The Week in Federal Appellate Jurisdiction: November 7–13, 2021

It’s the fourth annual winter-break edition of the weekly roundup. As I have in previous years, I took a few weeks off from Final Decisions. But I’m back with a roundup covering the last three weeks of 2022. Those weeks saw a pair of collateral-order decisions, the effect of Nasrallah v. Barr on other kinds […]

There were three cases of note from last week. The Third Circuit held that notices of appeal do not encompass post-notice decisions. Litigants must file a second notice, or amend the first, to appeal those decisions. The D.C. Circuit held that it could not review a facial challenge to a statute in an injunction appeal […]

There were a bunch of interesting decisions last week. In the continuing saga of the Rule 3(c) amendments, the Second Circuit acknowledged them and applied them retroactively. In other decisions, the Sixth Circuit explained that it could review class certification in an appeal from a class-wide injunction. The Fourth Circuit clarified the basis for its […]

I took a break from the roundup last week, but I’m back with a double-sized edition. In the last two weeks, another circuit didn’t recognize that the recent Rule 3(c) amendments abrogated its caselaw. The Eleventh Circuit determined that a stay put an action in “suspended animation,” thereby allowing an appeal from the stay. The […]

Last week, the Tenth Circuit once again used a pro se plaintiff’s notice of appeal to limit the scope of its review despite recent amendments to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c). The Second Circuit gave a thorough explanation of its jurisdiction over decisions made in post-judgment proceedings. The Fifth Circuit heard an appeal from […]

This month’s roundup features two decisions on litigants’ attempts to voluntarily dismiss some of their claims. In one, a defendant filed a written, pretrial notice that it abandoned one of its counterclaims. In another, the parties stipulated to a dismissal, but one defendant did not sign the stipulation. In both cases, the court deemed the […]

In Gessele v. Jack in the Box Inc., the Ninth Circuit held that when a district court alters its judgment by granting a post-judgment motion, the time to appeal runs from the entry of an amended judgment. Unlike orders denying post-judgment motions, the appeal clock does not start with the order itself.

In Simmons v. USI Insurance LLC, the Eleventh Circuit held that the purported abandonment of a counterclaim before trial was ineffective and thus precluded appellate jurisdiction. The counterclaim was the only theory of relief that had not been resolved at summary judgment or trial. And in a written notice before trial, the defendant had said […]

September’s biggest development in federal appellate jurisdiction concerned appeals from denials of anti-SLAPP motions under California law. The Ninth Circuit overruled its longstanding rule that defendants can immediately appeal from these denials via the collateral-order doctrine. But only a week later, the Federal Circuit followed that now-overruled caselaw and heard an anti-SLAPP appeal. It will […]

Last month saw the Ninth Circuit apply its rule that a minute order can count as a separate document for purposes of starting the appeal clock. The Sixth Circuit explained when it cannot review contract-formation issues in an arbitration appeal. And the Fourth Circuit declined to exercise pendent appellate jurisdiction over standing and ripeness issues […]