Chad Weisgram, et al. v. Marley Company, et al. (528 U.S. 440)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 22, 2000 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 528 U.S. 440 · 120 S. Ct. 1011
- Decided
- February 22, 2000
- Term
- October Term 1999
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns the respective authority of federal trial and appellate courts to decide whether, as a matter of law, judgment should be entered in favor of a verdict loser. The pattern we confront is this. Plaintiff in a product liability action gains a jury verdict. Defendant urges, unsuccessfully before the federal district court but successfully on appeal, that expert testimony plaintiff introduced was unreliable, and therefore inadmissible, under the analysis required by Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579 (1993). Shorn of the erroneously admitted expert testimony, the record evidence is insufficient to justify a plaintiff’s verdict. May the court of appeals then instruct the entry of judgment as a matter of law for defendant, or must that tribunal remand the ease, leaving to the district court’s discretion the choice between final judgment for defendant or a new trial of plaintiff’s case? Our decision is guided by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50, which governs the entry of judgment as a matter of law, and by the Court’s pathmarking opinion in Neely v. Martin K. Eby Constr. Co., 386 U. S. 317 (1967). As Neely teaches, courts of appeals should “be constantly alert” to “the trial judge’s first-hand knowledge of witnesses, testimony, and issues”; in other words, appellate courts should give…
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