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April saw more decisions on whether temporary restraining orders were appealable injunctions. The Eleventh Circuit addressed the immediate appealability of Florida’s litigation privileges. And another court of appeals held that defendants cannot immediately appeal from the denial of a church-autonomy defense.

Let’s start, however, with a particularly interested decision on what counts as a claim for purposes of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b).…

In Diaz v. FCA US LLC, the Third Circuit split over whether a district court had resolved distinct claims for purposes of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). The majority concluded that the district court had resolved only a distinct theory of recovery, not a distinct claim. Dissenting, Judge Phipps argued that claims are defined by their elements, and the resolved and unresolved claims in the case had distinct elements.…

In Grippa v. Rubin, the Eleventh Circuit addressed the immediate appealability of Florida’s absolute and qualified litigation privileges. The court determined that the absolute privilege was immediately appealable via the collateral-order doctrine. But the qualified litigation privilege was not.…

Last month featured a Sixth Circuit debate over jurisdiction to review Brady issues in appeals from the denial of qualified immunity. There was also an especially odd Second Circuit decision in which the court exercised pendent appellate jurisdiction over a normally non-appealable issue even though the court lacked jurisdiction over any other issue.…

In two appeals—Clark v. Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government and Salter v. City of Detroit, the Sixth Circuit spoke at length about its jurisdiction to review certain Brady issues as part of qualified-immunity appeals. The cases produced a total of six opinions, several of which dove into this jurisdictional issue.…

In Rossy v. City of Buffalo, the Second Circuit appeared to both dismiss a qualified-immunity appeal for a lack of jurisdiction and exercise pendent appellate jurisdiction over a plaintiff’s cross-appeal. This is odd. Pendent appellate jurisdiction allows normally non-appealable issues to tag along with appealable ones. But if the denial of qualified immunity was not appealable, there was nothing for the plaintiff’s appeal to piggyback on.…

I’ve frequently written about the problem of fact-based qualified-immunity appeals both on this website and in my research. I recently decided to collect some new data on how much needless delay these appeals add to civil-rights litigation.

I had done something similar a few years ago when writing about the need to sanction defendants for taking fact-based qualified-immunity appeals.…

Yesterday, I filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioner in Parrish v. United States, which is currently pending before the Supreme Court.

The case asks if an appellant must file a new notice of appeal after the district court reopens the time to appeal under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(6).…

Last month saw another rejection of pure Bivens appeals, an analysis of Perlman appeals in the grand-jury context, and a ruling on mandatory stays during a remand appeal. Plus an odd sovereign-immunity appeal, appeals without the express resolution of all claims, and much more.…

Sometimes a district court doesn’t resolve all the claims in an action. The district court might overlook one of a plaintiff’s many claims. Or the district court might forget about counterclaims or crossclaims. Regardless of what happened, the district court has explicitly resolved only part of an action. If the district court thereafter enters judgment and closes the case, is there a final, appealable decision under 28 U.S.C.…