MEMORANDUM OPINION

JAMES MOYER, Magistrate Judge

Following a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, Jerry W. Davis, Siemens Medical Solutions USA ("Siemens") renewed its motion for judgment as a matter of law and, in the alternative, asked for a new trial ( see docket no. 114). It is rare for a court to grant such a motion in a civil matter, particularly with respect to an issue that has been adjudicated by a jury. Yet, after reviewing Siemens' motion and Mr. Davis's response thereto, reviewing the trial transcripts, and considering prior rulings made in this matter, this court concludes that Mr. Davis's fraud claim fails as a matter of law and, accordingly, there existed no legally sufficient basis for the jury to find that Mr. Davis reasonably relied on any misrepresentations made by Siemens.

The court has not reached this decision lightly, without being mindful of the doctrine of the law of the case, nor without considerable concern about possibly invading the province of a jury. Nevertheless, when this court has erred as a matter of law, or a jury has reached a decision that is against the clear weight of the evidence, a judge must correct any errors and ensure that justice is served.

I.

In the fall of 2002, Siemens offered Mr. Davis, who was then one of its Division Marketing Specialists, a sales executive position. Although he had worked for Siemens as a commission-earning salesperson in the past, Mr. Davis's position at the time of the offer was salaried, with an annual compensation of $85,000. The compensation for the new position he was offered was once again commission-driven, with a lower base salary of $65,000, a one-year guaranteed salary rider of $35,000 (the "Guarantee Rider"), and the opportunity to earn commissions on certain sales.

The offer was verbally communicated to Mr. Davis in September 2002 during a meeting between him and Mr. Douglas Spotts, one of Siemens's National Sales Managers. Siemens confirmed its offer in a writing dated November 11, 2002, which expressly incorporated the Guarantee Rider, which in turn incorporated Mr. Davis's Compensation and Commission Plan (the "Plan") that described the basis by which his commissions would be calculated. On November 14, 2002, Mr. Davis confirmed in writing his acceptance of the offer letter, the Guarantee Rider, and the Compensation and Commission Plan.

The parties agree that Mr. Davis was assigned a national territory and that his Compensation and Commission Plan states that Mr. Davis would earn commissions only on those sales within his territory for which he was "personally and directly responsible." Prior to trial, Mr. Davis argued that the phrase "personally and directly responsible" was ambiguous and could be interpreted, particularly with the aid of parol and other extrinsic evidence, to entitle Mr. Davis to commissions on sales for which he did not have direct and unmediated involvement. See Davis, 399 F. Supp. 2d at 792. The district court disagreed with Mr. Davis's assertion of ambiguity, and ruled that the phrase "personally and directly responsible" is "absolutely clear and unambiguous" and that its meaning within the context of the Compensation Plan "is not subject to serious dispute." Id. at 792-93. Accordingly, the district court dismissed with prejudice all claims for which Mr. Davis's advocated interpretation of the Compensation and Commission Plan's terms was necessary (in whole or in part) for him to prevail.

The district court permitted only one claim to survive summary judgment — whether Siemens fraudulently misrepresented the terms of Mr. Davis's commission structure to induce him to accept his new job. Mr. Davis asserted that Mr. Spotts promised him that he would receive commissions on all sales made to national accounts, regardless of whether he was responsible for securing the sale. As noted previously, the Compensation and Commission Plan Mr. Davis accepted says no such thing, and cannot reasonably be interpreted otherwise. Yet, because Siemens denied making the alleged misrepresentation, the district court determined that a question of fact existed with respect to Mr. Davis's fraudulent misrepresentation claim, because one of six necessary elements of a fraud claim is the making of a materially false statement. See Davis, 399 F. Supp. 2d at 800. The district court did not evaluate in any detail the other necessary elements of the fraud claim, except to note that Mr. Davis alleged that he relied on the misrepresentation and that Mr. Davis appeared to meet "the bare minimum for a prima facie case of misrepresentation." Id. Notably, the district court did not explicitly evaluate whether Mr. Davis reasonably relied on the misrepresentation.

On the eve of trial, and facing an unanticipated scheduling conflict, the district court asked the parties to consider allowing a magistrate judge to preside over the trial of this matter. They did and, accordingly, the trial judge was not the same judge who had previously evaluated the merits of Mr. Davis's claims and made rulings on all pre-trial motions, including Siemens's motion for summary judgment. Thus, when Siemens moved for directed verdict at the close of its proof, the trial judge was reluctant to disturb what he considered to be the law of the case, as established by the district court in its prior evaluation of Siemens's motion for summary judgment, and without the aid of contemporaneous trial transcripts, concluded that there existed one or more issues of fact requiring the jury's determination.

II.

Post-trial Siemens requests two alternative forms of relief. Siemens principally asks the court to reconsider its denial of Siemens's motion for judgment as a matter of law, and asks the court to set aside the jury's determination that Siemens made a fraudulent misrepresentation to Mr. Davis. Failing that, Siemens asks for a new trial because certain of the statements and evidence pertaining to alleged mistreatment of Mr. Davis by Tom Riesenberg, one of his superiors at Siemens, may have tainted the jury's verdict. In this court's opinion, the latter argument is not sufficiently meritorious to warrant extensive consideration. Siemens's principal request, however, both warrants and has received weighty and careful consideration.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a)(1) states that judgment as a matter of law is not proper unless "no reasonable juror could have found for the non-moving party." Similarly, it has long been the rule in the Sixth Circuit that the same standard applies to a renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law filed after the return of a jury verdict. See, e.g., United States v. Alpine Industries, Inc., 352 F.3d 1017, 1022 (6^th Cir. 2003) (citations omitted). In applying this standard, however, the court cannot weigh the credibility of the witnesses or substitute its judgment for that of the jury. Id. Rather, it must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party ( i.e., Mr. Davis) and give him the benefit of all reasonable inferences. Id.

Before weighing the evidence, however, the court must first address what Mr. Davis was asked to prove to the jury. In civil cases, the plaintiff is typically asked to prove his claim by a preponderance of the evidence. The preponderance standard is relatively low — it simply means that a particular claim is more likely than not. By contrast, a plaintiff alleging fraudulent misrepresentation, bears the heightened burden of proving his case by "clear and convincing evidence." See, e.g., United Parcel Service Co. v. Rickert, 966 S.W.2d 464, 468 (Ky. 1999). Kentucky's highest court, to which this court must turn for a definition of that standard, has declared that "`proof by clear and convincing evidence' is incapable of a definition any more detailed or precise than the words involved," but requires the party with the burden of proof "to produce evidence substantially more persuasive than a preponderance of the evidence, but not beyond a reasonable doubt." Fitch v. Burns, 782 S.W.2d 618, 622 (Ky. 1990).

The jury was asked to determine whether Mr. Davis had proven each of the following six necessary elements of his claim by clear and convincing evidence:

(1) That Siemens made a representation of a material fact to Mr. Davis;

(2) That the representation was false;

(3) That Siemens either knew the representation was false or made it recklessly;

(4) That Siemens made the representation to induce Mr. Davis to act upon it (in other words, that Siemens intended to deceive Mr. Davis);

(5) That Mr. Davis acted in reasonable reliance on the representation; and

(6) That Mr. Davis suffered damages as a result.

The court will assume, for the sake of argument only, that Mr. Davis sufficiently proved at trial the third and fourth elements of his fraud claim ( i.e., that Siemens knew that Mr. Spotts's alleged oral representations regarding Mr. Davis's commission structure were false and that Siemens intended to deceive Mr. Davis into accepting its offer of employment, which included the Commission and Compensation Plan that contained a commission structure quite different from the one Mr. Spotts verbally described). The court makes these assumptions because it is convinced that Mr. Davis did not, as a matter of Kentucky law, establish that Mr. Davis reasonably relied on Siemens's misrepresentations.

III.

It has long been the rule in Kentucky that there can be no reasonable reliance on any misrepresentation that a party knows or should have known is inaccurate. See Mayo Arcade Corp. v. Bonded Floors, Co., 41 S.W.2d 1104 (Ky. 1931). The corollary to that rule — namely that as a matter of law there can no be no misrepresentation of any issue that is contradicted by the terms of a written contract — is also a venerable part of Kentucky law, and is precisely applicable in this matter. See, e.g., id; Vest v. Goode, 209 S.W.2d 833 (Ky. 1948).

Mr. Davis asserts that Mr. Spotts orally promised him that he would receive commissions on all sales made to national accounts, regardless of whether he or another salesperson was directly responsible for making the sale. The Compensation and Commission Plan subsequently sent to and accepted by him, however, stated only that he would receive commissions on sales for which he and he alone was personally and directly responsible. At the time Mr. Davis accepted his written offer, and its corresponding Commission and Compensation Plan, he apparently labored under the misperception that there was no conflict between the oral representations and the written Plan. As the district court correctly determined in the ruling on summary judgment, this misperception was not reasonable, as the terms of the written Plan are both clear and unambiguous. If Mr. Davis was presented with a Plan whose commission structure could reasonably be interpreted in only one way, and that way directly contradicted the oral representations allegedly made by Mr. Spotts concerning his commission structure, it necessarily follows that Mr. Davis's reliance on the oral representations was not reasonable, once he was presented with, and accepted his written job offer. Thus, pursuant to Kentucky law, and as a matter of law without regard to any other evidence that may have been presented at trial, his claim of fraudulent misrepresentation fails. See Mayo, 41 S.W.2d at 1108-1109; Vest, 209 S.W.2d at 58-59; see also Moore, 992 F.2d at 1447.

Given this determination, this court must now reconcile its current analysis of Mr. Davis's claim with the original judge's prior opinion that, at least implicitly, determined that the reasonableness of Mr. Davis's reliance was legally sufficient to proceed to trial. As noted previously, however, the district court did not explicitly evaluate any element of the fraudulent misrepresentation claim, except whether there existed a question of fact regarding the making of a false statement. Rather, the court's focus was on whether representations as to future conduct would support a fraud claim, and whether the claim was barred by the economic loss doctrine.

"The [law of the case] doctrine posits that when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case. Law of the case directs a court's discretion, [however,] it does not limit the tribunal's power." Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618 (1983) (internal citations omitted). Application of the law of the case doctrine is a procedural issue to which federal law applies, McDonald v. Petree, 409 F.3d 724, 730 n. 2 (6^th Cir. 2005), and the Sixth Circuit has recognized that "the law of the case doctrine is discretionary when applied to a coordinate court or the same court's own decisions." Bowling v. Pfizer, Inc., 132 F.3d 1147, 1150 (6^th Cir. 1998) (citing United States v. Todd, 920 F.2d 399, 403 (6^th Cir. 1990)); see also In re Kenneth Allen Knight Trust, 303 F.3d 671, 677-78 (6^th Cir. 2002) (doctrine is discretionary when a court reviews its prior erroneous decision). Indeed, the Sixth Circuit has gone so far as to say, "[a]t the trial court level, the doctrine of the law of the case is little more than a management practice to permit logical progression toward judgment. Prejudgment orders remain interlocutory and can be reconsidered at any time." Gillig v. Advanced Cardiovascular Sys., 67 F.3d 586, 592-93 (6^th Cir. 1995) (quoting MOORE'S FEDERAL PRACTICE ¶ 0.401 (2d ed. 1994)). Consequently, the law-of-the-case doctrine does not remove a trial court's jurisdiction to reconsider, or otherwise preclude a trial court from reconsidering, an issue previously decided in the case by another judge. See id. at 590.

Having reconsidered whether Mr. Davis's fraudulent misrepresentation should have survived summary judgment, this court concludes that it should not have. The claim is not viable (and was not viable at the time of the prior ruling) because the contract Mr. Davis read and accepted directly contradicted Mr. Spotts's prior oral promises with respect to a material fact (his commission structure) that constituted the particular inducement for Mr. Davis to accept his new job. In Kentucky, under these circumstances, there can be no fraudulent misrepresentation.

IV.

Even if Mr. Davis's fraud claim did not fail as a matter of law, however, the court would set aside the jury's verdict. As noted above, the applicable standard for doing so is whether any reasonable juror could have found for the plaintiff. The court does not suggest that the jury did not perform its duty carefully, but mere reliance is not sufficient to support Mr. Davis's claim, and there exists no testimony in the record that explicitly pertains to the reasonableness of Mr. Davis's reliance on Mr. Spotts's oral representations regarding his commission structure. In addition, there is scant other testimony that would clearly and convincingly permit a reasonable juror to find reasonable reliance.

Mr. Davis testified that he would not have taken the job without the potential to earn a significantly greater income than he currently made, but that only establishes that he relied on the misrepresentation, not that his reliance was reasonable. Indeed, the weight of the trial evidence that his reliance was not reasonable. Mr. Davis admitted that before he accepted his new job he received and read his offer and Compensation and Commission Plan, which offered him a substantially lower base salary than he was currently earning and included only a one-year guaranteed supplement to his salary that, in total, promised only a modest guaranteed increase in pay for a substantial increase in responsibility. Mr. Davis's fellow salespeople, whom he presented as witnesses, testified that salespeople at Siemens thoroughly knew their own Compensation and Commission Plans because those plans determined how much they would earn. Moreover, the evidence clearly established that there was a monumental difference between the commissions Mr. Davis allegedly was promised if he would accept the job, and the commissions to which his written job offer contractually entitled him. Lastly, Mr. Davis has previously worked as a salesman for Siemens, so the system could not have been new to him.

Granted, there was testimony that "[d]eals go down all the time where salespeople have nothing to do with a project coming in and they get paid," but that testimony was quite limited, was not elaborated on or duplicated by any other witness, and was contradicted by Mr. Davis's own admission that no one at Siemens ever told him that his eligibility for commissions would be different than what was expressed in the terms of his written Plan. Accordingly, given that the contractual terms of Mr. Davis's Compensation and Commission Plan were clear and unambiguous with respect to his commission structure, there simply was not enough evidence to permit a reasonable juror to determine that Mr. Davis had met his heightened burden of clearly and convincingly proving that his reliance on Mr. Spotts's oral promises was reasonable once he reviewed the Plan.

V.

The court will enter a separate order consistent with this memorandum opinion.