A wide variety of discovery appeals. Plus the prison-mailbox/mistaken-filing rule, appealing the Yearsley doctrine, and more.
November 7, 2024
October was discovery-appeal month. The Ninth Circuit held that a § 1782 order was not final when the district court had not resolved post-order objections to the discovery. The Fifth Circuit permitted an immediate appeal from a discovery order that implicated First Amendment interests. The Eleventh Circuit held that a party could not take a Perlman appeal when the same objections to discovery could be addressed through the party’s own contempt appeal. And a new cert petition asks if discovery orders are immediately appealable when a defendant has raised the qualified-immunity defense.
There were some additional decisions of note, including an attempted collateral-order appeal on the Yearsley doctrine and the Fifth Circuit’s reconciliation of the prison-mailbox and the mistaken-filing rules. But let’s start with a nice reminder that appellate courts need to have their own jurisdiction before they can address the district court’s.
Another split on pure Bivens appeals, no equitable exceptions for Rule 4(a)(4), another failure to apply the Rule 3(c) amendments, and more.
October 5, 2024
September saw yet another court of appeals split over whether federal officials can immediately appeal the Bivens question without a qualified-immunity appeal. I’ve been following this issue for a while, and at least one more court of appeals is poised to address it. I won’t be surprised to see some cert petitions on this matter in the not-too-distant future.
In other developments, the Second Circuit held that Rule 4(a)(4) is a mandatory claims-processing rule, meaning that a court cannot excuse a failure to comply with it. The Tenth Circuit again failed to apply the Rule 3(c) amendments to a notice of appeal, instead limiting the scope of appeal to the order designated in the notice. And the Second Circuit addressed the state-sponsored terrorism bar to appeals from denials of foreign sovereign immunity. Plus the scope of remand appeals, the prison-mailbox rule applied to electronic filing, and more.
A new puppy! Plus the appeal clock for fee orders, the scope of § 1292(b) appeals, filter-protocol appeals, and more.
September 5, 2024
A new assistant paw-fessor/junior paw-ssociate joined Final Decisions.
That didn’t leave a lot of time to write this month’s roundup. So this month is mostly quick notes. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t cases of interest.
The scope and availability of arbitration appeals, remand appeals in naturalization proceedings, the Rule 3(c) amendments, and more.
August 5, 2024
July was a fairly quiet month. But there were still a few decisions worth discussing.
Another expansion of qualified-immunity appeals, manufactured finality in the agency context, more non-party privilege appeals, and more.
July 8, 2024
Quick roundup this month, starting with another expansion of the scope of qualified-immunity appeals.
Two Supreme Court decisions implicating appellate jurisdiction, another rejection of pure Bivens appeals, some rejected discretionary appeals, and much more.
June 5, 2024
Last month saw the Supreme Court wrap up its appellate-jurisdiction docket for the term. The Court held that district courts must stay actions after ordering arbitration so long as a party requests a stay. The Court also held that another deadline—the time to appeal MSPB decisions—is not jurisdictional.
The courts of appeals also issued several decisions of note. The Tenth Circuit rejected the government’s efforts to obtain pure Bivens appeals. The Federal Circuit held that a denial of PREP Act immunity was not appealable via the collateral-order doctrine. And the Third Circuit explained that Rule 23(f) appeals should involve novel and unresolved questions concerning class certification—not novel and unresolved questions on the merits. Plus much more, including multiple decisions on the meaning of claims, counts, theories, and orders when it comes to discretionary appeals.
Notices of appeal, manufactured finality, unresolved claims, qualified-immunity appeals, and much, much more.
May 3, 2024
April was a very busy month, with dozens of decisions and developments worth mentioning. Let’s get started.
Reviewing hardship determinations in immigration appeals, reconsidering motions-panel decisions, church-autonomy appeals, CAFA remands, pendent appellate jurisdiction in Rule 23(f) appeals, and much more.
April 3, 2024
March was a busy month. Let’s start with the Supreme Court’s decision holding that appellate courts had jurisdiction to review hardship determinations in immigration appeals.
Some questions about the collateral-order doctrine. Plus hindsight regarding the appeal deadline, admiralty appeals, and much more.
March 9, 2024
Decisions from last month raised some interesting questions about the role of the collateral-order doctrine, particularly when it comes to immunities and criminal appeals. In other developments, the Eleventh Circuit deemed an appeal untimely after concluding that—in hindsight—a post-judgment motion was not really a Rule 59 motion. The Ninth Circuit split on what it means to determine “rights and liabilities” for purposes of admiralty appeals. And the Fifth Circuit heard another governmental-privilege appeal. Plus appeals from reinstated removal orders, improper qualified-immunity appeals, and more.
Appeals involving an abandoned claim/amended complaint, denials of qualified immunity, sealing orders, administrative remands, PREP Act immunity, and more.
February 11, 2024
An especially busy January means I didn’t have a lot of time to post about decisions from last month. But there were still several worth talking about. Below is a brief roundup of what I found interesting.