Opinion ID: 1890541
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: The Law-Of-The-Case Doctrine Applies Only to Questions Actually Decided.

Text: Law of the case refers to a handful of related rules giving substance to the general principle that a court addressing later phases of a lawsuit should not reopen questions decided by that court or by a higher court during earlier phases of the litigation. 18B Wright, Miller, and Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 4478 (2002). One of the rules, for example, the so-called mandate rule, provides that on remand from a higher court a lower court must obey and give effect to the higher court's express or necessarily implied holdings and instructions. Id. Buckley v. Wilson, 177 S.W.3d 778 (Ky. 2005). Where multiple appeals occur in the course of litigation, another law-of-the-case rule provides that issues decided in earlier appeals should not be revisited in subsequent ones. Wright, Miller, and Cooper, supra; Inman v. Inman, 648 S.W.2d 847 (Ky.1982). These rules serve the important interest litigants have in finality, by guarding against the endless reopening of already decided questions, and the equally important interest courts have in judicial economy, by preventing the drain on judicial resources that would result if previous decisions were routinely subject to reconsideration. Law of the case is a prudential doctrine, however, not a jurisdictional one. Law of the case directs a court's discretion, it does not limit the tribunal's power. Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618, 103 S.Ct. 1382, 75 L.Ed.2d 318 (1983); Sherley v. Commonwealth, 889 S.W.2d 794 (Ky.1994). As such, the doctrine is subject to exceptions. A court is not bound by the doctrine, for example, where there has been an intervening change in the law. Id. An appellate court, moreover, may deviate from the doctrine if its previous decision was clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice. Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. at 618 n. 8, 103 S.Ct. 1382. Although in general the law-of-the-case doctrine applies only to matters the merits of which an appellate court has decided, Davis v. Island Creek Coal Company, 969 S.W.2d 712 (Ky.1998), an extension of the core law-of-the-case doctrine is the rule that precludes an appellate court from reviewing not just prior appellate rulings, but decisions of the trial court which could have been but were not challenged in a prior appeal. In Commonwealth v. Schaefer, 639 S.W.2d 776, 777 (Ky.1982), this Court held that an appellate court has no power on a second appeal to correct an error in the original judgment which either was, or might have been relied upon in the first appeal. In addition to inaccurately characterizing the law of the case as a limitation of the appellate court's power as opposed to a prudential restraint on its discretion, Schaefer also mischaracterized this extension of the doctrine as part of the law-of-the-case doctrine. Unlike the core law-of-the-case doctrine, however, this extension barring issues not raised in a prior appeal is more accurately understood as a type of waiver. This is so because the extension hinges not on a previous appellate decision on the barred issue establishing the law of the case, but instead on the party's inaction in failing to raise the issue in a manner consistent with the court's general policy against piecemeal appeals. Crocker v. Piedmont Aviation, Inc., 49 F.3d 735 (D.C.Cir.1995). It is this waiver extension of the law-of-the-case doctrine that the Commonwealth would erect here against review of its DNA evidence, but the waiver rule applies only where a ruling of law is made based on existing law and that ruling has gone unchallenged during the original appeal. Sherley, 889 S.W.2d at 798. See also Crocker, 49 F.3d at 741 n. 2 (The waiver rule ... applies only when the trial court has expressly or impliedly ruled on a question and there has been an opportunity to challenge that ruling on a prior appeal.... If the trial court has not affirmatively ruled, the waiver doctrine would be inapplicable.). Here, the Commonwealth has failed to show that at Brown's first trial the trial court ruled upon the questions Brown now raises concerning the propriety of the Commonwealth's DNA evidence, and thus the waiver rule does not restrain our review.