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Page Number: 25

12 

COINBASE, INC. v. BIELSKI 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

a judge could allow the parties to conduct only the forms of
discovery that would also be permitted in arbitration.  That 
would save time and leave nobody worse off even if, as the
majority fears, the dispute ultimately heads to arbitration.
But this kind of equitable resolution, which the court and
the parties might consider “sensible,” ante, at 6, is forbidden 
under the majority’s mandatory-general-stay rule. 

In addition, for each of the majority’s concerns favoring a
mandatory  stay,  there  are  countervailing  considerations. 
The  majority  professes  interest  in  “efficiency.”  Ibid.    But  
forcing district court proceedings to a halt—for months or 
years while the appeal runs its course—is itself inefficient.
The majority also fears losing other “asserted benefits of ar-
bitration” without a stay.  Ibid.  But with a stay, the party
opposing arbitration loses the benefits of immediate litiga-
tion.  A plaintiff’s request for injunctive protection against 
imminent harm, for example, goes unanswered under the 
majority’s rule.  Similarly, while the majority laments set-
tlement pressure on parties seeking arbitration, ibid., the 
rule it announces imposes settlement pressure in the oppo-
site  direction.  With  justice  delayed  while  the  case  is  on 
hold, parties “could be forced to settle,” ibid., because they 
do  not  wish—or  cannot  afford—to  leave  their  claims  in 
limbo.  Incongruously,  the  majority  inflicts  these  burdens
on the party that won the arbitrability issue before the dis-
trict court (the party opposing arbitration). 

In  categorically  resolving  these  conflicts  in  favor  of  the
pro-arbitration  party,  the  majority’s  analysis  comes  down
to this: Because the pro-arbitration party gets an interlocu-
tory appeal, it should also get an automatic stay.  Ibid.; see 
L. Numeroff, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (1985).  But Con-
gress was entitled to give one without the other.  And the 
right to interlocutory appeal is valuable on its own.  It is, as 
the  majority  explains,  “a  rare  statutory  exception  to  the 
usual  rule  that  parties  may  not  appeal  before  final  judg-
ment.”  Ante, at 3.  Even without a stay, if the interlocutory