The 30-day deadline

The clock starts when the judgment is entered on the court’s record. It does not start when you get it in the mail. The notice is filed with the trial court, not the appeals court.

If the other side appeals first, you get at least 14 days after their notice to file your own.

Some requests made to the trial judge right after judgment pause the clock. Examples are a request for a new trial or to change the judgment. They must be filed on time. The clock restarts when the judge rules on them.

Extra time is hard to get

The trial judge can give more time only for a good reason, and only if you ask within 30 days after the deadline passes. Even then, the extra time is short. Do not count on it.

What you can appeal

You can usually appeal only a final decision. That means the case is over except for entering judgment. Rulings along the way usually have to wait until the end.

There are a few exceptions:

• Orders about injunctions. An order that tells someone to do or stop doing something can be appealed right away.
• Special permission. The trial judge can certify a key legal question for early review. You then have only 10 days to ask the appeals court to take it.
• Qualified immunity. An officer who is denied this defense can often appeal right away. This comes up in civil rights cases.

An order sending a case back to state court usually cannot be appealed.

How the appeals court looks at your case

The appeals court does not hear new witnesses or new evidence. It reads the record from the trial court. That includes the court papers, the evidence and the transcripts.

It also usually will not consider arguments that were not raised in the trial court. That is why objections during the case matter so much. They keep issues alive for appeal.

How closely the court looks depends on the issue. Pure legal questions get a fresh look. A trial judge’s findings of fact are overturned only if they are clearly wrong. Many other rulings are given wide room.

Writing the appeal

An appeal is mostly a written argument, called a brief. The main brief is limited to 13,000 words. The reply brief is limited to 6,500 words.

Those limits force choices. An appeal that argues every possible mistake usually argues none of them well. A strong brief leads with the one or two issues most likely to change the result.

The Eighth Circuit is based in the Thomas F. Eagleton Courthouse in downtown St. Louis. Not every appeal gets an oral argument. The court decides some cases on the briefs alone.

After the appeals court decides

• Asking for a second look. You can ask the same judges, or the full court, to rehear the case. The deadline is 14 days, or 45 days if the United States is a party. Full-court rehearing is rarely granted.
• The U.S. Supreme Court. You can ask the Supreme Court to take the case within 90 days. It agrees to hear very few cases.

When you bring a possible appeal, Harjot Singh Padda, JD starts with three questions. Can this order be appealed now? What is the exact deadline? Which issues were saved for appeal during the trial?

• Find the date the judgment was entered, not the date you received it.
• Gather the judgment and any written rulings.
• Ask about an appeal right away. Thirty days goes quickly.

Common questions

Related reading

• Appeals in Missouri state courts
• How a federal lawsuit works
• Civil rights lawsuits
• Federal court cases