Constance George v. House of Hope Recovery, et al.

This Petition seeks review of the Ninth Circuit’s outlier view in a longstanding circuit split over service of the notice of appeal. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(d) assigns “[t]he district clerk” the duty to “serve notice of the filing of a notice of appeal,” with the express caveat that a “failure to serve notice does not affect the validity of the appeal.” Consistent with this plain language, six circuits have recognized that a failure to serve the notice of appeal does not divest appellate jurisdiction, with some dismissing the contrary view as “frivolous.” United States v. Uni Oil, Inc., 710 F.2d 1078, 1080 n.1 (5th Cir. 1983). But the Ninth Circuit has staked out that “frivolous” view in a series of decisions over the course of four decades, holding that Rule 3 requires the appellant to serve the notice of appeal and that doing so is essential to jurisdiction. Most recently, a Ninth Circuit panel applied this atextual rule to the pro se appeal that Petitioner filed here. Even though the district court had served Petitioner’s notice of appeal on all parties, the Ninth Circuit held it lacked jurisdiction over two appellees because Petitioner herself had not served them with her notice of appeal. Under the Ninth Circuit’s distortion of Rule 3, pro se litigants like Petitioner stand to lose their right to appeal for failing to take actions that this Court has, by Rule, expressly assigned to the courts. The question presented is: Whether Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3 permits a court of appeals to dismiss an appeal because the appellant did not serve the notice of appeal.