Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-601_bq7c.pdf
Page Number: 19

2  CAMERON v. EMW WOMEN’S SURGICAL CENTER, P. S. C. 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

more basic flaw: Rules 3 and 4 permit only “parties” to ap-
peal a district court judgment, and the attorney general was 
not a “party” to the judgment after he was dismissed from 
the litigation. 
  Federal  Rules  of  Appellate  Procedure  3(a)(1)  and 
4(a)(1)(A) together require that any appeals from a district 
court  judgment  be  pursued  by  filing  a  notice  of  appeal 
within  30  days  after  entry  of  the  judgment.    See  also  28 
U. S. C. §2107(a).  We have described this requirement as 
“jurisdictional.”  See Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 
U. S. 312, 315 (1988); see also Gonzalez v. Thaler, 565 U. S. 
134, 147 (2012).  We have also held that Rule 3(c)—requir-
ing, among other things, that the notice of appeal “specify 
the party or parties taking the appeal,” Fed. Rule App. Proc. 
3(c)(1)(A)—is likewise jurisdictional.  See Torres, 487 U. S., 
at 314–318; Becker v. Montgomery, 532 U. S. 757, 765–766 
(2001).  Rule 3(c)(1)(A)’s requirement that the notice specify 
the “party” taking the appeal reflects the “well settled” “rule 
that only parties to a lawsuit, or those that properly become 
parties, may appeal an adverse judgment.”  Marino v. Ortiz, 
484 U. S. 301, 304 (1988) (per curiam).  For example, indi-
viduals who are “not parties to the underlying lawsuit” and 
fail to intervene in the District Court cannot appeal a Dis-
trict Court’s judgment.  Ibid.  We are not at liberty to create 
“exceptions to this general rule,” even when “the nonparty 
has  an  interest  that  is  affected  by  the  trial  court’s  judg-
ment.”  Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). 
  Here, the attorney general was not a “party” to the Dis-
trict  Court’s  final  judgment.    Then-Attorney  General 
Beshear was originally a “party” to this suit because he was 
named  as  a  defendant  in  the  complaint.    But  the  District 
Court  later  dismissed  Attorney  General  Beshear’s  office 
from the litigation in May 2018—about a year before final 
judgment.  A “party” dismissed from a lawsuit is no longer 
a “party” to it after his dismissal.  Just as “intervention is 
the requisite method for a nonparty to become a party to a