Blog

Last week I learned that the Tenth Circuit doesn’t review pre-transfer orders in an appeal from the final judgment in a transferred action. That might create some issues for the appellants in a case that the Eleventh Circuit dismissed. Last week also saw interesting discussions of whether district courts must stay (rather than dismiss) cases after ordering arbitration, finality for post-judgment recusal orders, and whether denials of asylum in Visa Waiver Program cases are final orders of removal.…

Last week saw interesting decisions on advisory mandamus, appealing reinstatement and withholding orders in immigration, appealing magistrate judge decisions, and hypothetical jurisdiction. Plus the timeliness of an appeal from a post-judgment contempt order and the blatant-contradiction exception to qualified-immunity appeals.…

Last week, the Supreme Court held that the deadline for appeals to the Tax Court is not jurisdictional. The Fifth Circuit reconsidered a decision from last month and dismissed an appeal from an administrative remand. The Fourth Circuit reversed the entry of a Rule 54(b) partial judgment. The Sixth Circuit refused to hear a certified appeal under § 1292(b).…

The only major appellate-jurisdiction decision from last week was the Ninth Circuit’s attempt to limit the impact of Microsoft Corp. v. Baker. Baker said that class-action plaintiffs cannot appeal an adverse class-certification decision by voluntarily dismissing their claims. The Ninth Circuit held that this bar on manufacturing an appeal via a voluntary dismissal applied only to contexts in which there are special appellate-jurisdiction rules, like class actions and arbitration.…

Sometimes litigants are unsatisfied with the existing avenues for interlocutory appeals. So they try to manufacture a final decision, often by voluntarily dismissing some or all of their claims. Manufactured finality comes in a variety of forms. In 2017’s Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, the Supreme Court shut down one of them.…

Last week, the Seventh Circuit questioned whether any bright-line deadline existed for seeking a partial judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). A concurring opinion from the Sixth Circuit misread Johnson v. Jones to permit the review of evidentiary issues in qualified-immunity appeals. The Third and Seventh Circuits addressed the timeliness of sanctions appeals.…

Although there is a concerted effort to reform or abolish qualified immunity, the prospects of doing so are uncertain. In a new article, I argue that if if qualified immunity remains in its current or a similar form, reformers should target qualified-immunity appeals. Although courts and commentators have occasionally criticized qualified-immunity appeals, they often fail to see how much damage these appeals have done.…

When an action involves multiple claims, appeals normally must wait until the district court has resolved all of claims. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) is one exception to this general rule. It permits a district court to enter a partial judgment on the resolution of some (but not all) claims in an action.…

Last week saw lots of interesting decisions. Two cases implicated the recent amendments to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c)’s order-designation requirement, though only one court of appeals seemed to realize as much. The First Circuit held that stay-put orders in IDEA cases are immediately appealable via the collateral-order doctrine.…

Mandamus is supposedly an extraordinary remedy. But a new paper from Jonas Anderson, Paul Gugliuzza, and Jason Rantanen shows that grants of the writ have become somewhat ordinary in Federal Circuit. And those grants have largely addressed venue issues in patent cases filed in the Eastern and Western Districts of Texas.…