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Syllabus
in a district court] shall be signed" by counsel or, if the party is unrepresented, by the party himself. Pp. 762-763.
(b) The Sixth Circuit is correct that the governing Federal Rules call for a signature on notices of appeal. Civil Rule 11(a), the signature requirement's source, comes into play on appeal this way. An appeal can be initiated, Appellate Rule 3(a)(1) instructs, "only by filing a notice of appeal with the district clerk within the time allowed by [Appellate] Rule 4." Whenever the Appellate Rules provide for a filing in the district court, Appellate Rule 1(a)(2) directs, "the procedure must comply with the practice of the district court." The district court practice relevant here is Civil Rule 11(a)'s signature requirement. Notices of appeal unquestionably qualify as "other paper[s]" under that requirement, so they "shall be signed." Without a rule change so ordering, the Court is not disposed to extend the meaning of the word "signed" to permit typed names, as Becker urges. Rather, the Court reads Civil Rule 11(a) to call for a name handwritten (or a mark handplaced). Pp. 763-764.
(c) However, the Sixth Circuit erred in its dispositive ruling that the signature requirement cannot be met after the appeal period expires. As plainly as Civil Rule 11(a) requires a signature on filed papers, so the rule goes on to provide that "omission of the signature" may be "corrected promptly after being called to the attention of the attorney or party." Corrections can be made, the Rules Advisory Committee noted, by signing the paper on file or by submitting a duplicate that contains the signature. Civil Rule 11(a)'s provision for correction applies to appeal notices. The rule was formulated and should be applied as a cohesive whole. So understood, the signature requirement and the cure for an initial failure to meet the requirement go hand in hand. Becker proffered a correction of the defect in his notice in the manner Rule 11(a) permits—he attempted to submit a duplicate containing his signature—and therefore should not have suffered dismissal of his appeal for nonobservance of that rule. The Court does not disturb its earlier statements describing Appellate Rules 3 and 4 as "jurisdictional in nature." E. g., Torres v. Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 U. S. 312, 315. The Court rules simply and only that Becker's lapse was curable as Civil Rule 11(a) prescribes; his initial omission was not a "jurisdictional" impediment to pursuit of his appeal. While Appellate Rules 3 and 4 are indeed linked jurisdictional provisions, Rule 3(c)(1), which details what the notice of appeal must contain, does not include a signature requirement. Civil Rule 11(a) alone calls for and controls that requirement and renders it nonjurisdictional. Pp. 764-766.
(d) The Court rejects the argument that, even if there is no jurisdictional notice of appeal signature requirement for parties represented
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