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Last week, the Ninth Circuit held that defendants cannot use the collateral-order doctrine to immediately appeal from the denial of derivative sovereign immunity. The Eleventh Circuit concluded that a duty-to-defend order was an appealable injunction. The Sixth Circuit rejected an argument that a Rule 59(e) motion was not good enough to delay the start of the appeal clock.…

Last week produced several decisions of note. The most interesting to me was a divided motions panel decision from the Sixth Circuit. The majority refused to dismiss an appeal when the plaintiff asked the district court to grant summary judgment for the defendant. The case strikes me as odd, however, as the plaintiff apparently wants to appeal only an interlocutory class-certification decision—the plaintiff doesn’t seem to challenge its merits loss.…

I’m back from my annual holiday break with roundup covering the previous two weeks. There were a few decisions of note. The Third Circuit joined nearly every other circuit in holding that it cannot review a discretionary decision not to waive the Violence Against Women Act’s deadline for reopening immigration proceedings.…

It’s the last roundup of the year. And it’s a short one. The Third Circuit dismissed an appeal from an order concluding that factual disputes precluded a decision on judicial-proceedings privilege. The defendant had framed the appeal as one from the denial of absolute immunity. But even if it was, unresolved fact issues prevented the order from being appealable.…

I’m a little late with this week’s roundup, but there were several cases worth discussing. The Seventh Circuit applied the two (separate but seemingly identical) restrictions on reviewing a bankruptcy court’s remand orders. The Sixth Circuit rejected a factual challenge to the denial of qualified immunity and dismissed an appeal from a prevailing defendant who was unhappy with some of the district court’s analysis.…

There’s lots to talk about from last week. The Fifth Circuit weighed in on the split over whether a struck post-judgment motion could reset the appeal clock. The Sixth Circuit again split on the extent to which it could separate “factual” and “legal” arguments in qualified-immunity appeals. Two other courts dealt with appeals that challenged the factual basis for immunity denials.…

When a district court denies qualified immunity at summary judgment, defendants have a right to appeal. But the scope of that appeal is limited. With rare and narrow exceptions, the court of appeals lacks jurisdiction to review the genuineness of any fact disputes—i.e., the facts that (according to the district court) a reasonable jury could find.…

After a district court enters its final judgment, civil litigants normally have 30 days to file their notice of appeal. But certain events—including the timely filing of certain post-judgment motions—can reset the appeal clock. When a litigant timely files one of these motions, the time to appeal runs from the district court’s decision disposing of that motion.…

It’s an extra-busy week, so this week’s roundup has to be quick.…

Last week was a big one for mandamus in the Federal Circuit. That court issued three writs of mandamus (and dismissed another as moot), all directed to denials of transfer motions by the same district court judge. That judge has recently seen a lot of mandamus petitions targeting his transfer decisions, and I’ve linked several blog posts below discussing these petitions.…