Posts in category “Monthly Roundup”

This month’s roundup features two decisions on litigants’ attempts to voluntarily dismiss some of their claims. In one, a defendant filed a written, pretrial notice that it abandoned one of its counterclaims. In another, the parties stipulated to a dismissal, but one defendant did not sign the stipulation. In both cases, the court deemed the attempted voluntary dismissal ineffective.…

September’s biggest development in federal appellate jurisdiction concerned appeals from denials of anti-SLAPP motions under California law. The Ninth Circuit overruled its longstanding rule that defendants can immediately appeal from these denials via the collateral-order doctrine. But only a week later, the Federal Circuit followed that now-overruled caselaw and heard an anti-SLAPP appeal.…

Last month saw the Ninth Circuit apply its rule that a minute order can count as a separate document for purposes of starting the appeal clock. The Sixth Circuit explained when it cannot review contract-formation issues in an arbitration appeal. And the Fourth Circuit declined to exercise pendent appellate jurisdiction over standing and ripeness issues in a sovereign-immunity appeal.…

Last month saw a new circuit split on the deadline for appealing qualified-immunity denials. The Ninth Circuit held that the apeal clock starts with the entry of the order denying qualified immunity, not with any subsequent entry of a judgment. In doing so, the Ninth Circuit split with the Fifth, which has held that the separate-document requirement applies to appealable orders just as much as appealable judgments.…

An extended vacation and some pressing matters in cases prevented me from posting much last month. But that doesn’t mean July was uneventful. Courts addressed the propriety appeals from the rejection of various defenses, including state immunities and the litigation privilege. The Eleventh Circuit held that a parties can use Rule 41 to dismiss a single plaintiff in a multi-plaintiff action.…

Last month saw the last Supreme Court decision from this term on appellate jurisdiction. The Court held that a notice of appeal filed before the district court reopens the time to appeal relates forward to that reopening.

In the courts of appeals, we saw decisions on automatic stays for remand appeals, the various ways to deal with deficient final judgments, and some issues regarding preservation, waiver, and forfeiture.…

May saw several decisions on effective injunction denials. One of those decisions raised an interesting question about the Supreme Court’s test for when a district court order effective denies a preliminary injunction.

In other developments, the Fifth Circuit sat en banc to jettison its rule barring review of waiver-based remands. Other decisions addressed the finality implications of subsumed theories of relief and resetting the appeal clock in post-judgment proceedings.…

April saw more decisions on whether temporary restraining orders were appealable injunctions. The Eleventh Circuit addressed the immediate appealability of Florida’s litigation privileges. And another court of appeals held that defendants cannot immediately appeal from the denial of a church-autonomy defense.

Let’s start, however, with a particularly interested decision on what counts as a claim for purposes of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b).…

Last month featured a Sixth Circuit debate over jurisdiction to review Brady issues in appeals from the denial of qualified immunity. There was also an especially odd Second Circuit decision in which the court exercised pendent appellate jurisdiction over a normally non-appealable issue even though the court lacked jurisdiction over any other issue.…

Last month saw another rejection of pure Bivens appeals, an analysis of Perlman appeals in the grand-jury context, and a ruling on mandatory stays during a remand appeal. Plus an odd sovereign-immunity appeal, appeals without the express resolution of all claims, and much more.…