Opinion ID: 2973177
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: Although neither party raised the issue, before we address the merits of Plaintiffs’ appeals, we must determine, sua sponte, whether we have jurisdiction over all aspects of those appeals. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3) (“Whenever it appears by suggestion of the parties or otherwise that the court 1 Plaintiffs originally sued the Boyd County Fiscal Court and several individuals in both their individual and official capacities: Defendant Hollan (the new Boyd County Clerk), Bill Scott (the Boyd County Judge Executive), Marvin Meredith (a Boyd County Commissioner), Clarence Jackson (another Boyd County Commissioner), and Carl Tolliver (also a Boyd County Commissioner). The district court dismissed all claims against every defendant except Defendant Hollan in its August 28, 2003 order. Plaintiffs do not appeal those dismissals. Nos. 04-6017/6018 Caudill, et al. v. Hollan Page 3 lacks jurisdiction of the subject matter, the court shall dismiss the action.”). In their notice of appeal, the deputy clerk Plaintiffs failed to appeal from the judgment. The appeal was taken from the “Memorandum Opinion and Order entered in this action on August 11, 2004.” In the August 11th order, the district court directed the entry of final judgment in the case. It also disposed of the deputy clerks’ claims against Defendant Hollan in her official capacity as clerk. In their briefs on appeal, however, Plaintiff deputy clerks also contest the district court’s August 28, 2003 opinion and order on their claims against Defendant Hollan in her individual capacity.2 Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c)(1)(B) requires that a notice of appeal: “designate the judgment, order, or part thereof being appealed.” The question that confronts us, then, is whether we have jurisdiction to hear the appeal of the August 28, 2003 order dealing with individual liability, which is not mentioned in the notice of appeal. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that we can reach all relevant aspects of the deputy clerk Plainiffs’ appeal. It has long been the rule “that an appeal of a final judgment draws into question all prior non-final rulings and orders.” McLaurin v. Fischer, 768 F.2d 98, 101 (6th Cir. 1985). We hold that the notice of appeal sufficiently complies with Fed. R. App. P. 3 to give us jurisdiction in that the opinion of August 11, 2004, which plaintiffs do list, ordered the entry of the final judgment in the case. An appeal referencing an order that directs entry of judgment in a case is a sufficient equivalent to appealing the judgment itself, even though the judgment is entered as a separate document. In the alternative, if the notice of appeal was technically deficient, we hold that such a technical deficiency should not prevent us from reaching the merits of the appeal, nor does such a technical deficiency divest us of jurisdiction to hear the appeal. To rule otherwise would be to rely on an overly technical reading of Fed. R. App. P. 3(c). Several decisions support finding jurisdiction under analogous situations. In McLaurin, the plaintiff’s notice of appeal referred solely to the district court’s order, which embodied the jury’s verdict on a federal age discrimination claim. Id. The Plaintiff sought to challenge, however, earlier dismissals of state law claims and an earlier grant of a directed verdict motion, in addition to the order specifically mentioned in the notice of appeal. Id. The defendant argued that because the plaintiff only mentioned the order relevant to the federal age discrimination claim on appeal, the panel could address only that issue and not the other issues. Id. This court disagreed with the defendant, holding: In this case, by appealing from the district court’s final order, Dr. McLaurin effectively preserved for review all of the district court’s non-final rulings and orders, including the directed verdict and state law claim rulings. Furthermore, even assuming that the notice of appeal failed to properly preserve these issues for appeal, Dr. Fischer has failed to demonstrate any prejudice due to the alleged error; consequently, any error committed by appellant is harmless. Id. at 102 (italics added for emphasis). In Boburka v. Adcock, 979 F.2d 424 (6th Cir. 1993), this court allowed a defendant to appeal a court’s grant of a directed verdict in favor of the plaintiff despite the fact that his notice of appeal specified only that the defendant was appealing from the district court’s order denying his post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial. Id. at 426. The notice of appeal did not mention either the final judgment or the directed verdict. Id. This circuit, relying on Peabody Coal Co. v. Locals 1734, 1508 & 1548, 484 F.2d 78 (6th Cir. 1973), and the clear intent of the defendant, 2 In contrast, in Plaintiff Lynn Butler’s notice of appeal, she appeals from “the Court’s Memorandum Opinion and Order entered on August 28, 2003; the Court’s Order overruling Plaintiff’s Motion to set aside or vacate the 8/28/03 Order entered on October 6, 2003; and, the Memorandum Opinion and Order entered in this action on August 11, 2004.” Plaintiff Butler thus appeals from all relevant orders in her notice of appeal. Nos. 04-6017/6018 Caudill, et al. v. Hollan Page 4 found that although “[s]trictly construed, the notice of appeal does not preserve the denial of the directed verdict issue,” the “notice of appeal adequately preserved for appeal all the issues he raises before this court.” Id. In Crawford, et al. v. Roane, et al., 53 F.3d 750 (6th Cir. 1995), plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal that sought review of the order denying their motion for summary judgment and granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Id. at 752. In their brief, however, the plaintiffs also “discusse[d] the Trustees’ failure to furnish information and ma[de] clear that the [Plaintiffs] also s[ought] review of the district court’s denial of their motion for leave to file an amended complaint.” Id. The court held that, because the brief put the defendants on notice as to what was being appealed, they suffered no prejudice as a result of the plaintiffs’ failure to specify that they desired appellate review of the other subjects. Id. at 752-53. Cf. Sanabria v. U.S., 437 U.S. 54, 68 n.21 (1978) (“A mistake in designating the judgment appealed from is not always fatal, so long as the intent to appeal from a specific ruling can fairly be inferred by probing the notice and the other party was not misled or prejudiced.”) (citations omitted). Our decision in United States v. Universal Mgmt. Servs., Inc., 191 F.3d 750, 756 (6th Cir. 1999), is not to the contrary. In Universal, a district court denied summary judgment for the defendants and granted summary judgment to the U.S. Government. Id. at 754. The district court’s grant of summary judgment resulted in a permanent injunction prohibiting the defendants from distributing a medical device they claimed would help alleviate pain. Id. 3The defendants made a motion to reconsider in which they argued that they deserved a new “trial” due to the malfeasance of their original counsel and because one of the individual defendants could not be personally subject to the injunction. Id. at 756. Defendants’ notice of appeal stated only that they appealed from the district court’s order denying them summary judgment and granting summary judgment to the United States. Id. In their briefs on appeal, however, the defendants discussed arguments related to both issues raised in their motion to reconsider. Id. The government responded that because it was not prejudiced by the lack of notice, the court of appeals should address the arguments. Id. This court held that it lacked jurisdiction to review the items raised in the motion to reconsider because the notice of appeal did not specifically indicate that the defendants appealed from that motion. Id. at 756-67. The court did, in the alternative, address the merits of the two points and found no errors with respect to either issue. Id. at 757-60. Universal Management Services stands for a related but different proposition than the other cases previously discussed. In short, our rule is that we will entertain arguments on all objections and asserted errors prior to the final disposition of a case if a party indicates in its notice of appeal that it appeals either the final judgment or the final order in the case. We will not, however, absent specific mention in the notice of appeal, entertain issues raised in post-judgment motions if the notice of appeal states only that the appeal is from the final order or the final judgment. This rule is understandable because most pre-judgment decisions made by a trial court are not appealable until the entry of final judgment. To the extent that the post-judgment motions relate to issues raised before judgment, the appellate court will deal with them anyway, as it did in Universal. If the issues raised only in post-judgment motions were new (in that they were arguments not raised prior to a final disposition of the case), then considerations of notice might require the party raising the issues be more specific if it wishes to discuss them on appeal to avoid prejudicing either the trial court or the other party. In this case, the deputy clerk Plaintiffs did not specifically mention the judgment in their notice of appeal. Like in McLaurin and Bobruka, however, they did appeal from the final 3 Our opinion does not make clear what the movants meant by “trial” as the case was apparently dismissed on summary judgment. Nos. 04-6017/6018 Caudill, et al. v. Hollan Page 5 memorandum and opinion in the case. Under the logic of our prior cases, then, the notice of appeal provided by Plaintiffs, here, is sufficient. In addition, in this case, the Memorandum Opinion and Order of August 11, 2004 indicates that “[a] judgment in favor of the Defendant will be entered contemporaneously herewith.” The judgment was entered that same day. Thus, in light of the fact that the August 11th Memorandum Opinion and Order ordered the filing of the judgment, meaning that the judgment would not have been filed were it not for the court’s order, it would appear that by appealing this opinion, Plaintiffs intended to appeal the portion of the opinion ordering the entry of judgment. Such an appeal is tantamount to having appealed the judgment itself. If the notice of appeal is technically deficient, it is readily apparent that neither this court nor the Defendant have been prejudiced in any way. Defendant understood that Plaintiffs intended to appeal the August 23, 2003 order because she addressed those arguments in her brief. She suffered no prejudice, and because the parties briefed their arguments, neither did this court. Thus, even if the notice of appeal is technically deficient, because no one is prejudiced by that defect, under our precedent, we should address the merits of the appeal. Finally, the Supreme Court has held that if a clerk does not enter judgment on a separate document in a case, but the parties treat the judgment as if it has become final, a court of appeals may still treat the judgment as final despite the fact that a separate document entering the judgment is normally required. Bankers Trust Co. v. Mallis, 435 U.S. 381, 382-84 (1978). While it is true that the facts of this case are not directly related to Bankers Trust Co., a useful analogy can be drawn. In Bankers Trust Co., obviously, the party appealing did not reference a final judgment in their notice of appeal as no separate document existed. The party apparently appealed from the final order issued by the district court. If the entry of a separate document for a final judgment is unnecessary to allow an appeal in a case like Bankers Trust Co., it seems that we are already treating a final court order as synonymous with a separate judgment for the purposes of appeal in some circumstances. If we were to hold, in this case, that a party that references the final order of a court, but does not indicate that it also appeals the judgment, does not appeal the judgment, we would be upholding form for form’s sake, and would not advance justice in this case, or in general. While the requirements of Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(1) are jurisdictional, Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co. et al., 487 U.S. 312, 317 (1988); United States v. Universal Mgmt. Servs., Inc., 191 F.3d 750, 756 (6th Cir. 1999), our precedent, Supreme Court Precedent and Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(4) also require that we construe the jurisdictional requirements of Fed. R. App. P. 3(c) liberally. See Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 180-81 (1962); Torres, 487 U.S. at 316-17. Thus, our rule is that Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(1) is a jurisdictional rule whose requirements should be liberally construed and applied.