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Last month’s major appellate-jurisdiction development involved another court narrowing the availability of Perlman appeals. In other decisions, the Fifth Circuit carved a new, video-evidence exception to the scope of qualified-immunity appeals. The Third Circuit addressed what to do with a partial objection to an untimely criminal appeal. The Ninth Circuit applied Dupree to part of a summary-judgment denial.…

In In re Grand Jury 2021 Subpoenas, the Fourth Circuit joined several other circuits in holding that only non-parties can take Perlman appeals. I wrote about this issue a few years ago when the Second Circuit did the same. This cutting back on Perlman appeals is as wrong now as it was then.…

In Cottonwood Environmental Law Center v. Edwards, the Ninth Circuit applied the Supreme Court’s decision in Dupree v. Younger to permit review of part of a summary-judgment denial. In the course of doing so, the court rejected the argument that the denied summary-judgment motion needed to have been potentially dispositive as to the need for a trial.…

In Argueta v. Jaradi, the Fifth Circuit created a new exception to the bar on reviewing the genuineness of fact disputes in qualified-immunity appeals. In most of those appeals, the court must take as given the district court’s determination of what facts a reasonable jury could find. But according to the Fifth Circuit, an appellate court doesn’t have to do that when video evidence exists.…

In United States v. Crump, the Third Circuit permitted the government to partially object to the untimeliness of a criminal appeal. That meant the court of appeals had to dismiss the appeal insofar as it raised the objected-to issues. But the court could address the other issues that the defendant raised on appeal.…

Last month produced a wide variety of appellate-jurisdiction decisions. The Eleventh Circuit issued more opinions on whether and when claimants can voluntarily dismiss (or, in one case, “abandon”) claims to create a final decision. The Ninth Circuit held that defendants can appeal from the denial of PREP Act immunity. And the Eleventh Circuit addressed the meaning of claims (versus counts) in the context of Rule 54(b).…

In Washington v. City of St. Louis, the Eighth Circuit vacated a denial of qualified immunity because the district court misstated and misapplied the summary-judgment standard. The Eighth Circuit thought this was a legal issue over which it had jurisdiction in a qualified-immunity appeal.

But I’m not sure. Most (if not all) reversible summary-judgment decisions can be characterized as misunderstandings or misapplications of the summary-judgment standard.…

In Scott v. Advanced Pharmaceutical Consultants, Inc., the Eleventh Circuit reversed the entry of a partial judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). The district court had resolved most (but not all) of the counts pleaded in the plaintiff’s complaint. But the district court’s rejection of those counts did not resolve a distinct “claim” for purposes of Rule 54(b).…

In Garnett v. Akron City School District Board of Education, the Sixth Circuit dismissed an appeal insofar the plaintiff challenged the denial of his post-judgment Rule 60(b) motion. The plaintiff had appealed from the original judgment. But he had not filed a new or amended notice of appeal designating the Rule 60(b) denial, as Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(4)(B)(ii) requires.…

Manufactured finality refers to litigants’ efforts to create a final, appealable decision through something other than a judicial resolution of all claims. The last few years have seen a spate of decisions on manufactured finality. But there is more to the topic than most think.

I’ve posted an article explaining as much.…