Department of Banking of Neb. v. Pink
Headline: Court denies late petition challenging New York judgment, rules amendment to remittitur doesn't extend three-month window for seeking Supreme Court review, making timely filing from appellate decision essential for litigants.
Holding: The Court held that an appellate court’s later amendment to its remittitur does not extend the three-month period for seeking Supreme Court review, because the amendment did not suspend the finality of the appellate judgment.
- Requires filing for Supreme Court review within three months of appellate court decision.
- Amending remittitur alone won't lengthen the review deadline.
- Lawyers must compute deadlines from the appellate judgment date.
Summary
Background
A party sought this Court’s review after New York’s appellate courts had affirmed a lower-court judgment. The Court of Appeals issued its decision and remittitur in June, and the lower court later entered judgment on that remittitur. The appellant then asked the Court of Appeals to amend its remittitur to state that a federal question had been presented. The remittitur was amended in July, and the state supreme court made that amendment its order in September. The petition for certiorari to this Court was filed in October, more than three months after the appellate decision.
Reasoning
The central question was whether the July amendment to the remittitur extended the three-month period for seeking review under the statute. The Court said it did not. The amendment merely certified what the appellate court had already decided and did not ask the appellate court to reconsider or change its judgment. Because the amendment did not suspend the finality of the earlier appellate decision, the three-month deadline began when that appellate judgment became final for review purposes, not when the lower court later entered judgment on the remittitur.
Real world impact
The result is that litigants and their lawyers must compute the three-month deadline from the date the appellate court’s judgment fully adjudicates the rights at issue. An amendment to a remittitur or opinion that does not seek rehearing will not toll the deadline. This ruling denied the petition as untimely and did not decide the case’s merits.
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