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Immigration law generally strips the courts of appeals of jurisdiction to review a variety of factual and discretionary issues. But a savings clause preserves jurisdiction to review legal and constitutional issues. And in 2020’s Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, the Supreme Court held that appellate jurisdiction exists to review mixed questions of law and fact—i.e.…

In In re Grand Jury Subpoena, the Eleventh Circuit explained that it could not review a contempt decision without a sanction.…

The Supreme Court held in Ortiz v. Jordan that parties cannot appeal evidence-sufficiency issues raised in a denied summary-judgment motion after a trial on the merits. Parties must instead raise issues with the sufficiency of the trial evidence via a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50. But Ortiz left open the possibility that a denied summary-judgment motion could preserve purely legal issues for appeal.…

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.…

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 stemming from an as-applied challenge.…

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 jurisdiction to review compassionate-release denials.…

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.…

I’ve written a lot on this site about the finality trap in the last few years. Now I’ve published an essay on the trap in the New York University Law Review Online. I argue that the trap is asinine. And there’s an easy fix to it: let litigants disclaim the right to refile voluntarily dismissed claims.…

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 a Brillhart stay.…

Several courts of appeals have limited the scope of an appeal to the orders designated in a notice of appeal. Recent amendments to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c) were supposed to end that practice. These amendments became effective last December. Yet some courts have overlooked these changes, continuing to apply caselaw that the amendments abrogated.…