10
MOORE v. HARPER
THOMAS, J., dissenting
judgment have preclusive effect; if a defendant obtains a final judgment based on one defense, the court’s rejection of
alternative defenses is not preclusive in a later action). At
the risk of belaboring the obvious, the clearest proof that
Harper I was not a final judgment is Harper III—which “revisit[ed]” Harper I ’s determination of a “crucial issue in this
case,” ___ N. C., at ___, 886 S. E. 2d, at 399; overruled Harper I ’s determination of that issue; and affirmed the very
same final judgment for petitioners that Harper I had reversed.4
How could petitioners still be injured, and what more
could this Court possibly do for them? The majority suggests that the interlocutory injunction issued in Harper I
still harms petitioners, see ante, at 7, 10–11, but that idea
is untenable. To start, the majority overlooks that the injunction only ran against the conduct of defendantsrespondents—the state officials who actually implement
election laws—not petitioners as legislators. See Berger,
597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 2). Next, the majority fails to
consider what it would mean if the injunction is still binding: that defendants-respondents are liable to “be held in
contempt and put in jail” if they ever implement the 2021
Act, Richmond Cty. Bd. of Ed. v. Cowell, 254 N. C. App. 422,
426, 803 S. E. 2d 27, 30–31 (2017), even though Harper III
dismissed this suit’s challenge to the Act as “beyond the
reach of [North Carolina’s] courts,” ___ N. C., at ___, 886
S. E. 2d, at 431 (internal quotation marks omitted). That
——————
4 These facts refute the majority’s dismissive reference to Harper III as
“a distinct decision concerning remedies,” as well as any suggestion that
Harper III was “another case” than Harper I for res judicata purposes.
Ante, at 9–10 (internal quotation marks omitted). Harper I and Harper
III involved exactly the same case, and there is “only one final judgment
per case.” Chaka v. Lane, 894 F. 2d 923, 924 (CA7 1990) (Easterbrook,
J.); see also Insurance Co. v. Dunn, 19 Wall. 214, 225 (1874) (“To say that
there can be two final judgments upon the same pleadings, in the same
cause, in the same court, . . . involves a solecism”). In this case, it was
not Harper I.
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