Vince v. Rock County
| Decision Date | 03 May 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 10-1659.,10-1659. |
| Citation | 604 F.3d 391 |
| Parties | Scot VINCE, Plaintiff-Appellant,v.ROCK COUNTY, WISCONSIN, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Edmund B. Moran, Jr., Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Jerome A. Long, Attorney, Office of the Corporation Counsel Assistant Corporation Counsel, Janesville, WI, Ann C. Wirth, Attorney, Gunta & Reak, Milwaukee, WI, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before BAUER, POSNER, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.
Scot Vince suffered a beating at the hands of an inmate in the Rock County (Wisconsin) jail. Vince, a longtime confidential informant for Rock County law enforcement agencies, claims that he should not have been housed in the jail's general population following an arrest for bail jumping. A magistrate judge determined that Vince's injury could not be attributed to any of the defendants Vince named in his civil rights case and, with the consent of the parties, granted summary judgment for defendants, terminating the case.
A Rule 58 judgment was entered on December 14, 2009, but the time for Vince to appeal was tolled because he filed a timely motion to alter or vacate judgment pursuant to Rule 59. See Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(4)(A)(iv). The magistrate judge denied the motion, and his order was entered on the district court's civil docket on February 10, 2010, requiring that any appeal be filed within 30 days of this date.
On March 12, 2010, the 30th and last day of the appeal period, Vince's counsel electronically sent a notice of appeal to the clerk's office, using the court's mandatory electronic filing system. Unfortunately, Vince's attorney transmitted the notice of appeal using the wrong event code. Clerk's office staff discovered the error and notified counsel of his mistake in an email sent on March 15, 2010, directing him to re-file the notice of appeal with the correct event code. Counsel did so, and the notice of appeal was transmitted to the district court a second time on March 18, 2010.
The second transmission of the notice of appeal, sent six days after the time to appeal had expired, was forwarded to this court and caused Seventh Circuit court staff to question the timeliness of Vince's appeal. In a memorandum addressing this court's concern about its jurisdiction over Vince's appeal, Vince's counsel recounts his mistake in transmitting the appeal, believing that “the ‘original filing’ of the Notice of Appeal was March 12, 2010”, and “the March 18, 2010 filing was [merely] to place the earlier filing in the ‘right event’ ”. The district court docket, however, did not recognize the “original filing” date. The entry for March 12, identified as docket entry no. 98, noted that the tendered notice of appeal was “Disregard[ed]” and “refiled as # 99 [on March 18, 2010]”. Docket entry no. 99 is Vince's notice of appeal and bears a filing date of March 18, 2010. We note that this docket entry also includes a clerk's note that the “appeal was originally filed on 3/12/2010 with the wrong event used”, and supports Vince's claim that his notice of appeal was timely.
Three rules speak to the issue of appellate jurisdiction presented in this case. Under Rule 83(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “[a] local rule imposing a requirement of form must not be enforced in a way that causes a party to lose any right because of a nonwillful failure to comply.” Similarly, Rule 5(d)(4) protects against missteps in a litigant's compliance with local rules pertaining to the filing of papers, directing the clerk “not to refuse to file a paper” due to its nonconformity. Fed.R.Civ.P. 5(d)(4). And more specifically for our purposes, Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c)(4) prohibits the dismissal of an appeal “for informality of form or title of the notice of appeal.”
Virtually every federal court today operates a comprehensive case management system that allows it to maintain electronic case files and offer electronic filing over the Internet. It is incumbent that attorneys litigating in federal courts learn the essentials of e-filing. The Western District of Wisconsin requires all documents to be filed electronically unless they fall under certain exceptions-none of which are relevant to this case. Anticipating that mistakes will be made, the Western District e-filing user's manual includes a section listing common mistakes and describes the steps that the clerk's office takes to correct an error found. Still, there are bound to be mistakes made as attorneys become accustomed to the nuances of electronic filing. Counsel's mistake here was the first listed mistake in the Western District's manual.
We recently determined in United States v. Harvey, 516 F.3d 553, 555-56 (7th Cir.2008), that a criminal defendant timely filed his notice of...
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Mary v. Blanton
...has held that documents tendered via the CM/ECF should not be later rejected because of a technical error. See Vince v. Rock County, Wis., 604 F.3d 391, 393 (7th Cir. 2010) ("[t]he software that operates an e-filing system acts for 'the clerk' as far as Rule 5 is concerned; a step forbidden......
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Justice v. Town of Cicero
...failure to anticipate all possible combinations of circumstances leads the system to reject the filing. See also Vince v. Rock County, 604 F.3d 391 (7th Cir.2010). Just as a document deposited physically in a clerk's office is filed on that date even if mishandled by the clerk, so a documen......
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Kvassay v. Kvassay (In re Kvassay)
...since defendants were also served paper copies of the motion at the time it was filed incorrectly). Finally, in Vince v. Rock Cnty., Wis., 604 F.3d 391 (7th Cir. 2010), appellant's counsel electronically filed a notice of appeal on the last day of the appeal period, but used the wrong event......