Federal Judge Benchslaps Litigant For Acting Like An Ostrich

Pull your head out of the sand, unless you want to lose your appeal.

The ostrich’s undeserved claim to fame is that it buries its head in the sand instead of facing danger.[1] Parties to litigation sometimes act like this, too.

— Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson of the First Circuit, explaining in the introduction of a recent opinion that by “ignoring [his] plea agreement’s clear waiver of appeal provision fares,” Miguelito Arroyo-Blas, the appellant in U.S. v. Arroyo-Blas, would “fare[] no better . . . than we imagine our proverbial ostrich does when confronted by a predator in the wild.”



[1] “Not that ostriches really bury their heads in the sand when threatened,” Gonzalez-Servin v. Ford Motor Co., 662 F.3d 931, 934 (7th Cir. 2011), but the image persists. And it suits our purposes well.

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