Lawsuits tend to produce a series of court rulings at each stage of the proceedings. In New York State such rulings can become part of a doctrine known as the law of the case.
The law of the case aims to prevent parties from litigating anew legal questions that have been determined at an earlier stage. (For example, a trial judge who rules on a legal question would be obligated to follow his own ruling; it’s the law of the case.) The doctrine doesn’t apply in instances in which the law changes, new evidence arises, or the earlier ruling was in error.
In July 1996, Richard Brownrigg, an employee of an elevator repair company, was injured in the elevator shaft of a building in Brooklyn owned by The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) when he was struck in the right eye by a screwdriver-like tool dropped by a co-worker four floors above.
Brownrigg sued NYCHA. The trial judge denied a request by Brownrigg, based solely on the allegations in court papers, to hold NYCHA, as owner of the building, liable for his injury. Though New York law makes building owners liable for injuries to laborers who are injured while working in construction or demolition of elevator shafts, the court found insufficient evidence in the court papers alone to relieve Brownrigg of the need to present evidence at trial.
On the eve of opening statements, Brownrigg renewed his request for summary judgement on the question of liability. This time, the judge granted it, the earlier ruling notwithstanding.
NYCHA objected, asserting that the earlier ruling constituted the law of the case. In short, NYCHA said that the question of its liability needed to be decided at trial – as the judge had ruled initially. The trial court overruled NYCHA’s objection and the trial proceeded to the question of damages (because liability already had been decided in Brownrigg’s favor when the court granted his request for summary judgment).
The appeals court disagreed. The ruling granting summary judgment for Brownrigg at the beginning of the trial “was based on the same facts and law as the prior order… which denied summary judgment to the plaintiff on the issue of liability,” a three-judge panel of the Appellate Division wrote in ordering a new trial on the question of liability. The earlier order “was the law of the case, and there were no extraordinary circumstances permitting the [trial court] to ignore the order,” the court said.