Civil procedure

Remand

Remand is sending a case back to the court it came from, either from federal court to state court or from an appellate court to the trial court.

In the removal context, a district court remands when it finds it lacks jurisdiction or when the removal was procedurally defective. An order remanding for lack of jurisdiction is generally not reviewable on appeal, which makes the remand motion unusually high stakes.

In the appellate context, remand means the appeals court has finished with a legal question and is sending the case down for the trial court to apply the answer, sometimes with instructions as specific as which claims may proceed.

Remand orders are worth reading for what they reveal. To decide the motion the court often has to analyze citizenship, damages, or the presence of a federal issue, which produces an early roadmap of the case's weak points.