I was curious if this was the kind of thing that lawyers do just as a matter of course. (If you can skip the trial, so much the better; if not, you've lost nothing.)
Quoth Wikipedia:
According to Federal Judicial Center research, summary-judgment motions are filed in 17% of federal cases. 71% of summary-judgment motions were filed by defendants, 26% by plaintiffs. Out of these, 36% of the motions were denied, and 64% were granted in whole or in part.
So no, they don't automatically do it. They do seem to expect a decent chance of it being granted when they do.
I'm surprised that it would happen in a case like this, which would seem to be a judgment call. Though I wonder if it has to do with a recent filing saying "Even if we did do the bad thing, we didn't do $1.6 worth of damage". Which does sound a bit like "skip to the part where we appeal this".
Trials are necessary when facts are in dispute. (Juries are traditionally the arbiter of facts, and judges the arbiters of law.)
If there are no facts in dispute, and the case is only about what the law says, it's a more efficient use of the plaintiff's, defendant's, and the court's time to have it decided via summary judgment.
If you sue me for painting my house red, and I say my house is actually pink, but the law says you can't sue someone because you don't like the color of their house, then there'd be no need for a trial to determine if it's red or if it's pink.
I've never entirely understood how that's supposed to work. In the end, the jury rules on a matter of law: did the defendant's actions violate thus-and-such a law? They achieve that by having the law explained to them by the lawyers and the judge. It seems like the only fact they are asked to find is a legal fact.
I'd understand if they asked, "Do you believe the defendant's alibi? Do you believe that the litigant had reason to think that their statements were false?" and so on. That is supposedly what your peers are good at (though I'm not really convinced). Instead they're given a quick law school tutorial and told to figure it out for themselves.
It would also make sense if they were asked to decide what's just instead of what's legal, but they are explicitly told not to do that. As far as I can tell, the one thing prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges all agree on is that they hate jury nullification. So they instruct them in the law and tell them to rule on the law, which is a fact they're not competent to find.
Quoth Wikipedia:
According to Federal Judicial Center research, summary-judgment motions are filed in 17% of federal cases. 71% of summary-judgment motions were filed by defendants, 26% by plaintiffs. Out of these, 36% of the motions were denied, and 64% were granted in whole or in part.
So no, they don't automatically do it. They do seem to expect a decent chance of it being granted when they do.
I'm surprised that it would happen in a case like this, which would seem to be a judgment call. Though I wonder if it has to do with a recent filing saying "Even if we did do the bad thing, we didn't do $1.6 worth of damage". Which does sound a bit like "skip to the part where we appeal this".