Page:Pearson v. Kemp (20-14480) (2020) Decision.pdf/4

 relief the plaintiffs had requested. The defendants filed a conditional cross-appeal. Later, the plaintiffs also requested permission to appeal in this Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).

In our judicial system, the district court is the central forum for testing, advancing, proving, or disproving a party’s allegations. It is where trials take place and the parties present their evidence. As a court of appeals, “we are a court of review, not of first view.” Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718, n.7 (2005). Typically, we enter the picture only after the district court has considered the parties’ competing positions and a winner has emerged. Less frequently, we review preliminary injunctions or orders that ask a particularly important, purely legal question.

The district court has not issued one of those appealable orders. In this case, the district court issued an emergency temporary restraining order at the plaintiffs’ request, worked at a breakneck pace to provide them an opportunity for broader relief, and was ready to enter an appealable order on the merits of their claims immediately after its expedited hearing on December 4, 2020. But the plaintiffs would not take the district court’s “yes” for an answer. They appealed instead. And, because they appealed, the evidentiary hearing has been stayed and the case