Opinion ID: 676446
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mandamus Review

Text: Alternatively, Defendants' reply brief asks us to construe their notice of appeal as a petition for a writ of mandamus under 28 U.S.C. § 1651(a). Despite the tardiness of this request, we may grant it if they have standing and have substantially complied with the requirements of Fed. R.App. P. 21(a). See United States v. McVeigh, 119 F.3d 806, 809 & n. 4 (10th Cir.1997) (request that notice of appeal be treated as petition for mandamus not made until reply brief); Clyma v. Sunoco, Inc., 594 F.3d 777, 780-81 (10th Cir.2010). But even if we assume that those prerequisites have been satisfied, [2] Defendants are not entitled to mandamus relief. Mandamus will issue only in those exceptional cases where the inferior court has acted wholly without jurisdiction or so clearly abused its discretion as to constitute a judicial usur-pation of power. The party seeking the writ must show that the right to the writ is clear and indisputable. Pacificare of Okla., Inc. v. Burrage, 59 F.3d 151, 153 (10th Cir.1995) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Defendants have not established this predicate for mandamus relief. The district court was probably correctnot clearly incorrectin concluding that it lacked jurisdiction. As we have stated: [T]he filing of a notice of appeal is an event of jurisdictional significanceit confers jurisdiction on the court of appeals and divests the district court of its control over the those aspects of the case involved in the appeal. This rule is a judge-made doctrine, designed to promote judicial economy and avoid the confusion and inefficiency that might flow from putting the same issue before two courts at the same time. United States v. Madrid, 633 F.3d 1222, 1226 (10th Cir.2011) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added). Defendants asserted to the district court that the motion to unseal influences, and is an outcome of the continuing 2255 proceedings, Aplts. App. at 145 (Mot. for Ruling or Order Showing Cause at 4, Pickard, No. 00-40104-01-RDR, Apperson, No. 00-40104-02-RDR); and the pending appeals concerned their Rule 60(b) motions in those proceedings. Thus, one could infer that the motion to disclose involved matters to be addressed in the pending appeals. Because Defendants' own assertions indicated the applicability of the general rule that a notice of appeal divests the district court of jurisdiction, it was hardly an abuse of power for the district court to conclude that it had lost its jurisdiction to decide the unsealing motion. See Madrid, 633 F.3d at 1227 (recognizing the importance of fairly clear guidelines regarding the division of labor between the district court and the court of appeals). We decline to grant a writ of mandamus.