NexPoint Asset Management, L.P., fka Highland Capital Management Fund Advisors, L.P., et al. v. Highland Capital Management, L.P.

On a motion for summary judgment—when deciding whether there is a “genuine dispute as to any material fact” that must be allowed to go to a jury, Fed. R. Civ. P. 56—courts must draw all inferences in favor of the non-moving party. Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378, 380 (2007). Furthermore, in deciding whether there is a triable factual question, the “evidence of the non-movant is to be believed,” and courts are to leave credibility determinations and any weighing of evidence to the jury. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986). As the en banc Eleventh Circuit has explained, that general rule applies even to a non-moving party’s self-serving testimony, for “a litigant’s self-serving statements based on personal knowledge or observation can defeat summary judgment” under Rule 56’s plain terms. United States v. Stein, 881 F.3d 853, 857 (11th Cir. 2018) (en banc). But diverging from multiple other circuits, the Fifth Circuit allowed the trial courts to scour a category of “self-serving” affidavits for reasons not to give that testimony to a jury and to draw inferences against the non-moving Petitioners rather than in their favor. The question presented is: Whether, contrary to the decisions of multiple other circuits that properly preserve the province of the jury to decide genuinely disputed issues of material fact, the Fifth Circuit erred in permitting trial courts to draw inferences and make credibility determinations against a party offering self-interested testimonial evidence in opposition to a motion for summary judgment?