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June was arbitration-appeals month. In its third and last decision of the term relating to appellate jurisdiction, the Supreme Court held that district courts must stay proceedings on the merits pending an interlocutory arbitration appeal. In the courts of appeals, the Third Circuit reviewed the denial of a motion to dismiss that effectively sought arbitration. And the First Circuit dismissed an appeal from an order denying reconsideration of an arbitration denial.
In other decisions, two courts of appeals addressed some nuances of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. The Fourth Circuit explained what notice is required under Rule 4(a)(6). And the Fifth Circuit recognized the amendments to Rule 3(c). There were also decisions on a bankruptcy stay’s effect on the appeal deadline, fact-based qualified-immunity appeals, and the reasonableness of mistakes for Rule 4(a)(2). Plus a new cert grant, denials of cert on appealing church-autonomy defenses, and more.
In Coinbase, Inc., v. Bielski, the Supreme Court held that district courts must stay proceedings on the merits once a party appeals from the denial of arbitration. The Court determined that 9 U.S.C. § 16—which authorizes these appeals—was enacted against Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co.’s background principal that a district court loses control over all aspects of a case that are on appeal. And because the issue in an arbitration appeal is whether the case should proceed at all, the entirety of the case is effectively “on appeal.” So district courts must stay proceedings on the merits pending the appeal. The implication (though not expressly stayed by the Court) is that district courts lose jurisdiction over the merits and have no choice but to stay proceedings once an appeal is taken.
Justice Jackson dissented. She contended that the background principal against which Congress added § 16 was the opposite: no automatic stays due to interlocutory appeals. And Griggs means that the district court loses control over only the issue on appeal: arbitrability. She would have left the stay decision to the discretion of the district court.
I think I side with the dissent on this one. The majority gives several good reasons for why district courts might stay proceedings in many cases. But I’m not convinced that courts must grant a stay in all cases.
One other note: Coinbase did not touch on whether district courts may dismiss a case, rather than stay it, after ordering arbitration. That’s an issue that the Court has yet to resolve.
May was quite a month for appellate jurisdiction.
We saw two Supreme Court decisions—one on preserving legal issues via denied summary-judgment motions, and one on the non-jurisdictionality of immigration exhaustion. And the government has agreed that cert is appropriate to address the reviewability of exceptional-hardship determinations in immigration appeals.
In the courts of appeals, there were significant decisions on the scope of Rule 41—does it apply only to entire actions or also to discrete claims?—and governmental-privilege appeals. But my favorite decision from last month was probably the Eleventh Circuit’s opinion on the interaction of two appeal-timing provisions: one for when the district court doesn’t set out the judgment in a separate document, and another for the resolution of post-judgment motions.
There were also decisions on pendent appellate jurisdiction over standing, appealing attorney-disqualification orders, Rule 3(c)’s order-designation requirement, the wisdom of the administrative-remand rule, and much more.
I’ve been following the circuit split over preserving purely legal issues via denied summary-judgment motions for some time. Now, the Supreme Court has finally resolved it. In Dupree v. Younger, the Court held that a denied summary-judgment motion preserves a purely legal issue. Litigants thus do not need to re-raise those issues in post-trial motions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50.
It’s a solid resolution of the issue and removes a trap for the unwary. But going forward, counsel should be careful about whether a particular issue is purely legal. When in doubt, Rule 50 motions are probably the safest route.
For years, several courts of appeals limited the scope of an appeal to the orders designated in a notice of appeal. Recent amendments to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(c) were supposed to end that practice. These amendments took effect in December 2021. Yet some courts have overlooked these changes, continuing to apply caselaw that the amendments abrogated.
Yesterday’s Eleventh Circuit decision in Vera v. Market Wood LLC is yet another example. The court relied on a pre-amendments case to hold that the failure to designate a particular order meant the court lacked jurisdiction to review that order.
Orders on the disqualification of counsel are not normally appealable. In most cases, an appeal from a final judgment suffices to protect the relevant interests. But what about when a district court disqualifies an entire U.S. Attorney’s Office from participating in a prosecution? Several courts have held that such a disqualification is immediately appealable via the collateral-order doctrine. Last week, in United States v. Williams, the Ninth Circuit agreed.
A few years ago, I wrote about the Fifth Circuit’s caselaw that allows government officials to immediately appeal discovery orders via the collateral-order doctrine. The case that sparked that discussion did not address appellate jurisdiction at all—I had to go to the briefs to figure out why the court was hearing a discovery appeal. But two recent Fifth Circuit cases addressed the issue squarely, one in some depth. And the cases reinforce my view that the Fifth Circuit needs to go en banc to change this rule.
In Industrial Services Group, Inc. v. Dobson, the Fourth Circuit gave a convincing explanation for why pendent appellate jurisdiction does not extend to standing in a sovereign-immunity appeal. The courts of appeals have split on this specific issue, and the caselaw is mixed on whether standing is part of other interlocutory appeals. But the Fourth Circuit is on the better side of the issue. Although standing is a threshold issue to proceeding in federal court, it normally does not need to be addressed to resolve other, immediately appealable issues.
In Makozy, v. Westcor Land Title, the Eleventh Circuit tackled a particularly complicated issue of appellate timing that involved the interaction between Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(4) and Rule 4(a)(7). Simplifying as much as possible (which isn’t much), the case asked if a post-judgment motion could shorten the 150 day period for entry of a judgment when the district court doesn’t set out the judgment in a separate document. The court answered “no,” joining the Ninth and Tenth Circuits.
It’s a solid decision. My only gripe is that it’s unpublished and thus not precedential.
Earlier this year, the Eleventh Circuit reiterated its rule that litigants cannot voluntarily dismiss individual claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1). That portion of the rule permits plaintiffs to voluntarily dismiss “an action without a court order.” So plaintiffs can dismiss only entire actions under Rule 41(a)(1), and attempts to dismiss individual claims are ineffective.
Last week, in Rosell v. VMSB, LLC, the Eleventh Circuit added that litigants cannot voluntarily dismiss individual claims Rule 41(a)(2). That part of Rule 41 permits voluntary dismissals via court order. But, according to the Eleventh Circuit, it also permits the dismissal only of entire actions. So when the litigants in Rosell settled the only unresolved claim, they needed to either obtain a partial judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) or amend the complaint to remove the settled claim. Otherwise, there would be no final decision and no opportunity to appeal.
As I said earlier this year, I have my doubts about the “actions-only” interpretation of Rule 41. Rosell only reinforces those doubts.
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