Posts in category “Supreme Court Decisions”

In Harrow v. Department of Defense, the Supreme Court held that the 60-day deadline for appealing decisions from the Merit System Protection Board is not jurisdictional. It’s a solid decision. It also raises questions about how Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 26(b) applies to the equitable tolling of administrative appeals.…

In Smith v. Spizzirri, the Supreme Court held that district courts must stay—not dismiss—an action if the district court orders arbitration and a party requests a stay. The decision resolves a long-standing split over the ability to dismiss actions after ordering arbitration.

The decision also has implications for appellate jurisdiction.…

In Coinbase, Inc., v. Bielski, the Supreme Court held that district courts must stay proceedings on the merits once a party appeals from the denial of arbitration. The Court determined that 9 U.S.C. § 16—which authorizes these appeals—was enacted against Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co.’s background principal that a district court loses control over all aspects of a case that are on appeal.…

I’ve been following the circuit split over preserving purely legal issues via denied summary-judgment motions for some time. Now, the Supreme Court has finally resolved it. In Dupree v. Younger, the Court held that a denied summary-judgment motion preserves a purely legal issue. Litigants thus do not need to re-raise those issues in post-trial motions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50.…

In Tuesday’s Shoop v. Twyford, the Supreme Court reversed an order that required the state to transport a habeas petitioner from his prison to a hospital for medical testing. Before doing so, the Court had to explain how the Sixth Circuit had jurisdiction to immediately review this order. In a footnote, the Supreme Court said that the order was immediately appealable via the collateral-order doctrine.…

In BP P.L.C. v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, the Supreme Court adopted the broad reading of the exceptions to 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d): if a defendant invokes the federal-officer removal statute (28 U.S.C. § 1442) or the civil-rights removal statute (28 U.S.C. § 1443) in removing a case, the defendant can appeal a remand order and obtain review of all proffered grounds for removal.…

In Mitchell v. Forsyth, the Supreme Court held that government officials can immediately appeal from the denial of qualified immunity. Regardless of whether these denials should be appealable (a debatable point), the Court fudged the collateral-order doctrine to squeeze qualified-immunity appeals into it. The fit wasn’t—and never has been—pretty.…

In Nasrallah v. Barr, the Supreme Court held that appellate courts can review factual findings that underly denials of protection under the Convention Against Torture, even if the petitioner has been convicted of a criminal offense. The Court distinguished between the two orders at issue in the immigration appeal: the final order of removal and the order denying protection under the Convention.…

In Holguin-Hernandez v. United States, the Supreme Court held that asking for a particular sentence before sentencing is enough to preserve a sentence-length error for appeal. Proposing the shorter sentence puts the parties and district court on notice of the defendant’s argument. Defendants thus do not need to object to that later-imposed, longer sentence to avoid plain error review.…

In Ritzen Group, Inc. v. Jackson Masonry, LLC, the Supreme Court held that litigants must immediately appeal the conclusive denial of relief from bankruptcy’s automatic stay. Under 28 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1), district courts have jurisdiction to hear appeals from “final judgments, orders, and decrees . . . of bankruptcy judges entered in cases and proceedings.”…