Posts in category “Appellate Decisions”

When a district court grants relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, it can choose from among several different remedies. Among those remedies are (1) correcting the petitioner’s sentence and (2) conducting a full resentencing. Successful § 2255 petitioners who want to challenge their new sentence can appeal under 28 U.S.C.…

Courts have held that when an “order” is appealable—say, via a certified appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) or an exception to 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d)’s bar on remand appeals—the entirety of the district court’s order is within the scope of appeal. So when a district court certifies an order for an immediate appeal under § 1292(b), the entire order is within the scope of appeal, not just the issue that the district court thought warranted review.…

In National ATM Council, Inc. v. Visa, Inc., the D.C. Circuit offered a rare explanation for granting a petition to appeal a class-certification grant under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f). The reasons given were particularly interesting.…

In United States v. Rivera-Rodríguez, the First Circuit held that the government can appeal from orders granting a criminal defendant’s request for compassionate release. Although several courts of appeals have reviewed these appeals, few have addressed their jurisdiction to do so in any depth. But the issue requires some thought—as the Rivera-Rodríguez panel noted, “[t]he government has no right of appeal in criminal cases except where a statute expressly grants such a right.”…

In Harris v. Medical Transportation Management, Inc., the D.C. Circuit reviewed (and reversed) a grant of class certification. But it refused to use pendent appellate jurisdiction to review certification of a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The court explained that class actions and collective actions “are fundamentally different creatures.”…

In In re Municipal Stormwater Pond Coordinated Litigation, a split Eighth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction to review the resolution of some claims when the parties conditionally dismissed other claims.

The parties agreed that, should the Eighth Circuit reverse, the voluntarily dismissed claims could be reinstated. But if the Eighth Circuit affirmed, the voluntarily dismissed claims were forever lost.…

In Parrish v. United States, a divided Fourth Circuit dismissed an appeal because the would-be appellant did not file a second notice of appeal after the district court reopened the appeal time under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(6). An earlier notice of appeal—which the Fourth Circuit had construed as a motion to reopen the appeal time—was insufficient.…

In Selective Insurance Company of America v. Westfield Insurance Company, the Fourth Circuit dismissed an interlocutory appeal from a duty-to-defend decision. The court assumed—as other courts have held—that duty-to-defend orders can be appealable injunctions under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). But the underlying litigation in Selective Insurance (that is, the litigation in which the insured was seeking a defense) was resolved while the duty-to-defend appeal was pending.…

For years, several courts of appeals 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 took effect in December 2021. Yet some courts have overlooked these changes, continuing to apply caselaw that the amendments abrogated.…

Orders on the disqualification of counsel are not normally appealable. In most cases, an appeal from a final judgment suffices to protect the relevant interests. But what about when a district court disqualifies an entire U.S. Attorney’s Office from participating in a prosecution? Several courts have held that such a disqualification is immediately appealable via the collateral-order doctrine.…