Posts in category “Appellate Decisions”

Immigration law generally strips the courts of appeals of jurisdiction to review a variety of decisions made in immigration proceedings. A savings clause adds that they retain jurisdiction to review legal and constitutional issues. Until recently, most (if not all) courts of appeals broadly read the jurisdiction-stripping provisions to bar appellate review in a variety of contexts.…

Most appeals begin with the filing of a notice of appeal. Those notices have both content and timing requirements. Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c), a notice must specify three things: the appealing parties, the appealed order or judgment, and the court to which the party is appealing.…

Jurisdiction over appeals from the denial of qualified immunity can be complex. In Mitchell v. Forsyth, the Supreme Court held that defendants can immediately appeal these denials via the collateral-order doctrine. Ten years later, in Johnson v. Jones, the Supreme Court limited that right to appeal when the district court denies immunity at the summary-judgment stage.…

The appellate-jurisdiction provisions of immigration law can get complicated. The law generally strips the courts of appeals of jurisdiction to review a variety of issues. But a savings clause adds that they retain jurisdiction to review legal and constitutional issues. And in last year’s Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, the Supreme Court held that appellate jurisdiction exists to review mixed questions—i.e.…

As a general rule, parties cannot appeal an order denying summary judgment after a case proceeds to a full trial. In such a case, the trial record supersedes the summary-judgment record. So any questions about the sufficiency of the evidence at summary judgment become more or less moot; what matters is the sufficiency of the trial evidence.…

In 2017’s Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, the Supreme Court held that plaintiffs wanting to bring a class action cannot voluntarily dismiss their individual claims with prejudice and then appeal the denial of class certification. In doing so, the Supreme Court abrogated a line of Ninth Circuit decisions that allowed this voluntary-dismissal tactic.…

Appellate jurisdiction in bankruptcy cases can be tricky. The rules governing finality are different. And there’s an an extra tier of intermediate appellate review, with cases first going to a district court or Bankruptcy Appellate Panel before they can reach the courts of appeals. Litigants can skip this extra tier of review and proceed straight to the courts of appeals if the bankruptcy court certifies a decision for a direct appeal.…

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(4) governs the effect of certain post-judgment motions on notices of appeal. Rule 4(a)(4)(A) provides that a variety of those motions can delay the start of the normal appeal clock. Rule 4(a)(4)(B)(i) says that a notice of appeal filed before the district court resolves any of those motions relates forward to the district court’s subsequent decision.…

Actions consolidated in multidistrict litigation (or MDL) normally retain their individual character for finality purposes. So the resolution of a single action in an MDL is final and appealable regardless of whether other actions remain pending.

Things can get complicated, however, if the parties file consolidated pleadings after the actions are joined in the MDL.…

Last summer, in SmileDirectClub, LLC v. Battle, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed an interlocutory denial of a state-action antitrust/Parker defense. The decision produced three different opinions on appellate jurisdiction. The majority applied long-standing Eleventh Circuit law holding that these denials are immediately appealable via the collateral-order doctrine. Dissenting, Judge Tjoflat argued that the order in SmileDirectClub did not conclusively decide the Parker issue, such that the collateral-order doctrine did not apply.…