Law Commons^™

Bringing More Finality To Finality: Conditional Consent Judgments And Appellate Review, Thomas A. Engelhardt

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Part I provides background on finality, including an overview of the final judgment rule and other statutory grants of appellate jurisdiction. Part I then discusses consent judgments, including conditional consent judgments. Part II examines the circuit splits with respect to issues of finality and the appealability of consent judgments that reserve a right to appeal. Part III presents arguments for and against strict interpretation and application of the finality requirement regarding consent judgments. Part IV argues for resolving the controversy by adopting a standard by which appellate courts uniformly recognize a consent judgment’s reservation of a right to appeal …