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I was on spring break last week and took a break from the weekly roundup. But I’m back with decisions and developments from the past two weeks (February 27–March 12). And there were several decisions of note.

Two courts dismissed appeals based on close textual readings of jurisdictional statutes. A divided Eleventh Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction to review sua sponte CAFA remands.…

The Class Action Fairness Act (often referred to as “CAFA”) permits the removal of certain class actions brought in state court. CAFA includes a special appellate provision—28 U.S.C. § 1453(c)(1)—which gives the courts of appeals discretion to review a district court order “granting or denying a motion to remand a class action to the State court from which it was removed.”…

28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) gives the courts of appeals jurisdiction to immediately review many district court decisions involving injunctive relief. But § 1292(a)(1)’s text includes an important qualifier. It applies to “[i]nterlocutory orders of the district courts.” Normally this qualifier does little work. After all, most (if not nearly all) § 1292(a)(1) appeals involve injunctions issued by a district court.…

One requirement for appeal via the collateral-order doctrine is that the district court’s order be effectively unreviewable in an appeal after a final judgment. A prime candidate for satisfying this unreviewability requirement are immunities from suit. If a defense protects a litigant from the burdens and uncertainties of trial, it must be vindicated immediately if it is to be vindicated at all.…

Last week saw a few cases of note. The Seventh Circuit held that an order requiring an insurance company to defend its insured was an appealable injunction. The Sixth Circuit limited a sovereign-immunity appeal to sovereign-immunity issues, refusing to address standing or municipal liability. The Sixth Circuit also split on the extent to which defendants raised arguments within the court’s jurisdiction in a qualified-immunity appeal.…

After taking last week off from the roundup, I’m back with a two-week edition. The Fourth Circuit split on whether it could extend pendent appellate jurisdiction over orders directing arbitration. The First Circuit determined that a district court’s criticism of attorneys was not sufficiently related to a formal sanction to be appealable.…

The general rule for appealing interlocutory arbitration orders is pretty straightforward. Under 9 U.S.C. § 16, orders that refuse to direct arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act are immediately appealable. Orders that direct arbitration aren’t. But what if an order directs arbitration on some claims but not on others?…

Last week, the Ninth Circuit addressed whether a letter from the Drug Enforcement Agency amounted to an appealable “final decision of the Attorney General.” The Federal Circuit held that it could review an order enforcing a settlement agreement. And several courts had to deal with improper fact-based qualified-immunity appeals. Plus appeals involving refusals to reconsider decisions ordering arbitration and the scope of state-law immunity appeals.…

Short roundup this week. The First Circuit reviewed a refusal to enjoin a criminal prosecution. And the Fifth Circuit explained that administrative exhaustion was not required in extraordinary-ability visa cases. In the course of doing so, that court questioned its caselaw deeming administrative exhaustion jurisdictional in this context. Plus appeals involving an undetermined amount of liability, the denial of a Colorado River stay, and more.…

Last week saw two rare opinions on the discretionary appeals. The Ninth Circuit refused to hear a certified appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) because the certified order did not include a question of law. And the Third Circuit accepted a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f) petition to appeal a class-certification decision, partly due to a perception that the district court judge was pressuring the defendants to settle.…