Court Opinion

ID: 9465300
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:42:03.308283+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:05.908590
License: Public Domain

PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, District Judge,
concurring:
In concurring in this reversal I bow to the control of earlier panel decisions but write separately to question their wisdom. We hold today that the filing of a notice of appeal of an unappealable order automatically divests the trial court of all jurisdiction. We reach a conclusion whose impact on criminal justice can only be described as Sisyphean. A second criminal trial and conviction is held for naught because a notice of appeal that no one intended to pursue was not timely and formally abandoned. The untoward consequence of this rigidity is plain. If this were a clean slate or if earlier and differently focused decisions were distinguishable I would take a less rigid view of the concept of jurisdiction and hold that the filing of a notice of appeal of an unappealable order does not render void acts of the trial court taken in the interval between that filing and the determination by the court of appeals that it lacks jurisdiction.
*1361A different result in this case would be reached by the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Circuits.1 If free I would follow their lead in full measure; that is, without ascribing to them a limited function of avoiding abuse by one litigant to another’s right to continuing trial court jurisdiction. But this panel is not free to do so. Bush v. United Benefit Fire Insurance Co., 311 F.2d 893 (5th Cir. 1963); Kirtland v. J. Ray McDer-mott & Co., 568 F.2d 1166 (5th Cir. 1978)2
The Tenth Circuit in Euziere v. United States, 266 F.2d 88 (10th Cir. 1959), vacated on other grounds, 364 U.S. 282, 80 S.Ct. 1615, 4 L.Ed.2d 1720 (1960) observed:
[A]ll of the cases hold that an appeal divests the trial court of jurisdiction over the case, but that presupposes that there is a valid appeal from an appealable order. ... An attempt to appeal a nonappealable order remains just that, an attempt. It is a nullity and does not invest the appellate court with jurisdiction, and consequently does not divest the trial court of its jurisdiction. Id. at 91.
The Tenth Circuit view in its essentials was followed by the Ninth Circuit in Ruby v. Secretary of the United States Navy, 365 F.2d 385 (9th Cir. 1966) en banc. Both Ruby and Euziere recognized that an appellate court can possess the power to determine whether it has jurisdiction at the same time that a trial court possesses jurisdiction over the case, at least where the effort is to appeal from a clearly unappealable order.
Judge Tjoflat does suggest a possible exception to the rule of automatic loss of jurisdiction. He urges that the primary rationale for Ruby and Euziere is deterrence of “. . . abuse of the appeal right by preventing a party from interrupting his opponent’s entitlement to continuing trial court jurisdiction by filing a premature appeal.”3 But finding no such abuse here, the court concludes that the notice of appeal of the motion for new trial divested the trial court of jurisdiction. This proffered exception, by attempting to mitigate the harshness of complete divestiture of jurisdiction, travels in the correct direction but is an incomplete draw upon the benefits of the rule that a notice of appeal of an unappealable order does not divest a trial court of jurisdiction. An important virtue of the Ruby and Euziere decisions is that they draw a clearly defined line between those notices of appeal that divest a trial court of jurisdiction and those that do not. The same cannot be said of our prior reasoning. Kecognizing trial court jurisdiction after a notice of appeal is filed only when *1362there is abuse would leave district court judges and litigants to guess as to who at a given moment has the power to proceed.
The idea that a notice of appeal automatically and instantly strips the trial court of all power to continue seems to contain an implicit assumption that jurisdiction ought to exist simultaneously in both the trial and appellate court only under the most narrow of circumstances. Yet, as Professor Moore has noted, the filing of a notice of appeal leaves the trial court with jurisdiction regarding appeal and supersedeas bonds, the granting or modification of injunction pending appeal, and the extending of time for transmitting the record on appeal. 9 J. Moore, Moore’s Federal Practice § 203.11 (1974). These retentions of jurisdiction that find their genesis in rules of procedure are, viewed separately, relatively narrow exceptions. See, Turner v. HMH Publishing Co., 328 F.2d 136 (5th Cir. 1964). Yet in the aggregate they represent a significant sharing of jurisdiction between trial and appellate courts.
Even recognition of the abuse exception involves an implicit concession that a notice of appeal does not always end trial court jurisdiction. The logical inquiry that follows the concession would seem to be into the circumstances under which both trial and appellate courts may simultaneously have jurisdiction. The view of Euziere and Ruby is that the filing of a notice of appeal of an unappealable order does not divest the trial court of jurisdiction in the interval between the notice and the appellate decision.4 To me this view is more workable and better calculated to achieve fair results than that which we now follow. Whether an order is appealable is itself not always clear. See e. g. United States v. Rumpf, 576 F.2d 818 (10th Cir. 1978). But appeala-bility is a more developed doctrine and consequently a more predictable standard than abuse of appeal rights. Abuse has an inherently discrete case-by-case focus with a much greater likelihood of leaving litigants to guess as to where the power to proceed rests. Moreover, an abuse standard, by failing to account for inadvertence, that is, by not dealing with cases where the trial judge and litigants proceed on the erroneous assumption that the trial court has jurisdiction, creates pressure to read abuse expansively. That is not to say that subscribing to a standard that leaves jurisdiction with the trial court when there is an attempt to appeal an unappealable order will avoid all retrials; it is to say it ought to reduce their number. Nor does the subscription ignore the obvious circumstance that opaque standards of appealability will tend to dim the brightness of the clear line; we are talking about relative, not absolute clarity. See dissent of Judge McKay in United States v. Rumpf, 576 F.2d 818, 823, supra.
In sum, this court seems to accept the either-or idea of jurisdiction as the model to be deviated from only in extremis. This approach denies the plasticity of jurisdiction. Jurisdiction is a legal concept with sufficiently ductile properties to achieve common sense results. To hold for naught the results of a criminal jury trial for the sole conclusory reason that the trial court was divested of jurisdiction makes no sense. The question is why the power to proceed must reside only in the appellate court. We have failed to answer this question on a reasoned basis. Here there is no, or there ought to be no jurisprudential lock-step. The point is that jurisdiction is not inherently an indivisible, monolithic concept, and that, consequently, a decision as to whether jurisdiction exists in a trial or appellate court, or both, can be the product of rea*1363soned choice. The stability and uniformity values of stare decisis are not served by adherence to a principle that fosters uncertainty and disparate results. This reversal epitomizes and lends truth to the ideas upon which the Ruby and Euziere decisions were based.5 We are not judicial lemmings and ought not emulate them as I fear we do by continued obedience to this “rule of jurisdiction.” This panel is bound but hopefully the court en banc is not.

. See Arthur Anderson & Co. v. Finesilver, 546 F.2d 338 (10th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1096, 97 S.Ct. 1113, 51 L.Ed.2d 543 (1977); United States v. Rumpf, 576 F.2d 818 (10th Cir. 1978); Resnik v. La Paz Guest Ranch, 289 F.2d 814 (9th Cir. 1961); Keith v. Newcourt, 530 F.2d 826 (8th Cir. 1976); Hodgson v. Mahoney, 460 F.2d 326 (10th Cir. 1972). On the other hand, the Third, Sixth and Seventh Circuits appear to share this Circuit’s view. See Williams v. Bernhardt Bros. Tugboat Service, Inc., 357 F.2d 883 (7th Cir. 1966); District 65, Distributive, Processing and Office Workers Union v. McKague, 216 F.2d 153 (3rd Cir. 1954); Keohane v. Swarco, Inc., 320 F.2d 429 (6th Cir. 1963). The other Circuits do not appear to have considered the question.

. The result reached by the majority is mandated by this court’s decision in Kirtland v. J. Ray McDermott & Co., 568 F.2d 1166 (5th Cir. 1978). That case involved an attempted appeal of an order disposing of less than all claims involved in the suit, one day before entry of a final order pursuant to Rule 54(b). In dismissing the appeal, the court relied upon the express provisions of the rule requiring certification prior to appeal. As an alternative ground for its decision, however the court noted that the trial court was divested of jurisdiction to enter a Rule 54(b) certification upon the filing of a notice of appeal:
[I]t is the filing of the appeal, not the entering of the final judgment, that divests the district court of jurisdiction. 568 F.2d at 1170.
An argument can be made that the decision is bottomed upon the niceties of Rule 54, and ought not be viewed as controlling the broader question involved here. The rub is that the panel in Kirtland supported its result by the principle that now controls us. It did so because it was in turn bound by Bush v. United Benefit Life Insurance Co., 311 F.2d 893 (5th Cir. 1963). The focus in Bush was upon the administrative problem presented by notices of appeal and Rule 54(b) certificates out of time harmony.

. This rationale was put forward in Kirtland v. J. Ray McDermott & Co., 568 F.2d 1166, 1170 n. 7 (5th Cir. 1978), infra n. 2.

. The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process, the process namely of its verifying itself, its verification. Its validity is the process of its validation.
William James

. The court in Ruby held as follows:
Where the deficiency in a notice of appeal, by reason of untimeliness, lack of essential recitals, or reference to a non-appealable order, is clear to the district court, it may disregard the purported notice of appeal and proceed with the case, knowing that it has not been deprived of jurisdiction. 365 F.2d 389.
Professor Moore comments that “[tjhis is a very sound resolution of the problem . and it should be followed generally.” 9 J. Moore, Moore’s Federal Practice § 203.11 (1974).