How to Appeal Unappealable Orders

New York law grants expansive rights to appeal to the Appellate Division from Supreme Court rulings, but those generous rights have limits. Litigators must be able to identify when an appeal cannot be taken. Effective and creative appellate litigators know how to appeal an adverse ruling anyway. To start, CPLR 5512(a) defines an “appealable paper” as one “taken from the judgment or order of the court of original instance.” In contrast to a “judgment or order,” a mere “decision” from the motion court does not give rise to an appeal. Enter “no appeal lies from a decision” into your favorite legal search engine for a wealth of Appellate Division cases dismissing attempts to appeal from a decision. The exact line between a decision and an order can be a little hard to pin down. But if the paper you’re looking at is labeled an order, refers to the docket entries reviewed in reaching the order, and contains decretal paragraphs ordering (or refusing to order) certain relief, you probably don’t have anything to worry about.

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