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You understand correctly. The jury's decision isn't final (and I thought this was ruled on by a judge directly, instead of a jury, but I could be wrong). You

You understand correctly. The jury's decision isn't final (and I thought this was ruled on by a judge directly, instead of a jury, but I could be wrong). You can appeal pretty much any case to a higher court. I don't know the order, but it's not uncommon for cases to appeal to a higher court several times. I.e. a verdict is rendered in a county court; you don't like it, so you appeal to the state court. State court still doesn't give the decision you want, so you appeal to the Supreme Court. It's worth noting that the higher court can reject your appeal. You're not entitled to be seen by the higher court, and if you can't come up with good grounds for why the lower court was wrong, the appeal will be rejected. The Supreme Court rejects a fair number of appeals (I think the majority of cases). This is final though. There is no higher court than the Supreme Court to appeal to. At this point, the only reason it would change is if the laws change, or the Supreme Court reverses their decision later. It's extremely rare that they whole-hog reverse a precedent that they set, though.

bzbarsky 6y ago
This does not match my understanding of the situation (though note: I am not a lawyer; take everything that follows with a grain of salt). My understanding is that a jury's primary task of deciding on the facts is final. The facts in a case like this seem to me to be things like deciding whether Oracle in fact holds the copyright, and whether Google's copy of the API is sufficiently similar for that copyright to apply to Google's copy. Now as far as appeals go, you can appeal whether the trial was done properly, such that the jury was able to do its fact-finding job correctly. You can appeal what was then decided based on those facts (e.g. sentencing). You can appeal meta-questions, like whether a particular decision is a "finding of fact" or not to start with. The question of whether "fair use" is the sort of thing that is decided by judge or jury is apparently somewhat contentious in this case; I just found https://www.law.uw.edu/wlr/print-edition/print-edition/vol-94/1/who-decides-fair-use-judge-or-jury https://www.law.uw.edu/wlr/print-edition/print-edition/vol-9... describing some of the issues there. Today's decision refers to this as well: it's (c) under "Held": > (c) The fair use question is a mixed question of fact and law. Re- viewing courts should appropriately defer to the jury’s findings of un- derlying facts, but the ultimate question whether those facts amount to a fair use is a legal question for judges to decide de novo. This ap- proach does not violate the Seventh Amendment’s prohibition on courts reexamining facts tried by a jury, because the ultimate question here is one of law, not fact. The “right of trial by jury” does not include the right to have a jury resolve a fair use defense. Pp. 18–21. which sure sounds like the Supreme Court effectively decided that the final determination of whether a use is "fair use" or not should be made by a judge, not a jury. Then they proceed to make that determination in this case in holding (d).
jcranmer 6y ago
> The jury's decision isn't final (and I thought this was ruled on by a judge directly, instead of a jury, but I could be wrong). The idealized rule is that the jury is the final arbitrator of matters of fact, while judges (and appeal courts) decide matters of law. Ideals don't match reality cleanly, especially on matters like fair use which is "mixed fact and law." But additionally, you can sometimes appeal matters of fact by arguing that no reasonable jury could have reached the facts as it did (these are very rare, as I understand it, except in situations where mixed fact/law comes into play). Some other points you're missing. First, you have to appeal on particular failures of law; you can't just appeal that you don't like the decision. In particular, if you try to appeal past the appeal court to a higher court, you can only make arguments that you made to the appeal court. Another important thing is that appeal courts can push the case back down to the lower court to redecide based on clarifying law. That's what happened here, essentially. Google won on the trial, Oracle appealed saying that the judge incorrectly ruled that the API wasn't copyrightable (and the appeal court agreed with Oracle), which told the lower court to try it again with the correct ruling on API copyrightable. Google tried to appeal SCOTUS, who refused to hear it. Lower court had another jury trial, which found Google had fair use. Oracle appealed again to appeals court, which found that the jury couldn't have thought it fair use. Google appealed to SCOTUS, which just now disagreed with the appeal court.

bzbarsky 6y ago

This does not match my understanding of the situation (though note: I am not a lawyer; take everything that follows with a grain of salt). My understanding is that a jury's primary task of deciding on the facts is final. The facts in a case like this seem to me to be things like deciding whether Oracle in fact holds the copyright, and whether Google's copy of the API is sufficiently similar for that copyright to apply to Google's copy. Now as far as appeals go, you can appeal whether the trial was done properly, such that the jury was able to do its fact-finding job correctly. You can appeal what was then decided based on those facts (e.g. sentencing). You can appeal meta-questions, like whether a particular decision is a "finding of fact" or not to start with. The question of whether "fair use" is the sort of thing that is decided by judge or jury is apparently somewhat contentious in this case; I just found https://www.law.uw.edu/wlr/print-edition/print-edition/vol-94/1/who-decides-fair-use-judge-or-jury https://www.law.uw.edu/wlr/print-edition/print-edition/vol-9... describing some of the issues there. Today's decision refers to this as well: it's (c) under "Held": > (c) The fair use question is a mixed question of fact and law. Re- viewing courts should appropriately defer to the jury’s findings of un- derlying facts, but the ultimate question whether those facts amount to a fair use is a legal question for judges to decide de novo. This ap- proach does not violate the Seventh Amendment’s prohibition on courts reexamining facts tried by a jury, because the ultimate question here is one of law, not fact. The “right of trial by jury” does not include the right to have a jury resolve a fair use defense. Pp. 18–21. which sure sounds like the Supreme Court effectively decided that the final determination of whether a use is "fair use" or not should be made by a judge, not a jury. Then they proceed to make that determination in this case in holding (d).

jcranmer 6y ago

> The jury's decision isn't final (and I thought this was ruled on by a judge directly, instead of a jury, but I could be wrong). The idealized rule is that the jury is the final arbitrator of matters of fact, while judges (and appeal courts) decide matters of law. Ideals don't match reality cleanly, especially on matters like fair use which is "mixed fact and law." But additionally, you can sometimes appeal matters of fact by arguing that no reasonable jury could have reached the facts as it did (these are very rare, as I understand it, except in situations where mixed fact/law comes into play). Some other points you're missing. First, you have to appeal on particular failures of law; you can't just appeal that you don't like the decision. In particular, if you try to appeal past the appeal court to a higher court, you can only make arguments that you made to the appeal court. Another important thing is that appeal courts can push the case back down to the lower court to redecide based on clarifying law. That's what happened here, essentially. Google won on the trial, Oracle appealed saying that the judge incorrectly ruled that the API wasn't copyrightable (and the appeal court agreed with Oracle), which told the lower court to try it again with the correct ruling on API copyrightable. Google tried to appeal SCOTUS, who refused to hear it. Lower court had another jury trial, which found Google had fair use. Oracle appealed again to appeals court, which found that the jury couldn't have thought it fair use. Google appealed to SCOTUS, which just now disagreed with the appeal court.