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BOWLES v. RUSSELL
Factual and Procedural Background
Keith Bowles, a federal habeas petitioner, failed to file a timely notice of appeal from the District Court’s denial of relief. He moved to reopen the appeal period under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(6) and 28 U.S.C. § 2107(c), provisions that authorize the district court to extend the filing window by no more than 14 days when certain conditions are met. The District Court granted the motion but, inexplicably, gave Bowles 17 days in its written order. Bowles filed his notice of appeal within the 17-day window set by the court, but after the 14-day statutory limit.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dismissed the appeal as untimely, holding that it lacked jurisdiction under controlling Supreme Court precedent. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and affirmed.
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether the 14-day extension limit in 28 U.S.C. § 2107(c) is a jurisdictional restriction that cannot be waived or extended by a district court, such that a notice of appeal filed outside that period deprives a court of appeals of jurisdiction even when the party relied on a district court’s contrary order.
- Whether the “unique circumstances” doctrine—previously recognized in Harris Truck Lines and Thompson to forgive late filings induced by judicial error—remains valid.
Arguments of the Parties
The opinion does not contain a detailed account of the parties' legal arguments.
Table of Precedents Cited
| Precedent | Rule or Principle Cited For | Application by the Court |
|---|---|---|
| Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U.S. 56 (1982) | Timely notice of appeal requirement is “mandatory and jurisdictional.” | Relied on to characterize statutory filing deadlines as jurisdictional limits on appellate power. |
| Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U.S. 443 (2004) | Distinguishes jurisdictional statutes from non-jurisdictional court rules. | Cited to show that Congress, not courts, sets jurisdictional boundaries. |
| Arbaugh v. Y H Corp., 546 U.S. 500 (2006) | Only Congress can make a rule jurisdictional; time prescriptions are usually not. | Distinguished by the majority; embraced by dissent as reason the deadline should not be jurisdictional. |
| Scarborough v. Principi, 541 U.S. 401 (2004) | Similar to Arbaugh; warns against over-use of “jurisdictional.” | Distinguished by majority; relied on by dissent. |
| United States v. Curry, 6 How. 106 (1848) | Appeal not prosecuted within statutory time must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. | Cited as historic support for treating statutory time limits as jurisdictional. |
| Harris Truck Lines, Inc. v. Cherry Meat Packers, Inc., 371 U.S. 215 (1962) | “Unique circumstances” doctrine excusing late filings induced by judicial error. | Expressly overruled to the extent it creates equitable exceptions to jurisdictional rules. |
| Thompson v. INS, 375 U.S. 384 (1964) | Companion “unique circumstances” case. | Also overruled for the same reason as Harris Truck Lines. |
| United States v. Robinson, 361 U.S. 220 (1960) | Earlier authority labeling notice-of-appeal deadlines jurisdictional. | Used by majority; criticized by dissent for imprecise terminology. |
| Browder v. Director, Dep’t of Corrections, 434 U.S. 257 (1978) | Strict enforcement of filing deadlines. | Quoted by majority; cited by dissent as later repudiated. |
| Eberhart v. United States, 546 U.S. 12 (2005) | Claim-processing rules are not jurisdictional unless Congress says so. | Highlighted by dissent; majority distinguishes because §2107 is statutory. |
| Federal Election Comm’n v. NRA Political Victory Fund, 513 U.S. 88 (1994) | Statutory certiorari deadline deemed jurisdictional. | Offered by majority as parallel statutory example. |
| Houston v. Lack, 487 U.S. 266 (1988) | Previously questioned “unique circumstances” doctrine. | Quoted by majority to show earlier erosion of the doctrine. |
| Hohn v. United States, 524 U.S. 236 (1998) | Jurisdiction over certificate-of-appealability rulings. | Cited among earlier cases enforcing strict timeliness. |
| Day v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 198 (2006) | Statutes of limitations are not jurisdictional. | Relied on by dissent to analogize § 2107(c) to ordinary limitations periods. |
| Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89 (1990) | Equitable tolling principles. | Cited by dissent to show flexibility normally available in timing rules. |
| Wolfsohn v. Hankin, 376 U.S. 203 (1964) | Another case applying “unique circumstances.” | Mentioned by dissent as jeopardized by today’s decision. |
| Barnhart v. Peabody Coal Co., 537 U.S. 149 (2003) | Earlier case labeling § 2107(a) jurisdictional. | Invoked by majority; cited by dissent as example of prior confusion. |
| Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83 (1998) | Discusses precise use of “jurisdiction.” | Quoted by dissent to illustrate recent efforts to limit misuse of the term. |
| Rockwell Int’l Corp. v. United States, 549 U.S. ___ (2007) | Reiterates concern over “profligate” use of jurisdictional label. | Referenced by dissent in same vein as Steel Co. |
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
The Court, in an opinion by Justice Thomas, treated § 2107(c) as a congressional limitation on the power of federal appellate courts. Because Congress determines federal jurisdiction, any statutory time bar that expressly circumscribes the period for filing a notice of appeal is “mandatory and jurisdictional.” The district court’s mistaken grant of a 17-day window could not enlarge that congressionally fixed period. Bowles’s filing on day-17 therefore came after the jurisdictional window had closed, leaving the Sixth Circuit powerless to hear the case.
The Court distinguished recent opinions cautioning against casual use of the term “jurisdictional” (Kontrick, Arbaugh, Scarborough, Eberhart) on the ground that those decisions dealt with rule-based or non-statutory deadlines. Here, the limit appears in an Act of Congress, placing it in a different category.
The majority then rejected Bowles’s reliance on the “unique circumstances” doctrine developed in Harris Truck Lines and Thompson. Because courts lack authority to create equitable exceptions to jurisdictional statutes, any such doctrine is illegitimate. The Court expressly overruled Harris Truck Lines and Thompson insofar as they sanctioned deviations from statutory filing periods.
Finally, the Court held that concepts such as waiver, forfeiture, or equitable tolling cannot override a jurisdictional bar; therefore, even the district judge’s error cannot confer jurisdiction on the court of appeals.
Holding and Implications
Holding: The notice of appeal filed outside the 14-day statutory extension period was untimely and therefore deprived the Court of Appeals of jurisdiction; the judgment of the Sixth Circuit dismissing the appeal is affirmed.
Implications: The decision cements the principle that statutory time limits for filing notices of appeal are strictly jurisdictional. District courts have no authority to extend those limits beyond parameters set by Congress, and litigants rely on judicial errors at their peril. The Court also abolishes the “unique circumstances” doctrine, eliminating a previously recognized equitable safety valve. While decisive for Bowles, the ruling sets no new test; rather, it reinforces a rigid jurisdictional approach likely to produce harsh results in future cases where litigants miss statutory deadlines, even in reliance on judicial actions.
JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS, JUSTICE GINSBURG, and JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting.
The District Court told petitioner Keith Bowles that his notice of appeal was due on February 27, 2004. He filed a notice of appeal on February 26, only to be told that he was too late because his deadline had actually been February 24. It is intolerable for the judicial system to treat people this way, and there is not even a technical justification for condoning this bait and switch. I respectfully dissent.
I
"'Jurisdiction,'" we have warned several times in the Steel Co. v. , Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 90 (1998) (quoting United States v. Vanness, 85 F. 3d 661, 663, n. 2 (CADC 1996)); Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443, 454 (2004) (quoting Steel Co.); Arbaugh v. Y H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 510 (2006) (quoting Steel Co.); Rockwell Int'l Corp. v. United States, 549 U. S., (2007) (slip op., at 9) (quoting Steel Co.). This variety of meaning has even "profligate . . . use of the term," Arbaugh, supra, at 510.
In recent years, however, we have tried to clean up our language, and until today we have been avoiding the erroneous jurisdictional conclusions that flow from indiscriminate use of the ambiguous word. Thus, although we used to call the sort of time limit at issue here "mandatory and jurisdictional," United States v. Robinson, 361 U. S. 220, 229 (1960), we have recently and repeatedly corrected that designation as a misuse of the "jurisdiction" label. Arbaugh, supra, at 510 (citing Robinson as an example of improper use of the term "jurisdiction"); Eberhart v. United States, 546 U. S. 12, 17-18 (2005) (per curiam) (same); Kontrick, supra, at 454 (same).
But one would never guess this from reading the Court's opinion in this case, which suddenly restores Robinson's indiscriminate use of the "mandatory and jurisdictional" label to good law in the face of three unanimous repudiations of Robinson's error. See ante, at 4. This is puzzling, the more so because our recent (and, I repeat, unanimous) efforts to confine jurisdictional rulings to jurisdiction proper were obviously sound, and the majority makes no attempt to show they were not.
The Court thinks my fellow dissenters and I are forgetful of an opinion I wrote and the others joined in 2003, which referred to the 30-day rule of 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a) as a jurisdictional time limit. See ante, at 5 (quoting Barnhart v. Peabody Coal Co., 537 U. S. 149, 160, n. 6 (2003)). But that reference in Barnhart was a perfect example of the confusion of the mandatory and the jurisdictional that the entire Court has spent the past four years repudiating in Arbaugh, Eberhart, and Kontrick. My fellow dissenters and I believe that the Court was right to correct its course; the majority, however, will not even admit that we deliberately changed course, let alone explain why it is now changing course again. The Rule was amended, effective December 1, 2005, to require that notice be pursuant to Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 77(d). The substance is otherwise unchanged.
The stakes are high in treating time limits as jurisdic-tional. While a mandatory but non-jurisdictional limit is enforceable at the insistence of a party claiming its benefit or by a judge concerned with moving the docket, it may be waived or mitigated in exercising reasonable equitable discretion. But if a limit is taken to be jurisdictional, waiver becomes impossible, meritorious excuse irrelevant (unless the statute so provides), and sua sponte consideration in the courts of appeals mandatory, see Arbaugh, supra, at 514. As the Court recognizes, ante, at 5-6, this is no way to regard time limits set out in a court rule rather than a statute, see Kontrick, supra, at 452 ("Only Congress may determine a lower federal court's subject-matter jurisdiction"). But neither is jurisdictional treatment automatic when a time limit is statutory, as it is in this case. Generally speaking, limits on the reach of federal statutes, even non-temporal ones, are only jurisdictional if Congress says so: "when Congress does not rank a statutory limitation on coverage as jurisdictional, courts should treat the restriction as non-jurisdictional in character." Arbaugh, 546 U. S., at 516. Thus, we have held "that time prescriptions, however emphatic, 'are not properly typed "jurisdictional,"'" id., at 510 (quoting Scarborough v. Principi, 541 U. S. 401, 414 (2004)), absent some jurisdictional designation by Congress. Congress put no jurisdictional tag on the time limit here.
The requirement that courts of appeals raise jurisdictional issues sua sponte reveals further ill effects of today's decision. Under § 2107(c), "[t]he district court may . . . extend the time for appeal upon a showing of excusable neglect or good cause." By the Court's logic, if a district court grants such an extension, the extension's propriety is subject to mandatory sua sponte review in the court of appeals, even if the extension was unopposed throughout, and upon finding error the court of appeals must dismiss the appeal. I see no more justification for such a rule than reason to suspect Congress meant to create it. Griggs and several other of this Court's decisions ultimately rely on United States v. Robinson, 361 U. S. 220, 229 (1960), for the proposition that the timely filing of a notice of appeal is jurisdictional. As the dissent notes, we have recently questioned Robinson's use of the term "jurisdictional." Post, at 2 (opinion of SOUTER, J.) Even in our cases criticizing Robinson, however, we have noted the jurisdictional significance of the fact that a time limit is set forth in a statute, see infra, at 5-6, and have even pointed to § 2107 as a statute deserving of jurisdic-tional treatment. Infra, at 6. Additionally, because we rely on those cases in reaching today's holding, the dissent's rhetoric claiming that we are ignoring their reasoning is unfounded.
Regardless of this Court's past careless use of terminology, it is indisputable that time limits for filing a notice of appeal have been treated as jurisdictional in American law for well over a century. Consequently, the dissent's approach would require the repudiation of a century's worth of precedent and practice in American courts. Given the choice between calling into question some dicta in our recent opinions and effectively overruling a century's worth of practice, we think the former option is the only prudent course.
The majority answers that a footnote of our unanimous opinion in Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443 (2004), used § 2107(a) as an illustration of a jurisdictional time limit. Ante, at 6 ("[W]e noted that § 2107 contains the type of statutory time constraints that would limit a court's jurisdiction. 540 U. S., at 453, and n. 8"). What the majority overlooks, however, are the post- Kontrick cases showing that § 2107(a) can no longer be seen as an example of a jurisdictional time limit. The jurisdictional character of the 30-(or 60)-day time limit for filing notices of appeal under the present § 2107(a) was first pronounced by this Court in Browder v. Director, Dept. of Corrections of Ill., 434 U. S. 257 (1978). But in that respect Browder was undercut by Eberhart v. United States, 546 U. S. 12 (2005) (per curiam), decided after Kontrick. Eberhart cited Browder (along with several of the other cases on which the Court now relies) as an example of the basic error of confusing mandatory time limits with jurisdictional limitations, a confusion for which United States v. Robinson, 361 U. S. 220 (1960), was responsible. Compare ante, at 4 (citing Browder, Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U. S. 56 (1982) (per curiam), and Hohn v. United States, 524 U. S. 236 (1998)), with Eberhart, supra, at 17-18 (citing those cases as examples of the confusion caused by Robinson's imprecise language). Eberhart was followed four months later by Arbaugh v. Y H Corp., 546 U. S. 500 (2006), which summarized the body of recent decisions in which the Court "clarified that time prescriptions, however emphatic, are not properly typed jurisdictional," id., at 510 (internal quotation marks omitted). This unanimous statement of all Members of the Court participating in the case eliminated the option of continuing to accept § 2107(a) as jurisdictional and it precludes treating the 14-day period of § 2107(c) as a limit on jurisdiction. At least one federal court of appeals has noted that Kontrick and Eberhart "called . . . into question" the "longstanding assumption" that the timely filing of a notice of appeal is a jurisdictional requirement. United States v. Sadler, 480 F. 3d 932, 935 (CA9 2007). That court nonetheless found that "[t]he distinction between jurisdictional rules and inflexible but not jurisdictional timeliness rules drawn by Eberhart and Kontrick turns largely on whether the timeliness requirement is or is not grounded in a statute." Id., at 936.
The doctrinal underpinning of this recently repeated view was set out in Kontrick: "the label 'jurisdictional' [is appropriate] not for claim-processing rules, but only for prescriptions delineating the classes of cases (subject-matter jurisdiction) and the persons (personal jurisdiction) falling within a court's adjudicatory authority." 540 U. S., at 455. A filing deadline is the paradigm of a claim-processing rule, not of a delineation of cases that federal courts may hear, and so it falls outside the class of limitations on subject matter jurisdiction unless Congress says otherwise.
The Court points out that we have affixed a "jurisdiction" label to the time limit contained in § 2101(c) for petitions for writ of certiorari in civil cases. Ante, at 6-7 (citing Federal Election Comm'n v. NRA Political Victory Fund, 513 U. S. 88, 90 (1994); this Court's Rule 13.2). Of course, we initially did so in the days when we used the term imprecisely. The status of § 2101(c) is not before the Court in this case, so I express no opinion on whether there are sufficient reasons to treat it as jurisdictional. The Court's observation that jurisdictional treatment has had severe consequences in that context, ante, at 7, n. 4, does nothing to support an argument that jurisdictional treatment is sound, but instead merely shows that the certiorari rule, too, should be reconsidered in light of our recent clarifications of what sorts of rules should be treated as jurisdictional. The dissent minimizes this argument, stating that the Court understood § 2101(c) as jurisdictional "in the days when we used the term imprecisely." Post, at 4, n. 4. The dissent's apathy is surprising because if our treatment of our own jurisdiction is simply a relic of the old days, it is a relic with severe consequences. Just a few months ago, the Clerk, pursuant to this Court's Rule 13.2, refused to accept a petition for certiorari submitted by Ryan Heath Dickson because it had been filed one day late. In the letter sent to Dickson's counsel, the Clerk explained that "[w]hen the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari in a civil case . . . has expired, the Court no longer has the power to review the petition." Letter from William K. Suter, Clerk of Court, to Ronald T. Spriggs (Dec. 28, 2006). Dickson was executed on April 26, 2007, without any Member of this Court having even seen his petition for certiorari. The rejected certiorari petition was Dickson's first in this Court, and one can only speculate as to whether denial of that petition would have been a foregone conclusion.
The time limit at issue here, far from defining the set of cases that may be adjudicated, is much more like a statute of limitations, which provides an affirmative defense, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(c), and is not jurisdictional, Day v. McDonough, 547 U. S. 198, 205 (2006). Statutes of limitations may thus be waived, id., at 207-208, or excused by rules, such as equitable tolling, that alleviate hardship and unfairness, see Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U. S. 89, 95-96 (1990).
Consistent with the traditional view of statutes of limitations, and the carefully limited concept of jurisdiction explained in Arbaugh, Eberhart, and Kontrick, an exception to the time limit in 28 U.S.C. § 2107(c) should be available when there is a good justification for one, for reasons we recognized years ago. In Harris Truck Lines, Inc. v. Cherry Meat Packers, Inc., 371 U. S. 215, 217 (1962) (per curiam), and Thompson v. INS, 375 U. S. 384, 387 (1964) (per curiam), we found that "unique circumstances" excused failures to comply with the time limit. In fact, much like this case, Harris and Thompson involved district court errors that misled litigants into believing they had more time to file notices of appeal than a statute actually provided. Thus, even back when we thoughtlessly called time limits jurisdictional, we did not actually treat them as beyond exemption to the point of shrugging at the inequity of penalizing a party for relying on what a federal judge had said to him. Since we did not dishonor reasonable reliance on a judge's official word back in the days when we uncritically had a jurisdictional reason to be unfair, it is unsupportable to dishonor it now, after repeatedly disavowing any such jurisdictional justification that would apply to the 14-day time limit of § 2107(c).
The majority avoids clashing with Harris and Thompson by overruling them on the ground of their "slumber," ante, at 9, and inconsistency with a time-limit-as-jurisdictional rule. But eliminating those precedents underscores what has become the principal question of this case: why does today's majority refuse to come to terms with the steady stream of unanimous statements from this Court in the past four years, culminating in Arbaugh's summary a year ago? The majority begs this question by refusing to confront what we have said: "in recent decisions, we have clarified that time prescriptions, however emphatic, 'are not properly typed "jurisdictional."'" Arbaugh, 546 U. S., at 510 (quoting Scarborough, 541 U. S., at 414). This statement of the Court, and those preceding it for which it stands as a summation, cannot be dismissed as "some dicta," ante, at 4, n. 2, and cannot be ignored on the ground that some of them were made in cases where the challenged restriction was not a time limit, see ante, at 6. By its refusal to come to grips with our considered statements of law the majority leaves the Court incoherent.
With no apparent sense of irony, the Court finds that "'[o]ur later cases . . . effectively repudiate the Harris Truck Lines approach.'" Ante, at 9 (quoting Houston v. Lack, 487 U. S. 266, 282 (1988) (SCALIA, J., dissenting); omission in original). Of course, those "later cases" were Browder and Griggs, see Houston, supra, at 282, which have themselves been repudiated, not just "effectively" but explicitly, in Eberhart. See n. 3, supra.
In ruling that Bowles cannot depend on the word of a District Court Judge, the Court demonstrates that no one may depend on the recent, repeated, and unanimous statements of all participating Justices of this Court. Yet more incongruously, all of these pronouncements by the Court, along with two of our cases, are jettisoned in a ruling for which the leading justification is stare decisis, see ante, at 4 ("This Court has long held . . .").
Three, if we include Wolfsohn v. Hankin, 376 U. S. 203 (1964) (per curiam).
II
We have the authority to recognize an equitable exception to the 14-day limit, and we should do that here, as it certainly seems reasonable to rely on an order from a federal judge. Bowles, though, does not have to convince us as a matter of first impression that his reliance was justified, for we only have to look as far as Thompson to know that he ought to prevail. There, the would-be appellant, Thompson, had filed post-trial motions 12 days after the District Court's final order. Although the rules said they should have been filed within 10, Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 52(b) and 59(b) (1964), the trial court nonetheless had "specifically declared that the 'motion for a new trial' was made 'in ample time.'" Thompson, 375 U. S., at 385. Thompson relied on that statement in filing a notice of appeal within 60 days of the denial of the post-trial motions but not within 60 days of entry of the original judgment. Only timely post-trial motions affected the 60-day time limit for filing a notice of appeal, Rule 73(a) (1964), so the Court of Appeals held the appeal untimely. We vacated because Thompson "relied on the statement of the District Court and filed the appeal within the assumedly new deadline but beyond the old deadline." Id., at 387.
As a member of the Federal Judiciary, I cannot help but think that reliance on our orders is reasonable. See O. Holmes, Natural Law, in Collected Legal Papers 311 (1920). I would also rest better knowing that my innocent errors will not jeopardize anyone's rights unless absolutely necessary.
Thompson should control. In that case, and this one, the untimely filing of a notice of appeal resulted from reliance on an error by a district court, an error that caused no evident prejudice to the other party. Actually, there is one difference between Thompson and this case:
Thompson filed his post-trial motions late and the District Court was mistaken when it said they were timely; here, the District Court made the error out of the blue, not on top of any mistake by Bowles, who then filed his notice of appeal by the specific date the District Court had declared timely. If anything, this distinction ought to work in Bowles's favor. Why should we have rewarded Thompson, who introduced the error, but now punish Bowles, who merely trusted the District Court's statement?
Under Thompson, it would be no answer to say that Bowles's trust was unreasonable because the 14-day limit was clear and counsel should have checked the judge's arithmetic. The 10-day limit on post-trial motions was no less pellucid in Thompson, which came out the other way. And what is more, counsel here could not have uncovered the court's error simply by counting off the days on a calendar. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(6) allows a party to file a notice of appeal within 14 days of "the date when [the district court's] order to reopen is entered." See also 28 U.S.C. § 2107(c)(2) (allowing reopening for "14 days from the date of entry"). The District Court's order was dated February 10, 2004, which reveals the date the judge signed it but not necessarily the date on which the order was entered. Bowles's lawyer therefore could not tell from reading the order, which he received by mail, whether it was entered the day it was signed. Nor is the possibility of delayed entry merely theoretical: the District Court's original judgment in this case, dated July 10, 2003, was not entered until July 28. See App. 11 (District Court docket). According to Bowles's lawyer, electronic access to the docket was unavailable at the time, so to learn when the order was actually entered he would have had to call or go to the courthouse and check. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 56-57. Surely this is more than equity demands, and unless every statement by a federal court is to be tagged with the warning "Beware of the Judge," Bowles's lawyer had no obligation to go behind the terms of the order he received.
I have to admit that Bowles's counsel probably did not think the order might have been entered on a different day from the day it was signed. He probably just trusted that the date given was correct, and there was nothing unreasonable in so trusting. The other side let the order pass without objection, either not caring enough to make a fuss or not even noticing the discrepancy; the mistake of a few days was probably not enough to ring the alarm bell to send either lawyer to his copy of the federal rules and then off to the courthouse to check the docket. This would be a different case if the year were wrong on the District Court's order, or if opposing counsel had flagged the error. But on the actual facts, it was reasonable to rely on a facially plausible date provided by a federal judge.
At first glance it may seem unreasonable for counsel to wait until the penultimate day under the judge's order, filing a notice of appeal being so easy that counsel should not have needed the extra time. But as Bowles's lawyer pointed out at oral argument, filing the notice of appeal starts the clock for filing the record, see Fed. Rule App. Proc. 6(b)(2)(B), which in turn starts the clock for filing a brief, see Rule 31(a)(1), for which counsel might reasonably want as much time as possible. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 6. A good lawyer plans ahead, and Bowles had a good lawyer.
I would vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand for consideration of the merits.
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