Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca4-09-07224/USCOURTS-ca4-09-07224-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
David Mitchell
Appellee
Stuart Wayne Tompkins
Appellant

Document Text:

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 09-7224

STUART WAYNE TOMPKINS,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

DAVID MITCHELL, Superintendent,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western 

District of North Carolina, at Asheville. Graham C. Mullen,

Senior District Judge. (1:08-cv-00322-GCM)

Submitted: February 17, 2010 Decided: March 4, 2010

Before WILKINSON, GREGORY, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.

Remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Stuart Wayne Tompkins, Appellant Pro Se. Yvonne Bulluck Ricci, 

Assistant Attorney General, Raleigh, North Carolina, for 

Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

Stuart Wayne Tompkins seeks to appeal the district 

court’s order denying relief in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2006) 

action. The district court entered its order on April 14, 2009. 

Tompkins filed his notice of appeal on June 23, 2009. Attached 

to his notice of appeal, Tompkins provided a sworn statement 

that he did not receive notice of the district court’s order 

until June 21, 2009. 

Parties are accorded thirty days after the entry of 

the district court’s final judgment or order to note an appeal, 

Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A), unless the district court extends 

the appeal period under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(5), or reopens the 

appeal period under Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(6). This appeal period 

is “mandatory and jurisdictional.” Browder v. Dir., Dep’t of 

Corr., 434 U.S. 257, 264 (1978) (internal quotation marks and 

citation omitted); see Bowles v. Russell

Tompkins’ notice of appeal is clearly untimely. 

However, we construe Tompkins’ notice of appeal as a motion to 

reopen the time to appeal. 

, 551 U.S. 205, 214 

(2007).

See United States v. Feuver, 236 

F.3d 725, 729 n.7 (D.C. Cir. 2001). Accordingly, we remand the 

case to the district court for the limited purpose of permitting 

that court to determine whether Tompkins can satisfy the 

requirements for reopening the appeal period set forth in Rule

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4(a)(6). See Ogden v. San Juan County

REMANDED

, 32 F.3d 452, 454 (10th 

Cir. 1994). The record, as supplemented, will then be returned 

to this court for further consideration.

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