Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 318.0

524us1$86Q 02-17-99 18:23:51 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 524 U. S. 266 (1998)

273

Opinion of the Court

Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm’rs, 643 F. 2d
230, 233 (CA5 1981) (same).

Finally, we recognize that the Ninth Circuit expressed
concern that a rule of law permitting appeals in these cir-
cumstances would impose additional, and unnecessary, bur-
dens upon federal appeals courts. The Solicitor General,
while noting that the federal courts reviewed nearly 10,000
Social Security Administration decisions in 1996, says that
the “[p]ractical [c]onsequences” of permitting appeals “[a]re
limited.” Brief for Respondent 26; Reply Brief for Re-
spondent 17, n. 13. Except for unusual cases, he believes, a
claimant obtaining a remand will prefer to return to the
agency rather than to appeal immediately seeking outright
agency reversal—because appeal means further delay, be-
cause the chance of obtaining reversal should be small, and
because the appeal (if it provokes a Government cross-
appeal) risks losing all. Brief for Respondent 26–29.

Regardless, as we noted in Finkelstein, congressional stat-
utes governing appealability normally proceed by deﬁning
“classes” of cases where appeals will (or will not) lie.
496
U. S., at 628. The statutes at issue here do not give courts
the power to redeﬁne, or to subdivide, those classes, accord-
ing to whether or not they believe, in a particular case, fur-
ther agency proceedings might obviate the need for an imme-
diate appeal. Thus, if the Solicitor General proves wrong in
his prediction, the remedy must be legislative in nature.

For these reasons, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit is
reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.