Court Opinion

ID: 9468348
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:12:32.754337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:49.589013
License: Public Domain

McWILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. My understanding of the present proceeding is quite different from that of the majority. The majority treat this case as an attempted appeal from the district court’s order of March 27, 1981. In my view, however, this is an appeal only from the district court’s order of May 5, 1981.
On March 27, 1981, the district court, by order, denied appellants’ motion for new trial based on newly discovered evidence. Appellants have not filed a notice of appeal from that order. However, on April 28, 1981, thirty-two days after the district court’s order of March 27, 1981, the appellants did file in the district court a motion for leave to file out-of-time a notice of appeal from the district court’s order of March 27,1981, the grounds for such motion being that the failure of counsel to file a notice of appeal within ten days after the order of March 27, 1981, was the result of excusable neglect. The motion for leave to file an out-of-time notice of appeal was denied by the district court on May 5, 1981, thirty-nine days after the district court’s order of March 27, 1981, the district court *762declining to find excusable neglect. On May 14, 1981, nine days after the district court’s order of May 5, 1981, the appellants filed a notice of appeal from the district court’s order of May 5, 1981. It is that notice of appeal with which we are here concerned.
Based, then, on my view of the matter, the present appeal is from the district court’s order of May 5, 1981. It is not an attempted appeal from the district court’s order of March 27, 1981. Hence, contrary to the statement in the majority opinion, the only issue in this appeal is whether the district court erred in its order of May 5, 1981, which denied appellants’ motion for leave to file an out-of-time notice of appeal. Under the circumstances, I conclude that the district court did not err in its order of May 5, 1981.
As indicated, the district court held that appellants did not show excusable neglect. Appellants’ “excusable neglect” argument is based on counsel’s alleged misunderstanding of certain statements made by the district court in colloquy between court and counsel at a hearing held on February 20, 1981, which, counsel claims, misled him as to the proper procedure to be followed in the event he suffered an unfavorable ruling on the motion for new trial. Appellants’ claim of excusable neglect is in my view exceedingly thin. Subjective misunderstanding of the sort here claimed certainly does not compel a finding of excusable neglect. I would affirm the district court’s order of May 5, 1981.