of the waiver rule to an appellee puts it in a dilemma between procedural disadvantage and improper use of the cross-appeal. That dilemma, together with the potential judicial dis economies of forcing appellees to multiply the number of arguments presented, justifies a degree of leniency in applying the waiver rule to issues that could have been raised by appellees on previous appeals. 34 Id. Furthermore, the willfulness and claim identicality issues were not arguable as alternative bases for affirmance of the district court decision. NEC could not have defended the JMOL of non-infringement on appeal by presenting arguments about willfulness and claim identicality because they would have been logically and legally irrelevant. Nor could it have cross-appealed because there were no rulings on the merits against its motions, but merely denials as moot. 35 We hold that NEC did not waive the willfulness and claim identicality issues by failing to argue them in response to Laitram's appeal. The arguments since directed to these issues were neither themselves on appeal nor relevant to the sole issue that was: infringement. Moreover, the willfulness and claim identicality issues were properly considered moot--until the reversal of JMOL of non-infringement. There is neither authority nor a sound policy reason to require NEC to have argued these issues, particularly in the absence, indeed unavailability, of a cross-appeal. It renewed the issues in a timely manner in the status conference call of September 8, 1995. It is clear what the district court should have done after that status call: address the motions for JMOL on the willfulness and claim identicality issues because our reversal of the JMOL on the infringement issue rendered them no longer moot. NEC made it clear that it wanted these issues resolved on the merits. Indeed, it was then entitled to rulings on the merits. 36 According to Rule 50(b), when a motion for JMOL is made after a verdict is returned, the district court may: 37 (A) allow the judgment to stand, 38 (B) order a new trial, or 39 (C) direct entry of judgment as a matter of law.... 40 Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(b)(1). Rule 50(b) does not give the district court a fourth option of simply declining to hear the motion. Of course, so long as an issue remains moot, a district court need not decide a motion raising it, but rather may defer it, or deny or dismiss it as moot. It is equally clear, however, that once the issue is rendered no longer moot, the motion must be decided. It is, of course, critical to the orderly administration of justice that, when a non-moot motion is properly presented, it must be considered. Here, since our mandate from Laitram II did not divest the district court of power to hear and decide the motions for JMOL on the willfulness and claim identicality issues but rather made those issues ripe, and since NEC did not waive those issues, when NEC renewed the two JMOL motions in the status conference, NEC was entitled to decisions on the merits of each.