Opinion ID: 569863
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: The INS argues that our appellate jurisdiction extends only to the named appellants, Noe Ayala and Allan Abad Abutin, because the captions of their respective notices of appeal identify the appellants as Noe Ayala, et al. and Allan Abad Abutin, et al. The INS contends that the use of et al. was insufficient to give notice that all the plaintiffs were appealing as required by Fed.R.App.P. 3(c) and Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 U.S. 312, 317-18 (1988). The Supreme Court in Torres held that the use of et al. in a notice of appeal did not give the opposing party or the court fair notice of the specific individual or entity seeking to appeal. Id. at 318. We distinguished Torres in National Center for Immigrants' Rights v. INS, 892 F.2d 814 (9th Cir.1990). In National Center, no names were listed in the caption of the notice of appeal; instead the term defendants was used in the body of the notice. We upheld appellate jurisdiction over all the defendants, concluding that the term defendants fairly indicated to the INS that all and not just some of the defendants were appealing the decision below. Id. at 816. Here, both notices of appeal state that each of the plaintiffs in the above-captioned matter hereby appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.... This language is even stronger than the language used by the National Center defendants. We are satisfied we have appellate jurisdiction over the appeals of all of the plaintiffs.