Opinion ID: 4564893
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Issues Presented by Falls

Text: Standard of Review: The term “motion for judgment as a matter of law” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50 amalgamates the old terms “directed verdict” and “verdict JNOV.” K & T Enterprises, Inc. v. Zurich Ins. Co., 97 F.3d 171, 175 (6th Cir. 1996). We review a district court’s application of Rule 50 de novo. Ibid. There is a distinction in the case law between review of factual questions in Rule 50 motions in diversity cases and in federal-question cases: “Legal determinations, whether made in a diversity case or in a federal question case, will always be reviewed de novo” but in diversity cases, “[q]uestions of evidence sufficiency will be reviewed as the forum state would review them . . . .” Id. at 176. The case before us arises out Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 15 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. of diversity jurisdiction and concerns the application of Tennessee law. This distinction does not matter, however, for two reasons. First, Hanover claims that its argument is purely legal. As we shall see, there are reasons to doubt this, but insofar as it is true the de novo standard applies. Second, the standard of review under Tennessee law for factual determinations is de novo anyway, because “a [Tennessee] motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict is the state-law equivalent of a federal motion for judgment as a matter of law.” Medlin v. Clyde Sparks Wrecker Svc., 59 F. App’x 770, 774 (6th Cir. 2003). So review is de novo either way. As to factual questions, Tennessee law tells us that we must “review the record, discard all countervailing evidence, take the strongest legitimate view of the evidence in favor of the non-moving party, and allow all reasonable inferences in his favor.” Ibid. The federal standard for assessing questions of law is the same: “[T]he evidence should be viewed in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion is made, and that party given the benefit of all reasonable inferences. The motion should be granted . . . only if reasonable minds could not come to a conclusion other than one favoring the movant.” K & T, 97 F.3d at 176.
We cannot reach the merits of the district court’s Rule 50(b) ruling without first contending with Falls’s argument that Hanover forfeited its ability to make that motion by failing to make a Rule 50(a) motion at trial. Hanover argues that it did make such a motion, and thus did not forfeit its Rule 50(b) motion—and that in any event, if it did fail to make a Rule 50(a) motion, there are policy reasons why that failure should be excused. While Hanover’s contentions are not without some merit, Falls has the better of each argument. Rule 50(a) provides for motions for judgment as a matter of law during trial: If a party has been fully heard on an issue during a jury trial and the court finds that a reasonable jury would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the party on that issue, the court may . . . grant a motion for judgment as a matter of law against [that] party . . . . Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a). Subsection 50(a)(2) likewise specifies that the correct time for making a 50(a) motion is before the case is submitted to a jury: “A motion for judgment as a matter of law Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 16 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. may be made at any time before the case is submitted to the jury.” (emphasis added). Rule 50(b) then provides for “Renewing the Motion after Trial.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(b) (emphasis added). The wording of Rule 50(b) shows that it is conditional on a Rule 50(a) motion having been made at trial: If the court does not grant a motion for judgment as a matter of law made under Rule 50(a), the court is considered to have submitted the action to the jury subject to the court’s later deciding the legal questions raised by the motion. No later than 28 days after the entry of judgment . . . the movant may file a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(b) (emphasis added). The 1963 Advisory Committee Note to Rule 50(b) makes explicit what is implicit (but plain) in the language of the rule: “A motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict will not lie unless it was preceded by a motion for a directed verdict made at the close of all the evidence.” Our circuit has never ruled directly on the question of whether a 50(a) motion is required to make a Rule 50(b) motion. Nevertheless, our case law unmistakably carries that implication. “A Rule 50(b) motion ‘is only a renewal of the preverdict motion,’ and ‘it can be granted only on grounds advanced in the preverdict motion.’” Kay v. United of Omaha Life Ins. Co., 709 F. App’x 320, 328 (6th Cir. 2017) (quoting Ford v. Cnty. of Grand Traverse, 535 F.3d 483, 491 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(b) advisory committee’s note to 2006 amendment)). Kay specifies that “this requirement protects ‘the plaintiff's Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial’ by ‘requiring that parties raise important issues before the case is submitted to the jury.’” Id. at 328 (quoting Ford, 535 F.3d at 492 (quoting Am. & Foreign Ins. Co. v. Bolt, 106 F.3d 155, 160 (6th Cir. 1997))). And because Kay says that, to maintain a Rule 50(b) motion, “the Rule 50(a) motion must have ‘provid[ed] notice to the court and opposing counsel of any deficiencies in the opposing party’s case’” before the case went to the jury, id. at 328 (quoting Ford, 535 F.3d at 492 (quoting Kusens v. Pascal Co., 448 F.3d 349, 361 (6th Cir. 2006))), then a fortiori, the Rule 50(a) motion “must” have existed, full stop. See also Sykes v. Anderson, 625 F.3d 294, 304 (6th Cir. 2010) (“The Defendants’ failure to make a pre-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(a) on the grounds of qualified immunity precluded them from making a post-verdict motion under Rule 50(b) on that ground.”). Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 17 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. This is also the consensus of our sister circuits. See 9B CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE & PROCEDURE § 2537 (3d ed.) (“Because a Rule 50(b) motion is a renewal of an earlier motion, the failure to make a Rule 50(a) motion usually prohibits the consideration of a Rule 50(b) motion, although some courts have acknowledged exceptions.” (collecting sources)).8 See, e.g., Williams v. Gaye, 895 F.3d 1106, 1131 (9th Cir. 2018); Tortu v. Las Vegas Metro. Police Dep’t, 556 F.3d 1075, 1083 (9th Cir. 2009) (“Failing to make a Rule 50(a) motion before the case is submitted to the jury forecloses the possibility of considering a Rule 50(b) motion.”). Thus, unless Hanover can either show that it did in fact make a Rule 50(a) motion or show that an exception should apply, it will be held to have forfeited its Rule 50(b) motion and its ability to defend the results of that motion on appeal. To those arguments we now turn. i. Hanover’s Argument That It Did Make a Rule 50(a) Motion Hanover argues that it did make a Rule 50(a) motion, because “[b]efore the case was submitted to the jury, all parties agreed on the record, with the district court’s blessing, to reserve and preserve all Rule 50 motions.” This amounts to an argument that either a Rule 50(a) motion was made or an argument that the district court deemed such a motion to have been made and that we ought to hold such a ruling to be sufficient to satisfy the strictures of Rule 50. We begin by looking at the record. The making of Rule 50(a) motions came up three times at trial. First, while Hanover was still putting on its case-in-chief as plaintiff, the court discussed the proposed jury verdict form with the lawyers for all sides. In the course of doing so, the court stated that: Now, everybody needs to remember. When we – when you rest, we can reflect at that time that everybody’s made the motion they need to preserve everything. More than likely based on this case, I think everybody will understand it’s going 8 The exceptions catalogued in Wright & Miller are for technical or de minimis errors, manifest injustice, and jurisdictional issues. These address concerns that we handle in our circuit through other doctrinal means. Rather than saying that a Rule 50(b) motion that departs in a de minimis fashion from a litigant’s Rule 50(a) motion does not have a predicate Rule 50(a) motion, but that that failure is excused, for instance, we have instead a rule of liberal construction for assessing the degree of fit required between the two motions. Cf. Kusens, 448 F.3d at 361. Jurisdictional issues can of course be raised at any time. Henderson ex rel. Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428, 434–35 (2011). Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 18 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. to be denied. No point in wasting a lot of time. I know you need to make the motions. We’ll do that in a – I don’t want you to spend a lot of time on it. I would probably, even if I thought it was a particularly serious issue, I would probably take it under advisement, because you don’t want to do that off the cuff necessarily in a case like this. You want to be really careful. We always want to be careful anyway. The trial court thus sent conflicting signals, a pattern that would continue. On the one hand, the court indicated that it would make the record “reflect” that “everybody’s made the motion they need to preserve everything” (perhaps meaning the Rule 50(a) motions). This could be read to suggest that the motions need not perhaps even be made, but rather that the motion would simply be taken as a given. And the court added that, “I don’t want you to spend a lot of time on it.” On the other hand, however, the court noted (correctly), that “I know you need to make the motions.” (Emphasis added.) The court added, in a comment that may have been directed either to counsel or to itself, that “you don’t want to do that off the cuff . . . [and] [y]ou want to be really careful.” Above all, the court had specified that the Rule 50(a) motions would be made “when you rest.” When Hanover rested, the court noted that, “we’ve agreed how we would handle this in terms of reflecting any motions that would be required to be made. So, we should be ready for our next witness.” (I.e., for the defendants/counter-plaintiffs to begin their case-in-chief.) Brown’s attorney requested a sidebar, at which point the court stated that: THE COURT: . . . . We agreed we would reflect at this time that the motions were made and that the plaintiff would not raise an objection regarding their failing to raise – to make the motions at this time. MR. DODART [Hanover’s counsel]: Correct. THE COURT: Now at the end of the case we may need a little more thorough presentation. Is that okay? MR. DODART: That’s okay, as long as I’m not waiving my motions at the end of my case. THE COURT: You’re not. MR. DODART: Okay. THE COURT: So everybody agrees that there will be enough facts that have come in that we would understand that the Court would have to deny motions for Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 19 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. the directed verdict for everybody. Interesting question on some of it but I do think we would have to do that. So, we’re going to reflect that the motions are taken under advisement. That’s what we said. We wouldn’t actually deny them. We would take them under advisement. That takes care of that. Again, there are mixed signals. On the one hand, the court states: “We agreed we would reflect at this time that the motions were made” at this point, and the court appears to rule that they were “taken under advisement.” On the other hand, no motion actually was made—so there was nothing yet for the court to take under advisement. A Rule 50(a) motion requires a motion that “specif[ies] the judgment sought and the law and facts that entitle the movant to the judgment.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(2) (emphasis added). Here we have no specificity at all: the parties never said anything. Moreover, it is unclear if the court’s statements here even apply to Hanover’s Rule 50(a) motion. Since it is Hanover who just rested, and since the court speaks of an agreement that “the plaintiff [i.e., Hanover] would not raise an objection regarding their [defendants’] failing to . . . make the motions at this time,” even if Rule 50 motions were being (deemed) made or ruled on at this time, they would be the defendants’ motions, not Hanover’s. In light of the court’s comment that, “at the end of the case we may need a little more thorough presentation,” it seems most sensible simply to interpret the judge as putting off the matter until all parties had concluded their cases. This would be consonant both with Rule 50(a)(2)’s provision that a Rule 50(a) motion may be made “at any time before the case is submitted to the jury” and also with the complications of a case involving countersuits where each side had been using the other sides’ witnesses as part of its own presentation. The third and final discussion of Rule 50(a) motions during trial came, naturally enough, after the conclusion of all the evidence. At that time, the court appeared ready to submit the case to the jury, when Brown’s attorney said: “I’m just, again, wondering when are we going to make the directed verdict, just to keep the record[.]” The court responded, “Oh, yes, and we said we were reflecting that those were being made; but you’re entitled to do that if you want.” This again suggests that the court thought that it could simply deem Rule 50(a) motions to have been made. Nevertheless, the court continued, “Do you want to make a more formal statement at this time?” Brown’s attorney thereupon did make a Rule 50(a) motion (not at issue in this appeal) on the record, “specify[ing] the judgment sought and the law and facts that entitle the movant to the Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 20 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. judgment,” as required by the Rule. Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(2). Then, when Brown’s attorney was done, Hanover’s attorney said, “I would like to move for a judgment as a matter of law when the Court’s ready for me.” Hanover thereupon made a proper Rule 50(a) motion as to Tattooed Millionaire and Brown, but not as to Falls. Hanover pointed to specific facts from the trial and to the Tennessee insurance statute which it claimed Brown had violated and then moved for judgment as a matter of law. The court took that motion under advisement. Hanover said nothing as to Falls or Mott. When, after trial, Hanover made its Renewed Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law as to Falls, Falls argued that the motion should be denied, because Hanover had never made an initial Rule 50(a) motion in this regard and so had forfeited its right to make a Rule 50(b) motion. In ruling on the motion, the court acknowledged that “Hanover did not make any motions for JMOLs specific to John Falls,” but stated further that Hanover “claims it did not waive its Rule 50(b) Motion because ‘all parties agreed on the record to reserve and preserve all Rule 50 motions consistent with pre-trial motions and the trial evidence.’” The court then moved on to the merits (and granted Hanover’s motion). That is to say, while it sub silentio seems to have held that Hanover was entitled to make a Rule 50(b) motion, the court below never explicitly held that Hanover had made a 50(a) motion. Nor did the court provide a reason Hanover could escape the requirement to have done so. Yet it ruled in Hanover’s favor anyway. The first two exchanges recorded above are insufficient to persuade us that the district court meant at that time to allow Rule 50(a) motions not to be made at all. The exchanges in question occurred in the middle of the trial and can be read as agreeing to postpone the making of such motions until just before the case was sent to the jury. The third colloquy is a closer call, because, even as the case was about to be submitted to the jury, the court remarked that “we were reflecting that those [Rule 50(a) motions] were being made.” Though still not entirely clear, in context this is a stronger indication that the district court understood itself to be deeming (or to have already deemed) the motions to have been made, though they in fact had not yet been. The district court’s post-verdict grant of Hanover’s 50(b) motion is most easily reconcilable with this understanding. But it is far less clear that Falls agreed to this—specifically, to the part where those motions would be preserved beyond the close of evidence and the jury’s verdict, despite never having actually Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 21 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. been made, to be resurrected later. Even more significantly, Hanover seems not to have shared the court’s understanding at the time that the motions had already been deemed to be submitted. If so, why did it make a detailed Rule 50(a) motion as to TME and Brown? Its failure to do so as to Falls, when it did so as to other defendants, may have been a mistake or an oversight, but the fact remains: it made a motion as to other defendants, but not as to Falls. On a plain reading of the record, Falls is right: Hanover never made a specific Rule 50(a) motion as to him. More importantly still, even if the district court believed it had the authority to deem Rule 50(a) motions made as if on the record, such an assumption was erroneous. See Karam v. Sagemark Consulting, Inc., 383 F.3d 421, 426 (6th Cir. 2004) (“[T]he proper practice is to allow the moving party to make its Rule 50(a) motion before the jury retires to deliberate.” (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(2) advisory committee’s note to 1991 amendment)). As we have seen, the strictures of Rule 50(a) require that “[t]he motion must specify the judgment sought and the law and facts that entitle the movant to the judgment.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a)(2) (emphasis added). The requirement for specificity is grounded in reasoning related to the Seventh Amendment jury right (as well as basic fairness). As the Note to the 2006 Amendment to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b) explains: The earlier motion [i.e., the 50(a) motion] informs the opposing party of the challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence and affords a clear opportunity to provide additional evidence that may be available. The earlier motion also alerts the court to the opportunity to simplify the trial by resolving some issues, or even all issues, without submission to the jury. This fulfillment of the functional needs that underlie present Rule 50(b) also satisfies the Seventh Amendment. Automatic reservation of the legal questions raised by the motion conforms to the decision in Baltimore & Carolina Line v. Redman, 297 U.S. 654 (1935). See also Kay, 709 F. App’x at 328; Ford, 535 F.3d at 492; Am. & Foreign Ins. Co., 106 F.3d at 160; Kusens, 448 F.3d at 361. Against the weight of this authority, Hanover presents no argument that the district judge has the authority to allow parties to preserve un-made, non- specific Rule 50(a) motions beyond the jury’s verdict. Therefore, even if that is what the district court intended to do, we hold that it had no power to do so. While in general it is important that trial judges have wide latitude in the management of cases, to give so much latitude as to bless the procedure that (may have been) used here would create perverse incentives. See infra pp. 26–27; cf. K & T, 97 F.3d at 176 (noting, in the context Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 22 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. of the standard of review, that deference to the trial judge is not desirable in review of Rule 50 motions). Finally, we find the case of Tortu v. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department instructive. In it, a defendant who had, as in our case, failed to make a Rule 50(a) motion at trial argued “that the district court induced him not to file the 50(a) motion” by means of an ambiguous statement that “constituted an instruction not to file a Rule 50(a) motion and therefore created an exception to the requirement of filing a Rule 50(a) motion.” 556 F.3d at 1083. The Ninth Circuit found that this argument was “meritless,” because the requirements of Rule 50 were clear, and ambiguous statements from the court could not “absolve” a litigant of his “procedural obligation[s]” under them. Ibid. We agree.9 Moreover, Hanover cannot complain too much of unfairness: it knew enough to make an explicit Rule 50(a) motion at trial as to Brown despite the court’s earlier statements. Falls, on the other hand, can complain of a great deal of unfairness: the case went to the jury on a theory that was very nearly the opposite of that on which Hanover prevailed after trial. See infra pp. 26–27. ii. Hanover’s Policy Argument Hanover’s second argument is a policy argument: Even if it failed to make a Rule 50(a) motion, Hanover argues that its failure to do so should not cost it its Rule 50(b) motion because its Rule 50(b) motion concerns only matters of law. It is true that we have previously held that the distinction between questions of law and questions of fact can excuse a lapse under Rule 50, in two postures that were different than that in the present case. But we do not think that these precedents can—or should—stretch to create the rule that Hanover now seeks. To understand why, we begin by examining the law as it currently stands. The Supreme Court has recently addressed the requirements of Rule 50 in a pair of decisions, Unitherm Food Systems, Inc. v. Swift-Eckrich, Inc., 546 U.S. 394 (2006), and Ortiz v. Jordan, 562 U.S. 180 (2011). In Unitherm, the Court held that in the absence of a Rule 50(b) motion, a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge to a verdict made through a Rule 50(a) motion 9 That case, and this one, might well be different if the district court had affirmatively and unambiguously forbidden counsel from making a Rule 50(a) motion at trial. See Karam, 383 F.3d at 426. In that case, error would lie in the manner in which the district court had conducted the trial. But short of that, the general rule that litigants must assert their own rights to preserve them continues to obtain. Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 23 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. cannot be reviewed on appeal. 546 U.S. at. 400–01, 405–06. In Ortiz, the Court reaffirmed this holding, 562 U.S. at 190–91, and further held that following a trial on the merits, a court of appeals generally cannot review the denial of a motion for summary judgment. Several courts, including our own, have, however, held that Unitherm’s requirement of a Rule 50(b) motion to preserve an argument made in a Rule 50(a) motion for appeal does not apply to questions of pure law. See Doherty v. City of Maryville, 431 F. App’x 381, 385 (6th Cir. 2011); Fuesting v. Zimmer, Inc., 448 F.3d 936, 393–41 (7th Cir. 2006). And Ortiz explicitly declined to decide whether its rule forbidding the post-trial appeals of motions for summary judgment extended to a “purely legal issues capable of resolution with reference only to undisputed facts.” 562 U.S. at 190 (internal quotation marks omitted). Our circuit has accordingly held that we can review a district court’s summary-judgment decision on a “pure question of law” even after a jury verdict on the merits and in the absence of a properly made Rule 50 motion. In re AmTrust Fin. Corp., 694 F.3d 741, 751 (6th Cir. 2012) (distinguishing a contrary conclusion in Doherty, 431 F. App’x at 384, as dicta).10 Thus, while we have never before addressed the precise question that 10 There is currently a significant circuit split on that question. In addition to our circuit, the Second, Third, Seventh, Tenth, and D.C. Circuits have all held or reaffirmed after Ortiz that summary-judgment decisions may be appealed following a jury verdict on the merits if the question on appeal is one of pure law. See Vill. of Freeport v. Barrella, 814 F.3d 594, 601 n.10 (2d Cir. 2016); Frank C. Pollara Grp., LLC v. Ocean View Inv. Holding, LLC, 784 F.3d 177, 185 (3d Cir. 2015); Lawson v. Sun Microsystems, Inc., 791 F.3d 754, 761 & n.2 (7th Cir. 2015) (noting continued vitality of Chemetall GMBH v. ZR Energy, Inc., 320 F.3d 714 (7th Cir. 2003), after Ortiz, and circuit split); Chiddix Excavating, Inc. v. Colo. Springs Utils., 737 F. App’x 856, 859–60 (10th Cir. 2018); Feld v. Feld, 688 F.3d 779, 781–82 (D.C. Cir. 2012); see also Williams v. Gaye, 895 F.3d 1106, 1122 (9th Cir. 2018) (noting that Ortiz “calls into question the continuing viability” of the Ninth Circuit’s rule on this point). The First, Fourth, Fifth, and Eighth Circuits have taken the opposite position, forbidding review of any motion for summary judgment after a full trial on the merits, unless the issue has been preserved through properly made Rule 50 motions. See Jones ex rel. United States v. Mass. Gen. Hosp., 780 F.3d 479, 488–90 & 488 n.3 (1st Cir. 2015) (noting continued vitality of Ji v. Bose Corp., 626 F.3d 116, 128 (1st Cir. 2010)); Ihnken v. Jenkins, 677 F. App’x 840, 843 (4th Cir. 2017) (citing Chesapeake Paper Prods. Co. v. Stone & Webster Eng’g Corp., 51 F.3d 1229, 1235 (4th Cir.1995)); Feld Motor Sports, Inc. v. Traxxas, L.P., 861 F.3d 591, 596 (5th Cir. 2017); N.Y. Marine & Gen. Ins. Co. v. Cont’l Cement Co., LLC, 761 F.3d 830, 838 (8th Cir. 2014). Whichever way those circuits decided, each case is different from the case before us. In these cases, the argument was first squarely presented in a motion for summary judgment and then the motion-loser asked the appeals court to review whether that summary-judgment motion should have been granted. Indeed, this can be seen clearly in that some of these cases concern situations in which Rule 50(a) motions were made but not Rule 50(b) motions; others in which a Rule 50(a) motion was made but not on point; while in yet others no Rule 50 motions were made at all. They are not, in short, truly cases about Rule 50 at all. In the case before us, by contrast, no Rule 50(a) motion was made; instead, we have been asked to review a Rule 50(b) motion that was made (and granted). Hanover, as the motion-loser at the summary-judgment stage, has not asked us to review the denial of its motion for summary judgment, nor did Hanover argue in its summaryjudgment motion that TME’s status as an additional insured means that Brown or TME’s fraud voided Falls’s Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 24 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. Hanover now raises—whether a Rule 50(b) motion that was made (and granted) in the complete absence of a Rule 50(a) motion can be upheld, provided it is on a pure question of law—we are not writing on a completely blank slate. Hanover argues that this case is similar to Doherty. In that case, we confronted a situation in which the defendant had made a Rule 50(a) motion at trial, but “failed to renew its motion for judgment as a matter of law” (i.e., failed to make a Rule 50(b) motion) after trial. 431 F. App’x at 384. We held that the failure to renew a motion for judgment as a matter of law would not prevent appellate review of Rule 50(a) ruling concerning “purely legal” questions. Id. at 385–86. In doing so, we distinguished Unitherm, in which the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff must have made a renewed (50(b)) motion after the trial in order to preserve factual challenges for appellate review. See 546 U.S. at 401 (“[D]etermining whether a new trial should be granted or a judgment entered under Rule 50(b) calls for the judgment in the first instance of the judge who saw and heard the witnesses and has the feel of the case which no appellate printed transcript can impart.”); Doherty, 431 F. App’x at 385 (quoting same). Doherty rests on the reasoning that the trial court need not to have taken a second look at the legal questions in order for the appellate court to be able to pass on them, since the law is the specialty of the appeals court, while, as the Supreme Court observed in Unitherm, the facts are the province of the trial court. See Doherty, 431 F. App’x at 385 (discussing Unitherm, 546 U.S. at 401). But though that is sufficient reason to excuse the requirement to present the argument to the trial judge a second time before appeal, after the verdict has been given, it does not stretch far property coverage; rather, Falls is asking us to review the district court’s grant of Hanover’s Rule 50(b) motion, made without a predicate Rule 50(a) motion. Though these cases are distinguishable, they have added to our analysis of this case. See infra pp. 28–29. Therefore, it is worth noting that while some courts have seen the critical distinction as that between sufficiency-ofthe-evidence challenges and all others, our court in Kay saw it as between “purely legal issues” (or “pure question[s] of law”) on the one hand and all other issues on the other. 562 F. App’x at 384–85 (quoting Ortiz, 562 U.S. at 190, and In re AmTrust, 694 F.3d at 751). We termed this residual category (of all issues that are not “pure questions of law”) as “factbound.” Kay, 562 F. App’x at 385. This different terminology reflects an important conceptual distinction. “Purely legal questions,” in the sense meant by Ortiz, involve “disputes about the substance and clarity of pre-existing law.” Ortiz, 562 U.S. at 190. These “are abstract legal questions, which can be asked and answered without reference to the facts of the case.” Kay, 562 F. App’x at 385. After a trial, it is appropriate, under Ortiz, to at most revisit only this “abstract” type of question. Anything else, even many legal arguments, can become liable to be mixed up in the facts developed at trial, and so become “factbound.” Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 25 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. enough to excuse a failure to present it a first time, before the case has gone to the jury. The point of presenting it the first time is not only to present the argument underlying the Rule 50(a) motion to the judge, but also to opposing counsel, and so give them time to remedy any defects in their case before it goes to the jury.11 As one of our sister circuits has noted, the importance of this notice goes beyond simply providing an opportunity to remedy evidentiary gaps: By requiring a litigant to raise all arguments in its initial Rule 50(a) motion, the trial court is able to re-examine the question of evidentiary insufficiency as a matter of law if the jury returns a verdict contrary to the movant, and opposing counsel is alerted to any insufficiency before the case is submitted to the jury, giving the opposing party a chance to cure any defects in its legal theories or proof should the motion have merit. Puga v. RCX Sols., Inc., 922 F.3d 285, 291 (5th Cir. 2019) (cleaned up) (emphasis added); cf. Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a) (“The motion must specify the judgment sought and the law and facts that entitle the movant to the judgment.”). In Hanover’s view, none of this is a problem. In an adaptation of Doherty’s trial courtappellate court distinction, it argues that as its Rule 50(b) motion went to a question of law, and the jury’s province is the facts, the argument can be presented to the judge after the verdict instead of before. But there are several problems with this. First and foremost, it goes against the plain meaning of the Rule, and the explicit instructions in the Notes to the Rule. See supra pp. 15–17. It would replace a bright-line rule with a new, unclear, and uncertain standard. Second, there is a constitutional issue. The Rule 50 procedure has been held to be consistent with the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee of a jury trial in civil suits because the first motion, under Rule 50(a), “requir[es] that parties raise important issues before the case is submitted to the jury.’” Kay, 709 F. App’x at 328 (quoting Ford, 535 F.3d at 492 (quoting Am. & Foreign Ins. Co., 106 F.3d at 160)). Rule 50(b) therefore allows a reservation of a ruling on such a motion, which was made before the case went to verdict, until after the verdict. See 9B CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE 11 Similarly, whatever one thinks of our exception allowing review, after a jury verdict, of the denial of summary judgment on questions of pure law, which is embraced by some of our sister circuits, in those cases the motion for summary judgment did present the issue squarely. Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 26 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. & PROCEDURE § 2522 (3d ed.). That distinction, while fine, has been held to be critical. The upshot is that “the right to trial by jury might be implicated if no Rule 50(a) motion had been made.” Unitherm, 546 U.S. at 408 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Third, Hanover’s proposed rule would create perverse incentives. Right now, anyone who wants to be able to make a motion for judgment as a matter of law in the future must make one before the jury. That provides strong incentives to lay one’s cards on the table and enables the other side to counter them. Under Hanover’s proposed rule, by contrast, there is an incentive to hold back a legal argument in reserve. Jury trials are already expensive and time-consuming: they ought to be a show-down moment when at all possible. The danger that Hanover’s proposed rule would create can be clearly seen with reference to the facts of this case. In particular, when conferring over the proposed jury instructions, the trial judge made it clear—and Hanover did not object—that the jury instructions and verdict form would be structured so as to address separately whether each defendant had made a material misrepresentation leading to a payment from Hanover: THE COURT: You must determine whether reliance upon the representation substantially influenced Hanover’s actions, even though other -- well, and the question for Mr. Futhey [Falls’s counsel] and for Mr. Morris [Mott’s counsel] -- and for Mr. Morris was do we need to be more clear about the misrepresent – it’s the misrepresentation of the defendant that you’re considering. I don’t want it to be unclear in that regard. They may believe that Mr. Falls did not misrepresent. They may feel very differently about Mr. Falls -- I don’t want to pick on you, Mr. Brown – than you. They may. They may feel very differently about that and the same thing with Mr. Mott. So, maybe we need to say something about that. In other words, Hanover would not have issued the insurance policy you are considering but for the -- or made payments to the defendant you’re considering without -- and then the question: Is that defendant’s misrepresentation or misrepresentations? Hanover could have objected and requested a jury instruction as to whether Brown’s misbehavior could void Falls’s policy. It could have requested that the verdict form be structured so as to tie the issues together. It did neither. Thus, all parties sent the case to the jury with each party’s own misrepresentations isolated from the others and tied to its own individual liability. The jury instructions explained that “Hanover claims that each Defendant/Counter- Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 27 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. Plaintiff breached and voided his insurance policy by making material misrepresentations in . . . the claim of loss.” The instructions also explained that Hanover had “refused to pay under the policy because it claims that the policyholder breached and voided the policy by making material misrepresentations in the claim for loss.” And the jury verdict form separated clearly the actions and liabilities of all three defendants—mapping the principle of separability the judge had laid out in conference and in his instructions. Just as the judge had speculated that it might, the jury did “believe that Mr. Falls did not misrepresent” but “feel very differently about . . . Mr. Brown.” Then, having allowed the case to go to the jury on this basis, without the notice that a Rule 50(a) motion would serve, Hanover turned around and argued the opposite post-trial. (And the district court seemingly reversed course.) Behavior of this sort, sometimes called “lying in the weeds” or “sandbagging,” should be strongly discouraged. Even if it was inadvertent in this case, it might not be in future cases, were we to adopt Hanover’s proposed rule. Fourth, Hanover’s policy argument has a problem because it is unclear that the argument truly is, as claimed, purely legal. Hanover’s brief is replete with arguments that seem quite factual. To take one example, in the midst of arguing that Falls knew that the basis for its Rule 50(b) motion was a contested area of law, Hanover writes that “it is important to note that the claims under the three policies at issue are not factually separable.” If its legal theory turns on that point, then it is not a legal theory at all—it is a factual one. Likewise, Hanover writes that “Falls does not identify a single piece of evidence or testimony that the jury could have relied on to conclude that Brown’s fraud was artificially limited to Brown/TME’s and Mott’s insurance claims.” If the court, in assessing Falls’s claims, is supposed to be looking for “evidence or testimony”—whether or not it can find any—then it is assessing a factual, not a legal, claim. Similarly, an important part of Falls’s merits argument (presented to us, though we need not decide it) concerns a question of materiality: Falls argues that the jury may have felt that Brown’s misrepresentations, even if they could in principle void Falls’s coverage, were not material to it. Materiality appears to be a mixed question of fact and law in Tennessee. In Wassom v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co., which also concerned a post-loss misrepresentation, Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 28 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. the court quoted with approval 46A C.J.S. Insurance § 1249: “The materiality of false representations to an insurance company for recovery on a claim is a mixed question of law and fact which can be decided as a matter of law if reasonable minds could not differ.” 173 S.W.3d 775, 781 (Tenn. Ct. App. 2005). The question of materiality in this case is one on which reasonable minds could disagree. Therefore, Hanover’s theory would be for the jury—i.e., it is not purely legal—for this reason also. This should not, perhaps, be surprising. We have previously noted that our exception to Rule 50’s requirements, which would allow for review of summary-judgment motions on “pure questions of law” after a jury verdict, was exceptionally narrow, covering only truly abstract questions that “can be asked and answered without reference to the facts of the case.” Kay, 562 F. App’x at 385 (emphasis added). Just because a question is a “legal question” in the general sense does not mean that it will fit into such a narrow bound. See ibid. Many legal questions, rather, will look quite different after developments at trial. (Looking at the record of the trial before us, for instance, we see that Hanover’s party representative testified directly to the contractual construction issue at question.) Therefore, once there has been a trial, this suggests that we ought to require the Rule 50(a) motion to have been made, so that the judge and litigants had the opportunity to tease out the interaction between law and proof on any issue that still remains live after the summary-judgment stage. Meanwhile, the existence already of our exception to Rule 50 for review of summary-judgment rulings on pure legal questions means that there is a safety valve for arguments that truly do go to “pure questions of law.”12 12 Of course, today’s ruling does not put all legal arguments out of reach except through the means of a Rule 50 motion. To the contrary, “[i]f there have been errors at the trial, duly objected to, dealing with matters other than the sufficiency of evidence, they may be raised on appeal from the judgment even though there has not been either a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law or a motion for a new trial.” Bullard v. Alcan Aluminum Corp., 113 F. App’x 684, 688 (6th Cir. 2004) (quoting 9A CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 2540, p. 366 (2d ed. 1995)). This means, in effect, that normal appeals from, e.g., evidentiary rulings remain intact. But here we are dealing with the very issue to which a Rule 50 motion is supposed to apply: the argument that, under the undisputed facts, as a result of the operation of law only one jury verdict is rational or possible. Cf. Unitherm, 546 U.S. at 404 (“[T]he precise subject matter of a party’s Rule 50(a) motion—namely, its entitlement to judgment as a matter of law—cannot be appealed unless that motion is renewed pursuant to Rule 50(b).”). For that argument, just as with a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge, a Rule 50 motion is the correct vehicle. Consequently, a failure to use it properly—Rule 50(a) motion first before jury deliberations, then Rule 50(b) motion after the verdict—will prevent a litigant from succeeding. Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 29 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. Finally, common sense suggests that, in light of our extensive case law regulating how similar a Rule 50(a) motion and the subsequent Rule 50(b) motion must be for the latter to be permissible, it would be bizarre to allow litigants to proceed who made no Rule 50(a) motion at all. In Ford, in holding that a 50(b) motion was too dissimilar from the litigant’s 50(a) motion to be allowed to go forward, we wrote that “[w]ere we to conclude that the [litigant’s] preverdict motion in this case constitutes the requisite ‘specific grounds’ for the issue raised in its postverdict motion, that requirement would as a practical matter cease to provide any limitation at all.” 535 F.3d at 493. We could hardly then say: But if the litigant had made no Rule 50(a) motion at all, we would be happy to hear the Rule 50(b) motion. We therefore see no reason to create an exception for questions of law to Rule 50’s requirement that a Rule 50(a) motion must precede a Rule 50(b) motion. We hold that Hanover forfeited its Rule 50(b) motion by not making a Rule 50(a) motion, which is not allowed based on a plain reading of the rules, due to constitutional concerns, due to our case law, and for policy reasons. Because we do not ordinarily examine claims that have been forfeited, we do not proceed to the merits underlying the Rule 50(b) motion. See Ford, 535 F.3d at 493–94.13 Rather, we turn briefly to alternative grounds that Hanover raises for affirming the court below.
Hanover makes a last-ditch argument that we should affirm the entry of judgment against Falls on the alternative grounds that “there is absolutely no evidence” to support the jury verdict in his favor. But this is nothing more than a factual argument as to the sufficiency of the evidence—the one thing that even Hanover concedes requires a Rule 50(a) motion to be made at trial, followed by a Rule 50(b) motion afterward, in order to be preserved for appeal. 13 We note, however, that we have serious doubts about the district court’s conclusion that Brown’s fraud unambiguously voided Falls’s BPP coverage based on TME’s status as an additional insured under an endorsement in a separate part of the policy given (1) the structure of the policy and language of the relevant provisions, and (2) Hanover adjuster Gary Barkman’s testimony specifically contradicting the district court’s interpretation of the policy. Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 30 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. See Unitherm, 546 U.S. at 400–01; Doherty, 431 F. App’x at 384–86.14 This argument is therefore also forfeited.
The jury awarded Falls $2,500,000 as the amount of insurance he was owed, up to his policy limit, for Business Personal Property coverage and $250,000 as the balance of the Business Income insurance he was owed. (Along with the $250,000 he was already advanced and under the verdict would not have to pay back, this amount brought the BI payout up to his policy maximum of $500,000.) The BPP payment covers the loss of the gear in Falls’s studio. However, Brown is the ultimate owner of the lost gear, on which Falls had a perpetually renewable leasehold. Therefore, Hanover argues, payment of the $2,500,000 would violate public policy, because Brown would ultimately benefit from his own wrongdoing. It is an “ancient equity maxim that no one should benefit from his own wrongdoing.” K & T, 97 F.3d at 178. The Supreme Court of Tennessee recognized the application of this principle in insurance cases in Box v. Lanier, 79 S.W. 1042, 1045 (Tenn. 1904). “No one shall be permitted to profit by his own fraud, or to take advantage of his own wrong, or to found any claim upon his own iniquity, or to acquire property by his own crime.” Ibid. The public-policy argument, however, even if accepted, does not mean that Falls takes nothing of the $2,500,000 BPP award. Falls had a property interest in the “gear,” in the form of his leasehold with unlimited renewal options.15 Leaseholds have been held to be insurable 14 See also Eveland v. Star Bank, N.A., 188 F.3d 507, 1999 WL 644346, at  (6th Cir. 1999) (table) (Plaintiff failed to make “a motion for a directed verdict at the end of evidence. By failing to make this motion, plaintiff did not preserve her right to challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the jury verdict.”); Morganroth & Morganroth v. DeLorean, 123 F.3d 374, 383 (6th Cir. 1997) (holding that defendant had waived his sufficiency-of-the-evidence arguments “by failing to raise them below in a timely motion for judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” (citing 9A WRIGHT & MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 2536 (2d ed. 1995))). These cases predated Unitherm and the 2006 Amendment to Fed. R. Civ. P. 50, but neither authority changes the logic of these rulings; indeed, the subsequent developments are consonant with our precedents. 15 As Falls stated at trial: “[T]here’s the unresolved matter of the fact that I had a lease for equipment and a space. That equipment had monetary value to me that I have been out now for three years.” Cf. State of Tenn. ex Nos. 19-5483/5550/5551/5562 Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Page 31 Millionaire Ent’mt, et al. interests. More to the point, Hanover clearly accepted at trial that Falls had at least an arguable property interest: Barkman testified at trial that the payment for BPP under the Falls policy would go to Falls and Brown jointly. Thus, Barkman said, it would have to be endorsed by Brown to be cashed by Falls. As Falls’s counsel explained to us at oral argument, the proceeds will become the subject of an interpleader action between Falls, Brown, Hanover, and Brown’s other creditors. This was the district court’s plan for how to handle the issue: Falls and TME would “sue each other” in the event of a win, but not fight it out during the main trial. Though Falls and Hanover both make interesting legal arguments as to the dispositions of the funds, we see no reason to short-circuit that plan. Such arguments can be made in whatever subsequent proceedings arise over this payment.