Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-105_5536.pdf
Page Number: 2

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COINBASE, INC. v. BIELSKI 

Syllabus 

The common practice of staying district court proceedings during the
pendency of an interlocutory appeal taken under §16(a) reflects com-
mon sense.  If the district court could move forward with pre-trial and
trial proceedings while the appeal on arbitrability was ongoing, then 
many of the asserted benefits of arbitration (efficiency, less expense,
less intrusive discovery, and the like) would be irretrievably lost—even
if the court of appeals later concluded that the case actually had be-
longed  in  arbitration  all  along.   Absent  a  stay,  parties  also  could  be 
forced to settle to avoid the district court proceedings (including dis-
covery  and  trial)  that  they  contracted  to  avoid  through  arbitration. 
The Griggs rule avoids these detrimental results.  

Congress’s  longstanding  practice  reflects  the  Griggs  rule.    Given 
Griggs, when Congress wants to authorize an interlocutory appeal and
to automatically stay the district court proceedings during that appeal, 
Congress ordinarily need not say anything about a stay.  By contrast, 
when Congress wants to authorize an interlocutory appeal, but not to 
automatically  stay  district  court  proceedings  pending  that  appeal, 
Congress typically says so.  Since the creation of the modern courts of 
appeals system in 1891, Congress has enacted multiple statutory “non-
stay” provisions.  Pp. 2–7.

(b) Bielski’s arguments to overcome the Griggs principle are unper-
suasive.  First,  the  courts  of  appeals  possess  robust  tools  to  prevent 
unwarranted delay and deter frivolous interlocutory appeals that an
automatic stay might otherwise encourage.  Second, Congress included 
explicit  stay  requirements  in  two  other  statutory  provisions  for  rea-
sons particular to those statutes, not because Congress thought that 
an interlocutory appeal did not ordinarily stay district court proceed-
ings.  Third, the result here does not create a special, arbitration-pre-
ferring procedural rule, but simply subjects arbitrability appeals to the 
same  stay  principles  that  courts  apply  in  other  analogous  contexts
where an interlocutory appeal is authorized.  Fourth, experience shows 
that ordinary discretionary stay factors would not adequately protect 
parties’ rights to an interlocutory appellate determination of arbitra-
bility.  In any event, the background Griggs rule applies regardless of 
how often courts might otherwise grant stays under the ordinary dis-
cretionary  stay  factors.  Fifth,  while  the  Court  has  recognized  that 
questions of arbitrability are severable from merits questions, the sole
issue here is whether the district court’s authority to consider a case is 
“involved in the appeal” when an appellate court considers the thresh-
old question of arbitrability, Griggs, 459 U. S., at 58.  The answer is 
yes.  Pp. 7–10. 

Reversed and remanded.