This Court has made clear that the time requirements contained in the civil rules are claim-processing requirements that are subject to waiver and forfeiture, rather than mandatory and jurisdictional. Yet, largely as an artifact of what this Court described as a prior "profligate" use of the term "jurisdiction," the lower courts have retained the jurisdictional bar when a district court has improperly extended the time for post-judgment motions granted without objection. The first Question Presented is:

Does an unobjected-to extension of time to file a post-judgment motion, even though unauthorized by the civil rules, permit appellate review of the underlying judgment when the notice of appeal is timely when measured from the disposition of that motion?

This case also presents a second Question:

Are a judge's comments belittling the import of evidence that courts usually treated as establishing a prima facie case and impugning the motives of counsel, which the judge later wrote was only a "joke," cured at the end of a trial by a generic instruction that the jury should reach its own verdict?

Does an unobjected-to extension of time to file a post-judgment motion, even though unauthorized by the civil rules, permit appellate review of the underlying judgment when the notice of appeal is timely when measured from the disposition of that motion?