Hillmann v. City of Chicago

(1) Whether a court of appeals has jurisdiction to reach back and decide whether a case should have been tried after there has been a full trial on the merits, if the question presented involves a pure legal conclusion, as four circuits have clearly held, or whether all defenses raised in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50 motions must be evaluated in light of the character and quality of the trial evidence, as other circuits have held; and (2) whether a court of appeals' review of denial of judgment as a matter of law after a full trial on the merits can ignore direct and circumstantial evidence, as well as the reasonable inferences drawn from the evidence, that supported the jury's verdict.