Short answer. Fifteen days from notice of the judgment or final order, as a rule. Where a record on appeal is required, the period is thirty days, and in habeas corpus cases the appeal must be taken within forty-eight hours. A timely motion for new trial or reconsideration interrupts the period.
What the law says
The appeal shall be taken within fifteen days from notice of the judgment or final order appealed from.
Rule 41, Section 3 — Period of ordinary appeal; appeal in habeas corpus cases. Read the full provision →
What the law says
No motion for extension of time to file a motion for new trial or reconsideration shall be allowed.
Rule 41, Section 3 — Period of ordinary appeal; appeal in habeas corpus cases. Read the full provision →
The baseline: fifteen days from notice
Rule 41 states the ordinary period plainly: the appeal shall be taken within fifteen days from notice of the judgment or final order appealed from. Two features of that sentence deserve attention. The count runs from notice — the day you or your counsel receives the decision — not from the date typed on the judgment. And the period is for taking the appeal, which in an ordinary appeal means filing the notice of appeal within those fifteen days. Sitting on a decision while deciding whether to fight it is the most common way appeals die.
The longer and shorter exceptions
The rule sets two different clocks for special situations. Where a record on appeal is required, the appellants shall file a notice of appeal and a record on appeal within thirty days from notice of the judgment or final order — a longer period, because compiling a record on appeal takes work. At the other extreme, an appeal in habeas corpus cases shall be taken within forty-eight hours from notice of the judgment — a deadline measured in hours, matching the urgency of a case about the legality of someone's detention. Identify which regime your case falls under before counting anything.
What a motion for reconsideration does to the clock
The period of appeal shall be interrupted by a timely motion for new trial or reconsideration — so seeking relief from the trial court first does not forfeit the appeal. But the rule pairs that comfort with a hard limit: no motion for extension of time to file a motion for new trial or reconsideration shall be allowed. The motion itself must land within the original appeal period, and no extension can buy more room. How the appeal period is then counted after the motion is denied has its own body of doctrine — the fresh-period discussion linked below covers it — so have counsel compute the exact date rather than assuming.
Treat the computation as part of the case
An appeal filed a day late is ordinarily an appeal lost, whatever its merits, because perfection of an appeal within the period is treated as jurisdictional. So on the day the decision arrives, fix three facts in writing: the date notice was actually received, which period applies — fifteen days, thirty days, or forty-eight hours — and whether a motion for new trial or reconsideration will be filed first. Then diarise the deadline with a margin. The arithmetic is simple; the consequences of getting it wrong are not.