Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, Inc. · ¶56

Although Courts of Appeals have attempted to add structure to this analysis, some have more successfully captured the doctrine’s underlying principles than others. Take how courts have approached the judicial estoppel inquiry in the bankruptcy context specifically. If the doctrine is to apply in this context, then the Fifth Circuit’s approach, as the Court correctly identifies, was both “too rigid and too broad.” Ante, at 7. It distilled the test for whether a prior inconsistent position was “inadvertent or a mistake” down to two factors and then defined one of them in such a way that ensured a prior inconsistent position was never inadvertent or mistaken. See ante, at 8–9.

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