Question of fact v. question of law

As a prior post described, a matter is usually only reviewable by New York's Court of Appeals if it involves a question of law—that is, if it's related to the application of legal principles, not to determinations of the facts. This limitation comes from the Constitution of the State of New York.

For example, if both sides present expert witness testimony at trial, a jury is entitled to consider the experts' testimony and make a factual determination which expert is more believable. But whether the witness may give expert testimony at all—does the witness have enough knowledge and experience in his or her field in order to qualify as an expert—is a question of law. Only the legal question can be presented to the Court of Appeals.

Take as another example Manufacturer Michael's breach of his contract with Purchaser Petra. Michael claims he shipped the widgets Petra ordered, but Petra says she never got them. The contract provides that Michael's duty is satisfied once he has shipped the widgets.

So the question in Petra's case against Michael is, did Michael ship the widgets or not? This is an example of a question of fact.

But assume Michael admits that he never shipped the widgets at all. In other words, he admits that he breached his duty under his contract with Petra. But he claims he still isn't liable to Petra for damages because the breach was due to his factory shutting down during the COVID-19 outbreak, and the contract contained a force majeure clause (a provision that excuses performance by one of the parties where the party is unable to perform its duty due to an act of God).

The question now is, does the force majeure clause apply to COVID-19? This question is based on the application of legal principles, specifically what does the law consider to be an "act of God." This is an example of a question of law.

This means that New York's highest court could consider the second case, but not the first. In the first case, the decision of the Appellate Division is the final outcome.

This can have some counterintuitive results where a jury verdict is at issue, because even though a jury is an arbiter of the facts, the result it reaches may still implicate legal standards. An example arises in the case of Heary Bros. Lightning Prot. Co. v. Intertek Testing Servs., N.A., Inc., 4 N.Y.3d 615, 797 N.Y.S.2d 400 (2005), a breach of contract case where the Court distinguished the weight of the evidence underlying a jury verdict (a question of fact, because a jury is allowed to decide how much value to give to an item of proof) from the sufficiency of the evidence (a question of law, because the Court had to determine whether any evidence was enough to satisfy the legal elements of the claims in the case). If the decision before the Court of Appeals was a factual question (i.e. based on the weight of the evidence), then the Court would have no power to review it.

So whether the appeal involves a question of fact, which the Court of Appeals can't review, or a question of law, which it can, might require very close analysis. And in fact this question might not be answered until the Court's final ruling. This is another important consideration when assessing one's options in appealing an unfavorable decision.