Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/406

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SMITH v. BARRY Opinion of the Court

content of notices of appeal: Notices “shall specify the party or parties taking the appeal; shall designate the judgment, order or part thereof appealed from; and shall name the court to which the appeal is taken.” Courts will liberally construe the requirements of Rule 3. See Torres, supra, at 316; Foman v. Davis, 371 U. S. 178, 181–182 (1962). Thus, when papers are “technically at variance with the letter of [Rule 3], a court may nonetheless find that the litigant has complied with the rule if the litigant’s action is the functional equivalent of what the rule requires.” Torres, supra, at 316–317. This principle of liberal construction does not, however, excuse noncompliance with the Rule. Rule 3’s dictates are jurisdictional in nature, and their satisfaction is a prerequisite to appellate review. Torres, supra. Although courts should construe Rule 3 liberally when determining whether it has been complied with, noncompliance is fatal to an appeal. In this case, the Court of Appeals recognized that it was required to determine whether Smith’s brief was the “functional equivalent” of the formal notice of appeal demanded by Rule 3, 919 F. 2d, at 895, but it erred in applying that standard. The court reasoned that because Smith filed his informal brief in response to a briefing order, “the document was not the result of Smith’s intent to initiate an appeal.” Id., at 895–896. This logic is dubious, since Smith received the briefing form as a result of filing a notice of appeal, albeit a premature one. More importantly, the court should not have relied on Smith’s reasons for filing the brief. While a notice of appeal must specifically indicate the litigant’s intent to seek appellate review, see Foman, supra, at 181; Torres, 487 U. S., at 317–318, the purpose of this requirement is to ensure that the filing provides sufficient notice to other parties and the courts. See id., at 318. Thus, the notice afforded by a document, not the litigant’s motivation in filing it, determines the document’s sufficiency as a notice of appeal. If a docu-