Know when to cross-appeal

Too many lawyers simply don't understand when it's appropriate to cross-appeal. So once again, with feeling, and please spread the word no cross-appeal is necessary or approriate to raise an alternative basis for affirmance.  For a case in point, click here or just read the excerpt below:

The District Improperly Cross-Appealed     As noted above, the district filed a “cross-appeal” urging an alternative basis for affirming the judgment of dismissal, namely that even if age discrimination partially motivated the district’s actions, the district would have made the teacher transfers in any event for lawful reasons, thus depriving plaintiffs of a monetary remedy. [Citation omitted]
     However, no cross-appeal is necessary to raise an alternative basis for affirmance. (State Water Resources Control Bd. Cases (2006) 136 Cal.App.4th 674, 828 & fn. 61.) Moreover, the district’s prosecution of its purported cross-appeal resulted in unnecessary, additional briefing and needlessly complicated these proceedings. It also unfairly gave the district, as respondent, the final brief on appeal, to which it was not entitled. Given our disposition of the plaintiffs’ appeal, the district’s purported cross-appeal is dismissed as moot.

Sticking w/the Easter theme just one more day...
Learn how & when to cross, people.