Opinion ID: 2999927
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Appellant’s Brief before this Court

Text: Having considered the merits of the appeal, we are left with one remaining issue. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 30 requires that the appellant must file an appendix that contains “the relevant docket entries in the proceeding below . . . the relevant portions of the pleadings, charge, findings, or opinion . . . the judgment, order, or decision in question … [and] other parts of the record to which the parties wish to direct the court’s attention.” Fed. R. App. P. 30(a)(1). Our Circuit Rule 30 makes additional demands of the appellant. If the appellant challenges an oral ruling, such as sustaining the government’s objection in this case, “the portion of the transcript containing the judge’s rationale for that ruling must be included in the appendix.” Cir. R. 30(b)(1). The appellant is also required to include a “statement that all of the materials required by parts (a) and (b) of this rule are included.” Cir. R. 30(d). The appellant in this case failed to accomplish any of the above requirements. The appendix included in the appellant’s brief contained a mere five pages of Indiana statutes. There was no copy of the judgment being appealed. There was no transcript of the rationale given by the district court in the challenged oral decision. The appellant’s counsel then compounded these errors by incorrectly certifying to this court that the appendix complied with the procedural requirements. 12 No. 06-1769 The Federal Rule and our Circuit Rule are not created for the purpose of imposing frivolous requirements on attorneys who are already busy. The purpose of these rules is to ensure that the court has “all necessary documents before it as it considers the parties’ arguments and renders its decision.” Hill v. Porter Mem’l Hosp., 90 F.3d 220, 225-26 (7th Cir. 1996). The requirement embodied in these rules “goes to the heart of this court’s decision-making process.” Id. at 226. This is nothing new, but we have become more insistent “on meticulous compliance with rules sensibly designed to make appellate briefs as valuable an aid to the decisional process as they can be.” Id. (citations and quotations omitted). This court’s workload increases dramatically if an appeal is transformed into a scavenger hunt in search of a copy of the judgment below or the transcript page where a challenged decision was explained by the district court. We are not without remedies in this matter. In the past we have dismissed the appeal. See Snipes v. Ill. Dep’t of Corr., 291 F.3d 460 (7th Cir. 2002). We have refused to consider issues that were not adequately addressed in the briefs and appendices. See Bonds v. Coca-Cola Co., 806 F.2d 1324 (7th Cir. 1986). Some circuits have ordered parties to resubmit their briefs with corrections. See Alnajjar v. Ford Motor Co., 523 F.2d 6 (6th Cir. 1975). And we have fined attorneys for their violations. See Hill, 90 F.3d at 226. Ordering the appellant to resubmit the brief seems counterproductive in this case. With some extra work we have found the documents that were needed to reach a decision on the merits. Meaningless re-submission of documents would serve only to waste more time, albeit the appellant’s counsel would be wasting time, not this court. But this seems pointless. It seems likewise pointless to dismiss the appeal or to judicially ignore those No. 06-1769 13 portions of the appeal not supported by the appendix. Having reached the merits, we would prefer to avoid the appearance that the appeal was rejected over formalistic rules, when in fact the appeal fails because it has no merit. We are left then with the question of whether the court should fine the appellant’s attorney for violating Rule 30. In Hill we fined appellant’s counsel $1000 for failing to comply with Rule 30. In accordance with the Hill line of cases we will impose a fine of $1000 on counsel for White unless they can show that such a fine would be inappropriate under the circumstances of the case.