Opinion ID: 1166838
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: federal summary judgment process

Text: ¶ 20 Gauged by the federal summary judgment standards  refined by the trilogy made up of the U.S. Supreme Court's teachings in Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, [21] Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., [22] and Matsushita Electric Industrial v. Zenith Radio Corp. [23]  Weldon's negligence claim might not pass legal muster and hence end up in summary judgment for the defendant. ¶ 21 The Court's 1986 trilogy announced precise standards for determining the existence of a genuine fact issue. Matsushita, the first of the trilogy, opened the door to a much-increased degree of discretion in handling quests for summary judgment. [24] Liberty Lobby further extended that latitude by allowing the directed-verdict standard to assist in determining the existence of a genuine material fact issue. [25] In both Liberty Lobby and Matsushita the Court made it more difficult for a nonmoving party  having the burden of persuasion at trial  to meet its probative onus in summary judgment process. [26] The former opinion requires the trial judge to inquire whether a jury could reasonably find the evidence clearly convincing as to a particular issue. The Court rejected the notion that a nonmovant could avoid summary judgment and meet its burden in that process by showing the mere existence of some factual dispute between the parties. Rather, the nonmoving party must identify a factual dispute that is genuine and involves a material issue. Underscored was the notion that not all evidentiary conflicts constitute genuine disputes of fact. [27] Nonmoving parties can establish a genuine issue of fact by tendering probative material that would be sufficient for a  reasonable jury to return a verdict in favor of the nonmoving party. [28] ¶ 22 Commentators have noted that in the aftermath of the trilogy's jurisprudence the post-1986 federal summary process clearly constitutes a judiciary's intrusion into an area formerly viewed as almost exclusively within the jury's province. [29] According to one writer, the expansive Liberty Lobby teachings raise grave concerns about a civil litigant's constitutional right to a jury trial. [30] Suffice it to say that these standards of the U.S. Supreme Court do not apply to state-court cases for the reasons to be discussed infra in Part VII.