Opinion ID: 810850
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jurisdiction In This Case

Text: Because Mr. Woodman failed to file with his initial notice of appeal a separate statement electing to have the appeal heard by the district court, the appeal was to the BAP. See 28 U.S.C. § 158(c)(1); Fed. R. Bankr. P. 8001(e)(1). To effect voluntary dismissal of the appeal after January 6—the date the bankruptcy-court judgment was entered and his appeal was docketed—Mr. Woodman would have had to follow the procedures in Fed. R. Bankr. P. -7- 8001(c)(2). Instead, he simply filed a notice of “Voluntary Withdrawal of Appeal,” Aplee. App., Vol. 1 at 11–12, which had no legal effect. Consequently, when he filed his second notice of appeal, the BAP still had jurisdiction. Bankruptcy appellate panels were designed to provide an alternative, not a supplement, to an appeal to the district court. Nothing in the statutory language creating the panels suggests that Congress would tolerate the confusion and waste of resources that would result from simultaneous appeals of the same bankruptcycourt decision to both the district court and a panel. To the contrary, the statute authorizing appeals from the bankruptcy court speaks in terms of alternatives, giving a party a choice—an election—between the two appellate forums. Section 158(c)(1) says that the appeal shall be heard by the BAP “unless–(A) the appellant elects at the time of filing the appeal; or (B) any other party elects, not later than 30 days after service of notice of the appeal; to have such appeal heard by the district court.” 28 U.S.C. § 158(c)(1) (emphasis added). In common parlance we do not make an “election” between two things if we can have them both—such as an appeal in both forums. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 731 (2002) (defining elect as “to make a selection of” and “choose”); Black’s Law Dictionary 557 (8th ed. 2004) (defining election as “[t]he exercise of a choice; [especially], the act of choosing from several possible rights or remedies in a way that precludes the use of other rights or remedies”). Moreover, the requirement that the appellant elect the district-court forum “at the time of filing -8- the appeal,” 28 U.S.C. § 158(c)(1)(A), would be ineffective if an appellant who failed to make a timely election could later file a second appeal, one accompanied by the required contemporaneous statement of election of the district court to hear the appeal. We therefore conclude that Mr. Woodman’s second notice of appeal was a nullity. He could not file a second appeal so long as he had a pending appeal before the BAP. Perhaps he could file a second appeal if the first were dismissed without prejudice (although it would have to be soon enough to allow him to file a timely second appeal). But there was no such dismissal. Mr. Woodman’s only effort to dismiss his appeal was his “Notice Voluntary Withdrawal of Appeal.” But it was filed after his original notice of appeal became effective as a result of entry of the bankruptcy court’s judgment, and it did not comply with the bankruptcy rules. Because the notice of appeal to the district court was a nullity, that court did not have jurisdiction to review the decision of the bankruptcy court.