Court Opinion

ID: 9464810
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:43:07.943082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:49.614481
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I agree with the result but reach it by a different route.
No party to this case, brought in the Southern District of Texas, appealed from the order of that district court, entered January 30, 1976, granting a permanent injunction. The United States timely moved to intervene after judgment, setting out that TEA had decided not to appeal. Post-judgment intervention for purposes of appeal is permissible upon a proper showing, and one of the reasons for allowing intervention is that the intervenor can prosecute an appeal that the existing but unsuccessful party has determined not to take.1 We have jurisdiction of the appeal from the order of January 30,1976, if, and only if, we first hold that the motion to intervene should have been granted. I would hold that the district court erred in refusing to permit intervention by the United States for purposes of appeal, and then, reaching the merits, would rule as does the majority.
The majority’s approach, set out in text and in footnote 1, is that first it must satisfy itself whether the case was properly heard below, and upon such examination the majority concludes that the district court had no jurisdiction, thus “the appeal no longer exists.” The error with this is, of course, that until the United States is permitted to intervene this court has no viable notice of appeal before it and no jurisdiction to examine the jurisdiction of the district court.