Posts in category “Appellate Decisions”

In County of San Mateo v. Chevron Corp., the Ninth Circuit held that energy companies could not remove several climate-change suits to federal court via 28 U.S.C. § 1442, the federal-officer removal statute. The court also reaffirmed the narrow scope of remand appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d).…

In Affinity Living Group, LLC v. StarStone Specialty Insurance Co., a divided Fourth Circuit held that it had appellate jurisdiction despite the parties’ stipulating to dismiss some claims without prejudice. The district court had issued a decision that necessarily—though not technically—resolved all of the claims, including the voluntarily dismissed ones.…

In Bing v. Brivo Systems, LLC, the Fourth Circuit clarified its law governing appeals from dismissals without prejudice due to insufficient pleadings. In a series of decisions, that court had laid out a framework for when those dismissals are final and appealable. Relevant considerations included whether the defects in a complaint could be cured, whether the district court dismissed the complaint or the entire action, and whether the plaintiff decided to stand on the dismissed complaint.…

Jurisdiction in immigration appeals is often complicated. A new wrinkle has arisen in the past two weeks regarding appellate review of decisions denying sua sponte reopening. The Board of Immigration Appeals can reopen removal proceedings in response to a motion or sua sponte. The term sua sponte is somewhat misleading, however, as immigration petitioners often ask the Board to exercise this reopening power.…

When a court orders discovery over a claim of privilege, privilege claimants traditionally had two semi-reliable avenues for immediate appellate review. If the order directed the privilege claimant to disclose something, the claimant could appeal via the contempt route. The claimant could disobey, be held in contempt, immediately appeal the contempt, and—in that appeal—obtain review of the underlying discovery order.…

Last week, in Williams v. Taylor Seidenbach, Inc., the Fifth Circuit failed to disarm its finality trap. This week, in CBX Resources, L.L.C. v. ACE American Insurance Co., a panel of the Fifth Circuit watched as another party fell into that trap. And unlike the plaintiffs in Williams, the plaintiff in CBX Resources had not obtained the post-proceedings Rule 54(b) certification that Williams held would cure any jurisdictional defects.…

When plaintiffs lose on some of their claims and then voluntarily dismiss the rest, they risk falling into the finality trap. If the remaining claims were voluntarily dismissed without prejudice, most courts of appeals will hold that the district court has not issued a final, appealable decision under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.…

The standard of review is an essential part of any appeal; you cannot know whether the district court erred without knowing how the court of appeals will look at the district court’s decision. This is particularly true of abuse-of-discretion review. Discretion necessarily means that there is more than one affirm-able answer.…

As a general rule, temporary restraining orders (often initialized as TROs) are not immediately appealable. Granted, 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) permits appeals from orders concerning injunctions. But TROs are normally not considered injunctions for appellate-jurisdiction purposes. So litigants generally must wait until the district court rules on a preliminary injunction before taking an appeal.…

In Automotive Alignment & Body Service, Inc. v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., the Eleventh Circuit navigated several potential errors in the timing and contents of notices of appeal. For two groups of plaintiffs, the district court dismissed their complaints but then improperly accepted late-filed amended complaints. Those amended complaints were a nullity—the dismissals became final once the time for amending had passed—and the plaintiffs failed to timely appeal from the original dismissal.…