Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-511_o75p.pdf
Page Number: 16.0

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SHOOP v. TWYFORD 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

the workings of the judicial system.  That can lead to a num-
ber of harms, including, e.g., “mak[ing] it more difficult for 
trial judges to do their basic job—supervising trial proceed-
ings”; “threaten[ing] those proceedings with delay, adding 
costs and diminishing coherence”; and “risk[ing] additional, 
and unnecessary, appellate court work.”  Johnson v. Jones, 
515 U. S. 304, 309 (1995).

At  the  same  time,  interlocutory  appeals  can  sometimes
have “important countervailing benefits.”  Ibid.  Balancing
the harms and benefits can be a difficult task, and Congress
has prescribed a means for accomplishing that task by way 
of rulemaking.  It has authorized this Court to promulgate 
rules “defin[ing] when a ruling of a district court is final for
the purposes of appeal under section 1291,” §2072(c), and 
“provid[ing] for an appeal of an interlocutory decision to the 
courts of appeals that is not otherwise provided for” by stat-
ute, §1292(e).  The State does not claim that any rule prom-
ulgated  pursuant  to  this  authority  permits  interlocutory 
appeal of the transportation order here.  Instead, the State 
asks us to create such a rule by court decision, outside of 
the congressionally prescribed rulemaking process. 

It is true that, in the past, we have occasionally done so
under what we have called the “collateral order doctrine.” 
That  doctrine  allows  interlocutory  appeal  from  a  “small
class” of orders that “finally determine claims of right sep-
arable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action.” 
Cohen,  337  U. S.,  at  546.    But  we  have  repeatedly  stated 
that this doctrine is a “ ‘narrow’ exception [that] should stay 
that way and never be allowed to swallow the general rule 
that  a  party  is  entitled  to  a  single  appeal,  to  be  deferred 
until final judgment has been entered.”  Digital Equipment 
Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U. S. 863, 868 (1994) (ci-
tation omitted); see also Will v. Hallock, 546 U. S. 345, 350 
(2006) (“[A]lthough the Court has been asked many times 
to expand the ‘small class’ of collaterally appealable orders,