Opinion ID: 197922
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Power of the En Banc Court.

Text: The procedural tangle in this case raises yet another question: may an en banc court review issues decided by panels of the court in prior appeals in the same litigation? We hold that neither the law of the case doctrine nor the law of the circuit doctrine disables an en banc court from overruling a panel decision from a prior appeal in the same case. Accord Watkins v. United States Army, 875 F.2d 699, 704-05 n.8 (9th Cir. 1989) (en banc); Shimman v. International Union of Operating Eng'rs, Local 18, 744 F.2d 1226, 1229 n.3 (6th Cir. 1984) (en banc). The authority to overrule the decision of a prior panel in the same case flows logically from the error-correcting function of the full court.When a court sits en banc, the concern for adhering to a past resolution of an issue in deference to settled expectations, which underpins the doctrines of law of the case and law of the circuit, must give way to the institutional interest in correcting a precedent-setting error of great public import or a panel opinion that conflicts with Supreme Court precedent. See United States v. Rivera-Martinez, 931 F.2d 148, 151 (1st Cir. 1991) (noting that law of the case doctrine does not apply when controlling authority has since made a contrary decision of the law applicable) (internal quotes and citations omitted); see also Irving II, 49 F.3d at 834 (acknowledging that the law of the circuit rule would not apply in the face of a contrary en banc opinion). We are aware that the Eighth Circuit appears to have suggested otherwise. See Robertson Oil Co. v. Phillips Petrol. Co., 14 F.3d 373 (8th Cir. 1993) (en banc). The Robertson majority held that the law of the case doctrine precluded it from revisiting holdings from two earlier panel decisions because the full court had denied contemporaneous suggestions for en banc rehearings after the adjudication of both the first and second appeals. See id. at 376 n.5, 383, & n.13. We decline to follow Robertson for two reasons. First, in this case, unlike in Robertson, the en banc court was not invited to review any of the earlier panel decisions on a contemporaneous basis, and thus, did not decline to do so.Second and more important to the extent that the Robertsonmajority's reasoning rests on mechanically applying the law of the case doctrine to the decisions of earlier panels across the board, it too narrowly cabins the proper purview of a court sitting en banc. See id. at 386-88 (Beam, J., with whom Bowman and Loken, JJ., join, dissenting). Nor does the decision in Van Gemert v. Boeing Co., 590 F.2d 433 (2d Cir. 1978) (en banc), create an obstacle to en banc review of a prior panel decision. There, the Second Circuit suggested that the en banc court is free to overturn prior panel decisions unless doing so would seriously and unfairly prejudice the party that had benefitted from the earlier ruling. See id. at 436-37 n.9 (stating in dictum that sitting en banc, we may overrule any panel decision that a majority of the active judges believes was wrongly decided, unless a party would be seriously prejudiced as a result). Even were we prepared to adopt this formulation of the rule a matter which we leave for another day it would not preclude us from reviewing the holdings of Irving Iand Irving II. As we have noted, the discretionary function exception implicates the subject matter jurisdiction of federal courts. Prejudice to a party, while always regrettable, cannot furnish a viable rationale for overlooking a federal court's lack of power to grant a remedy in the first place.