It’s official—Apple has filed an appeal with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals challenging Judge Denise Cote’s July 10 verdict in its e-book price-fixing case. Although an appeal brief was not yet available Friday morning, a notice of the appeal was on record with the Second Circuit, and separate notice was filed with the district court.
According to the notice filing, Apple is appealing "the Final Judgment entered on September 6, 2013," including the court's final injunction entered against Apple, as well as “any and all orders and rulings that were adverse to it, whether or not subsumed within the September 6, 2013 Final Judgment, including—without limitation—this Court’s July 10, 2013 Opinion & Order as well as other rulings on liability, admissibility of evidence, and certain discovery requests.”
The appeal comes as the legal battle over Apple’s potential monetary damages is growing more contentious. Apple attorneys are fighting to limit collateral estoppel—that is, the degree to which liability in Cote’s verdict in the July price-fixing trial translates into liability in the state and class action suits. Cote has ordered Apple and the states to confer and come up with a stipulation of liability, but those talks have gone nowhere. In September, Judge Cote put Apple’s damages trial on a swift schedule (which Apple attorneys strongly opposed) that could see a trial as early as May of 2014.
The question now is whether Judge Cote will agree to stay the proceedings in her court while the appeal is sorted out. In August, Cote declined to grant Apple a stay, following a filing by Apple arguing that the judge made significant errors in the trial, and that it was likely to prevail on appeal.
Various legal scholars, however, have said that Apple faces long odds on its appeal. We will update this story once the appeal filing is released.
