Cite as: 526 U. S. 473 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
On the assumption that comity is not enough, respondents offer one additional justification for an exception to the cross-appeal requirement here. They point out that the District Court orders appealed from were preliminary injunctions and thus interlocutory, not final, decrees. Respondents contend that because they knew they could challenge the substance of those orders on appeal from a final judgment, they should not be penalized for failing to cross-appeal at this preliminary stage of the suit. But this argument misconceives the nature of the cross-appeal requirement. It is not there to penalize parties who fail to assert their rights, but is meant to protect institutional interests in the orderly
tional issue resolved in favor of a petitioner and not raised in a cross-petition for certiorari. In United States v. ITT Continental Baking Co., 420 U. S. 223, 226, n. 2 (1975), we suggested that the cross-petition requirement might be a "matter of practice and control of our docket" rather than of "our power." Although some might see Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 435, n. 23 (1984), as countenancing exceptions to the cross-petition requirement, see R. Stern, E. Gressman, S. Shapiro, & K. Geller, Supreme Court Practice 364 (7th ed. 1993); see also Board of Trustees of State Univ. of N. Y. v. Fox, 492 U. S. 469, 485-486 (1989), we have made clear that such a view of Berkemer is mistaken. See Northwest Airlines, Inc. v. County of Kent, 510 U. S. 355, 365, n. 8 (1994).
We have repeatedly expressed the rule in emphatic terms, see, e. g., Helvering v. Pfeiffer, 302 U. S. 247, 250-251 (1937) ("[A]n appellee cannot without a cross-appeal attack a judgment entered below"), though admittedly we have normally had occasion to do so in reference to our own certiorari jurisdiction rather than to the appellate jurisdiction of the courts of appeals, see, e. g., LeTulle v. Scofield, 308 U. S. 415, 421-422 (1940) ("[W]e cannot afford [the nonpetitioning party] relief"); NLRB v. Express Publishing Co., 312 U. S. 426, 431-432 (1941) ("[O]ur review is limited"; "that question is not open here"); Alaska Industrial Bd. v. Chugach Elec. Assn., Inc., 356 U. S. 320, 325 (1958) (those questions are "not open"); NLRB v. International Van Lines, 409 U. S. 48, 52, n. 4 (1972) ("not before us"); Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U. S. 111, 119, n. 14 (1985) ("An argument that would modify the judgment . . . cannot be presented unless a cross-petition has been filed"). Cf. Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U. S. 394, 398-402 (1981) (res judicata bars nonappealing parties from gaining the benefit of coparties' victory on appeal).
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