United States v. Stoerr, 695 F.3d 271 (3d Cir. 2012). Defendant was convicted of participating in bid-rigging and receiving kickbacks while employed at Sevenson Environmental Services, Inc. (“Sevenson”). Sevenson, which was not a party to the criminal proceedings, voluntarily compensated one of defendant’s customer victims. Sevenson then filed a civil case against defendant, seeking to recover from him the money that Sevenson paid to the victim. Sevenson also sought restitution from defendant in connection with defendant’s sentencing on the criminal conviction. In imposing a sentence, the district court denied restitution to Sevenson and instead ordered restitution to the customer, finding that the customer, not Sevenson, was the victim of defendant’s crime, and that Sevenson could pursue a civil remedy. Sevenson appealed, but the Third Circuit, speaking through Judge Vanaskie, dismissed the appeal on the ground that Sevenson had no standing to appeal from the ruling in connection with defendant’s criminal conviction.
The general rule is that only someone who is “aggrieved by” a district court decision may appeal. That is a different standard than the “case or controversy” requirement for generalized Article III standing. It is settled that only parties to a case can appeal, and Judge Vanaskie observed that even “crime victims are not parties to a criminal sentencing proceeding.” Since victims are not parties, Sevenson, who was “a degree removed from victim status,” was not a party either and could not appeal defendant’s sentence.
Sevenson argued that the statute on which Sevenson premised its argument, the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, 18 U.S.C. §3663A et seq. (“MVRA”), impliedly authorizes a non-party payer to appeal. But Judge Vanaskie found that the statutory language “gives no indication that it disturbs the default rule that only the Government and the defendant can appeal a defendant’s sentence.” Moreover, the fact that another statute authorizes victims to appeal, but that neither that statute nor the MVRA grants appeal rights to non-party payers was strong evidence that no such right exists. Sevenson cited a letter authored by Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) that purported to state the intent of Congress, but Judge Vanaskie found that unpersuasive. The letter involved the other statute, not the MVRA, and in any event, a statement by an individual senator cannot amend the clear language of a statute, especially where, as here, “the senator’s statement follows long after the statute’s enactment.”
Finally, Sevenson contended that there are exceptions to the rule that non-parties cannot appeal. For example, in Devlin v. Scardaletti, 536 U.S. 1 (2002), unnamed class members were held to have standing to appeal approval of an allegedly objectionable class action settlement. But that and Sevenson’s other cited examples all involved civil appeals. Binker v. Pennsylvania, 977 F.2d 738 (3d Cir. 1992), allows non-party appeals under certain circumstances. Assuming that the “Binker exception” could apply in the criminal context, Sevenson did not qualify for that exception because one of its requirements is that “the nonparty has a stake in the outcome of the proceedings that is discernible from the record.” Since Judge Vanaskie had already ruled that a non-party has no judicially cognizable stake in a criminal defendant’s sentence, Sevenson could not acquire appellate rights under the Binker exception.