Opinion ID: 702337
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether Gramercy Can Appeal the District Court's Decision

Text: 6 to Apply Illinois Law 7 Before we can address the choice of law issue, Wolens argues, we must consider whether Gramercy properly preserved this issue. We recently stated that we cannot review the denial of a motion for summary judgment after a full trial on the merits of a claim. Watson v. Amedco Steel, Inc., 29 F.3d 274, 277 (7th Cir.1994). In that case, Watson claimed that Amedco had violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. In moving for summary judgment, Amedco claimed that Watson's position had been eliminated due to workforce reduction and redundancy. Watson filed a cross motion stating that this explanation was, as a matter of law, an insufficient response to Watson's prima facie case. The district court concluded that factual issues necessitated a jury trial. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Amedco. Noting that, in denying a motion for summary judgment, the court decides only whether the case should go to trial and that denial does not settle any of the merits of the claim, we ruled that the denial of a motion for summary judgment is not subject to review when the district court has conducted a full trial on the merits of the claim. Id. at 277. 8 Gramercy filed a pleading entitled Pretrial Motion. In that motion Gramercy requested the court to hold a pretrial hearing to determine whether it should apply New Jersey law or Illinois law. In that same motion, Gramercy alternatively sought summary judgment. 9 Gramercy's position is that its request for the court to apply New Jersey law, or at least to hold a hearing to determine which state's law to apply, was distinct from its alternative request for summary judgment. We agree. Judges, not juries, decide questions of law, such as choice of law issues. Gramercy's motion, at least as far as it pertained to the choice of law issue, was not equivalent to a motion for summary judgment, a motion that attempts to avoid a trial based on a lack of disputed facts. See FED.R.CIV.PRO. 56(c). As we noted in Watson, it would make little sense to let a jury decide which facts are true and then to say that there was never a dispute to begin with. As for the choice of law decision, however, the jury never gets a crack at deciding the outcome; choice of law merely serves as a predicate for the jury's work. 10 Moreover, one may not bring an interlocutory appeal of a district court's choice of law determination. Freeman v. Kohl & Vick Machine Works, Inc., 673 F.2d 196, 201 (7th Cir.1982). In Freeman we concluded that a party must wait until the conclusion of the case to appeal the district court's choice-of-law decision. The choice of law determination does not create a collateral right separable from the substantive rights litigated in the action. Id. And, because the order denying the motion for summary judgment, the making of a conflict of laws determination, and the holding that an asserted immunity from indemnification is inapplicable, is subject to effective review after final judgment, there was no need for a party to appeal the choice of law determination until the court issued a final judgment. Id. 11 After Watson, of course, and contrary to the observation in Freeman, a summary judgment ruling is not appealable following final judgment on the merits. Nevertheless, the concept expressed in Freeman is consonant with our view that choice of law issues are distinct from summary judgment issues. That is, a district court's determination that one state's laws apply may in turn lead to or preclude summary judgment because that state's law does or does not provide the relief prayed for. However, the choice of law decision is sufficiently independent of the ultimate summary judgment inquiry--whether there are disputed facts that would lead to different legal results depending upon how they are interpreted--to warrant review independent from any available review of the ultimate summary judgment decision. Therefore, we shall review Gramercy's appeal of the district court's choice of law. 12