In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 10-1659

SCOT VINCE, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

ROCK COUNTY, WISCONSIN, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Western District of Wisconsin.

No. 3:08-cv-00591-slc—Stephen L. Crocker, Magistrate Judge.

SUBMITTED APRIL 15, 2010—DECIDED MAY 3, 2010

Before BAUER, POSNER, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. Scot Vince suffered a beating at the

hands of an inmate in the Rock County (Wisconsin) jail.

Vince, a longtime confidential informant for Rock County

law enforcement agencies, claims that he should not

have been housed in the jail’s general population following an arrest for bail jumping. A magistrate judge

determined that Vince’s injury could not be attributed

to any of the defendants Vince named in his civil rights
2 No. 10-1659

case and, with the consent of the parties, granted summary judgment for defendants, terminating the case.

A Rule 58 judgment was entered on December 14, 2009,

but the time for Vince to appeal was tolled because he

filed a timely motion to alter or vacate judgment pursuant to Rule 59. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4)(A)(iv). The

magistrate judge denied the motion, and his order was

entered on the district court’s civil docket on February 10, 2010, requiring that any appeal be filed within

30 days of this date.

On March 12, 2010, the 30th and last day of the appeal

period, Vince’s counsel electronically sent a notice of

appeal to the clerk’s office, using the court’s mandatory

electronic filing system. Unfortunately, Vince’s attorney

transmitted the notice of appeal using the wrong event

code. Clerk’s office staff discovered the error and notified

counsel of his mistake in an email sent on March 15,

2010, directing him to re-file the notice of appeal with

the correct event code. Counsel did so, and the notice

of appeal was transmitted to the district court a

second time on March 18, 2010.

The second transmission of the notice of appeal, sent

six days after the time to appeal had expired, was forwarded to this court and caused Seventh Circuit court

staff to question the timeliness of Vince’s appeal. In a

memorandum addressing this court’s concern about its

jurisdiction over Vince’s appeal, Vince’s counsel recounts

his mistake in transmitting the appeal, believing that

“the ‘original filing’ of the Notice of Appeal was

March 12, 2010”, and “the March 18, 2010 filing was
No. 10-1659 3

[merely] to place the earlier filing in the ‘right event’ ”. The

district court docket, however, did not recognize the

“original filing” date. The entry for March 12, identified as

docket entry no. 98, noted that the tendered notice of

appeal was “Disregard[ed]” and “refiled as # 99 [on

March 18, 2010]”. Docket entry no. 99 is Vince’s notice

of appeal and bears a filing date of March 18, 2010. We

note that this docket entry also includes a clerk’s note

that the “appeal was originally filed on 3/12/2010 with

the wrong event used”, and supports Vince’s claim that

his notice of appeal was timely.

Three rules speak to the issue of appellate jurisdiction

presented in this case. Under Rule 83(a)(2) of the Federal

Rules of Civil Procedure, “[a] local rule imposing a requirement of form must not be enforced in a way that

causes a party to lose any right because of a nonwillful

failure to comply.” Similarly, Rule 5(d)(4) protects

against missteps in a litigant’s compliance with local rules

pertaining to the filing of papers, directing the clerk “not

to refuse to file a paper” due to its nonconformity.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 5(d)(4). And more specifically for our

purposes, Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c)(4) prohibits the dismissal of an appeal “for informality of

form or title of the notice of appeal.”

Virtually every federal court today operates a comprehensive case management system that allows it to maintain electronic case files and offer electronic filing over

the Internet. It is incumbent that attorneys litigating in

federal courts learn the essentials of e-filing. The Western

District of Wisconsin requires all documents to be filed
4 No. 10-1659

electronically unless they fall under certain exceptions—

none of which are relevant to this case. Anticipating that

mistakes will be made, the Western District e-filing user’s

manual includes a section listing common mistakes and

describes the steps that the clerk’s office takes to correct

an error found. Still, there are bound to be mistakes

made as attorneys become accustomed to the nuances

of electronic filing. Counsel’s mistake here was the first

listed mistake in the Western District’s manual.

We recently determined in United States v. Harvey,

516 F.3d 553, 555-56 (7th Cir. 2008), that a criminal defendant timely filed his notice of appeal when he submitted it electronically to the clerk’s office even though

“the submission did not conform to local rules”. The

district court’s manual governing electronic filing required that a paper copy of the notice of appeal be

filed. Harvey neglected this step but corrected the

mistake once the clerk’s office brought it to his attention, and he filed a paper copy of the notice (although

it took him two months to do so). The Second Circuit

addressed a similar factual situation in Contino v.

United States, 535 F.3d 124, 126-27 (2d Cir. 2008), agreeing

with our reasoning in Harvey. Counsel’s failure to electronically transmit Vince’s notice of appeal with the

proper event code was an error of form, just as in

Harvey and Contino. Compare Klemm v. Astrue, 543 F.3d

1139, 1141-44 (9th Cir. 2008) (notice of appeal filed

within appeal period though in paper form rather than

electronically, contrary to local rules, and accompanied

by a postdated check, was rejected by the clerk, but did

not defeat appellate jurisdiction).
No. 10-1659 5

Earlier, in addressing the date of a complaint’s filing,

we concluded that an electronic filing system “must

accept every document tendered for filing.” Farzana v.

Indiana Department of Education, 473 F.3d 703, 708 (7th

Cir. 2007). In that case, we determined that a complaint

is timely filed even though the district court’s electronic

filing system rejected it due to an error in the docket

number, observing “[t]he software that operates an e-filing

system acts for ‘the clerk’ as far as Rule 5 is concerned;

a step forbidden to a person standing at a counter

is equally forbidden to an automated agent that acts on

the court’s behalf.” Farzana, 473 F.3d at 707. Accord

Royall v. National Association of Letter Carriers, 548 F.3d

137, 140-43 (D.C. Cir. 2008), citing Farzana.

There may well be cases in which a filing is so riddled

with errors that it cannot fairly be considered a notice

of appeal, and therefore its filing, electronic or otherwise, will not vest an appellate court with jurisdiction,

United States v. Carelock, 459 F.3d 437 (3d Cir. 2006) (an

electronically filed notice of appeal that bore incorrect

name of defendant, wrong docket number, wrong district

court judge’s name, and wrong judgment date not sufficient), but that is not the case here. We conclude that

Vince’s appeal is timely. Counsel practicing in the

federal courts today would be well advised to pay close

attention to their electronic transmissions, so that errors

in electronic filing do not adversely affect one of their

cases. Otherwise, counsel may find that “ ‘a computer lets

you make more mistakes faster than any invention in

human history—with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila’ ”, as Judge Aldisert observed in
6 No. 10-1659

Carelock, 459 F.3d at 443 (citation omitted), quoting a not

so old adage.

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