XI. Procedural Issues at and Post Trial
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XI. PROCEDURAL ISSUES AT AND POST-TRIAL
Trials require a huge commitment of time and resources—from the parties, from the courts, and from the individual community members brought in to serve on the jury. And while relatively few civil cases go to trial anymore, many individual district courts may have very full trial calendars and long waits for trial dates. As a result, procedural rules for preserving errors at trial are generally strict—courts do not want to have to try a case a second time if they can help it and certainly not on the basis of an error the party failed to bring to the court's attention at or before the first trial. That means almost any issue that a party might want to raise post-trial, should they lose, must first be raised during the trial.
The federal rules provide several basic mechanisms for challenging legal decisions at trial. The first is Rule 50, which permits the court to enter judgment in favor of the moving party if the party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, under essentially the same standard as a Rule 56 motion for summary judgment. Significantly, a Rule 50 motion has two parts: a Rule 50(a) motion, which must be made at some point before the case is submitted to the jury, and a Rule 50(b) motion, which must be made no later than 28 days after the entry of judgment. These are not alternatives; if a party fails to move under both sections of Rule 50, the motion is procedurally deficient and will not be considered (unless, of course, the court grants the Rule 50(a) motion rather than submitting the issue to the jury). And a pro forma Rule 50(a) motion is insufficient; the motion must state the legal basis for the motion as well as the facts and authority in support.243
Another option for the losing party after trial is a motion, under Rule 59, for a new trial or to alter the verdict. A Rule 59 motion is also due no later than 28 days after the entry of judgment. But the standard for Rule 59 is lower than that for a Rule 50 motion, and the remedy is not judgment in the moving party's favor but a partial or complete new trial. The court may grant a new trial "for any reason for which a new trial has heretofore been granted in an action at law in federal court."244 The court reviewing a motion for a new trial may "examine the evidence through its own eyes" and grant a new trial if it feels, based on errors during the trial, "the jury has reached a seriously erroneous result."245 But such rulings are comparatively rare; unless the court perceives a "miscarriage of justice," any errors will not necessitate a new trial.246
A. How to Preserve Immunity Defenses at Trial
Even if a defendant has asserted qualified immunity in the pleadings and at summary judgment, if he wants to be sure to preserve the defense at trial, he must assert it then—at least when the defense turns at all on the factual record, rather than a purely legal question. The Supreme Court addressed this issue in 2011 in Ortiz v. Jordan.247 The plaintiff had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by a guard while in prison; she sued several supervisory officials for failing to prevent the later attacks. The defendants moved for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, but the district court denied their motion, holding there were genuine disputes of material fact. Defendants did not appeal, and the case was tried to a plaintiff's verdict. Although the defendants raised a Rule 50(a) motion, during trial, they did not renew the motion as a Rule 50(b) motion post-trial, or move for a new trial under Rule 59. Instead, they appealed to the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit vacated the jury verdict and entered judgment in favor of the defendants, holding the district court should have granted the motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified...
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