Purpose of Summary Judgment

Summary Judgment Without Trial

Purpose of Summary Judgment

A complaint can state a perfectly good claim and still have nothing behind it. Peter Painter's bare-bones complaint against the Toyota Car Company, for example, gives little more than minimal notice that a design defect in a Camry sedan caused an accident that injured him. If the claim is adequately stated, however thinly, Toyota cannot get rid of it with a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.¹ Yet a pleading can make a legitimate dispute appear to exist when in fact none does.² Rule 56 gives courts a way to find out.

Rule 56(a) lets a party move for summary judgment on a claim or defense, or on part of one. The court must grant the motion if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, and it should state on the record its reasons for granting or denying the motion.³ A granted motion disposes of the claim or defense on the merits without a trial.⁴

Ortega's suit against Acme Company shows the device at work. She sues Acme for the negligent driving of Pitovsky, alleging that he was acting within the scope of his employment, so that Acme answers for his conduct. If she proved that allegation, Acme would be liable. The complaint therefore states a claim, and a Rule 12(b)(6) motion fails.⁵ After discovery, though, Acme holds Pitovsky's time cards and an affidavit from his supervisor showing that he was off duty at the time of the accident. A pleading motion cannot take that evidence into account; a summary judgment motion exists to receive it. Suppose Ortega answers with evidence that contradicts Acme's, such as a witness who saw Pitovsky making a delivery that afternoon. A dispute then exists about the issue, a jury should resolve it, and the court denies the motion. Suppose instead that she has nothing to offer, because Pitovsky really was not working. She then cannot prove a fact she must establish to recover, Acme is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, and the court may grant summary judgment for Acme. The judgment is “summary” because the judge issues it without a trial.⁶

The motion works as a preview of the trial. The parties show, usually in documentary form, the evidence they would put on at trial, and the court decides whether that evidence would establish any dispute that requires a trial. For jury cases, Judge Posner frames the question as “whether the state of the evidence is such that, if the case were tried tomorrow, the [non-moving party] would have a fair chance of obtaining a verdict.”⁷ The preview is built from the record, and a party supports a factual position by citing particular parts of it: depositions, documents, electronically stored information, affidavits or declarations, stipulations, admissions, interrogatory answers, and other materials.⁸ Because the cited material stands in for trial evidence, a party may object that it cannot be presented in a form that would be admissible in evidence.⁹

The main purpose of the device is to avoid useless trials while still reaching a final determination on the merits.¹⁰ When the facts underlying a dispute can be established conclusively without trial, it is wasteful to proceed as if they were actually in dispute, and the need for a procedure is clearest when the undisputed issues are crucial ones that can determine the whole case.¹¹ A leading opinion puts the purpose this way: the rule exists “to isolate and dispose of factually unsupported claims or defenses,” and it should be interpreted to let it do so.¹² The motion has secondary uses as well. Summary judgment entered on only certain issues or claims removes them from the trial, and even a denied motion makes the parties exchange information that helps both shape their cases for trial.¹³

Some jurisdictions first claimed an inherent power to strike “sham” pleadings, but they had no standard for deciding which pleadings were shams. It was unclear whether a pleading was a sham only if filed in bad faith or also when overwhelming evidence refuted it.¹⁴ Notice pleading then changed which motion does the work. Before it, motions to dismiss a complaint or to strike a defense were the principal tools for isolating factually insufficient claims and defenses and keeping them from consuming public and private resources at trial. With notice pleading, the motion to dismiss seldom performs that function, and the motion for summary judgment has taken its place.¹⁵

Judges have long worried that deciding a case on affidavits takes it away from the jury. From the start, federal judges treated summary judgment warily, seeing in it a threat to the right to confront witnesses, to the jury's role in drawing inferences and judging credibility, and to a party's right to have counsel argue the case to a jury.¹⁶ In 1962 the Supreme Court, discouraging its use in antitrust litigation, said: “Trial by affidavit is no substitute for trial by jury which so long has been the hallmark of ‘even handed justice.’”¹⁷ Critics have also argued that in federal courts the device unconstitutionally interferes with jury trial, and that in practice it costs more than trial and causes more problems than it is worth.¹⁸

The answer to the worry lies in what the judge decides. Parties are entitled to try factual disputes, whether or not they have asked for a jury, so the motion is available only when no genuine dispute of material fact exists and the movant is entitled to judgment on the undisputed facts. The court must ascertain whether a genuine dispute exists but decides none. It does not weigh the evidence or assess credibility, and it resolves doubts in favor of the nonmovant.¹⁹ Credibility belongs to the jury. The court asks only whether there is reason to believe that credibility may be determinative, and if there is, it denies the motion.²⁰ Rule 56 must therefore be read with regard for two rights: a party whose claim or defense is adequately based in fact may have it tried to a jury, and a party opposing a claim or defense may show before trial, in the manner the Rule provides, that it has no factual basis.²¹