Rehearings granted in Courts of Appeals.

• Jurisdiction: United States

Section 145. Rehearings granted in Courts of Appeals.—By way of preliminary, it should be noted that, in this section as well as in those following, "rehearing" is used in its narrow technical sense of a second consideration following a decision. Otherwise stated, "rehearing" does not include a mere "reargument," which follows a court's failure to arrive at or to announce a decision following its original consideration of the cause.¹³

Petitions for rehearing in Courts of Appeals that succeed not only in being granted but that induce the same three judges to arrive at a different result are, necessarily, infrequent.¹⁴ Occasionally a petition for rehearing, while in form denied, nonetheless broadens the scope of the order remanding the case.¹⁵ In most other instances, the grant of a rehearing reflects a later controlling decision ¹⁶ or a later controlling statute or regulation.¹⁷ In any Federal court, the question of its own jurisdiction is always open, and one circuit frankly told counsel that he need not apologize for raising a jurisdictional question only on petition for rehearing.¹⁸

Normally, then, the only petition for rehearing that is likely to succeed is one that, in the language of the Eighth Circuit's Rule 15 (a), is...