On December 11, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an en banc opinion in Env’t Tex. Citizen Lobby, Inc. v. ExxonMobil Corp., No. 17-20545. The petition for rehearing requested en banc review...more
Long-time readers of this blog may remember the fun I’ve had finding photos reflecting the ups and downs of en banc rehearing in the Court of Appeals. The General Assembly first authorized en banc review in 2016, with the...more
Judges and jurists alike champion the notion that rehearings should be used sparingly and only when the conditions are just right. A lesser known concept is that sometimes a motion for rehearing is absolutely necessary to...more
September 6, 2022 Every appellate attorney’s dream is a well-developed record on appeal without any unpreserved errors. But that is not always possible. The recent amendment to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.530(a), issued...more
Generally, you can ask a judge to change her mind, but you can’t ask her to change a different judge’s mind. For example, at the trial-court level, a judge can revise her own interlocutory order under Rule 54(b), but one...more
On Wednesday, October 13, the Supreme Court of North Carolina issued new amendments to the North Carolina Rules of Appellate Procedure. The key changes, which apply to notices of appeal filed on or after 1 January 2022, are...more
A month ago, I excitedly reported that the North Carolina Court of Appeals had granted its first motion for rehearing en banc. Turns out that the en banc party invitations were for naught. In a special order entered...more
In a recent post, we took a look at data on rehearing petitions—specifically, the timing of calls for responses (CFRs). Today, we dig further into that data to see if we can identify judges whose panels CFR more often. As...more
Last week, in Uniloc 2017 LLC v. Hulu, LLC, the Federal Circuit ruled that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board may consider patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 for substitute claims. The appeal raises issues of finality...more
Appeals happen. Maybe you won in the trial court and the other side wants to challenge, or maybe you lost (but that must have been a mistake, right?). Either way, you need to preserve your arguments and prepare for an appeal...more