Case ID: f-appx_78/html/0951-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Michael BIAS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Leslie WOODS; et al., Defendants, Nenita SABATER, Defendant-Appellant.
    No. 02-10889.
    Summary Calendar.
    United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.
    Oct. 23, 2003.
    Michael Bias, pro se, Amarillo, TX, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
    Joseph D. Libby, Dyer & Libby, Richmond, TX, for Defendant-Appellant.
    Before JONES, BENAVIDES, and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM.

Nenita Sabater brings this interlocutory appeal to challenge the trial court’s finding following a bench trial that she was not entitled to qualified immunity in defense of the claims brought against her by Michael Bias, Texas prisoner # 769345. This court must raise, sua sponte, the issue of its own jurisdiction, if necessary. Mosley v. Cozby, 813 F.2d 659, 660 (5th Cir.1987). We have jurisdiction of “appeals from all final decisions of the district courts.” 28 U.S.C. § 1291. “[A] district court’s denial of a claim of qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue of law, is an appealable ‘final decision’ within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 notwithstanding the absence of a final judgment.” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985). The rationale of the Supreme Court in extending the collateral order doctrine to appeals from denials of qualified immunity was that the “entitlement is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability” and would be “effectively lost if a case [was] erroneously permitted to go to trial.” Id. at 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806. Mitchell was an appeal from a denial of qualified immunity raised in a motion for summary judgment. A district court’s denial of summary judgment on the issue of qualified immunity “conclusively determines the defendant’s claim of right not to stand trial” and that is the basis for the court’s decision to allow an immediate appeal. Id. at 527, 105 S.Ct. 2806.

That rationale does not apply in this case. Sabater has not avoided trial; she has already been adjudged liable for Bias’s injuries, although damages have not yet been determined. “An order that determines the liability but leaves unresolved the assessment of damages is not final within the meaning of [28 U.S.C. § ] 1291.” Southern Travel Club v. Carnival Air Lines, Inc., 986 F.2d 125, 129-30 (5th Cir.1993).

The policy of the final judgment rule against piecemeal and duplicative litigation, as embodied in 28 U.S.C. § 1291, is offended by Sabater’s attempted appeal in this case. Matter of U.S. Abatement Carp., 39 F.3d 563, 567 (5th Cir.1994). Sabater’s arguments can be considered and reviewed in an appeal from any final judgment that follows the district court’s assessment of damages. We therefore DISMISS this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

Bias has moved for appointment of counsel and has filed two motions for leave to file an out-of-time brief. These motions are DENIED AS MOOT. 
      
       Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.