Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 261

100 

OCTOBER  TERM,  2009 

Syllabus 

MOHAWK  INDUSTRIES,  INC.  v.  CARPENTER 

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for 
the eleventh circuit 

No. 08–678.  Argued October 5, 2009—Decided December 8, 2009 

When  respondent  Norman  Carpenter  informed  the  human  resources  de­
partment  of  his  employer,  petitioner  Mohawk  Industries,  Inc.,  that 
the company employed undocumented immigrants, he was unaware that 
Mohawk  stood  accused  in  a  pending  class  action—the  Williams  case— 
of  conspiring  to  drive  down  its  legal  employees’  wages  by  knowingly 
hiring  undocumented  workers.  Mohawk  directed  Carpenter  to  meet 
with  the  company’s  retained  counsel  in  Williams,  who  allegedly  pres­
sured Carpenter to recant his statements.  When he refused, Carpenter 
maintains  in  this  unlawful  termination  suit,  Mohawk  ﬁred  him  under 
false pretenses.  In granting Carpenter’s motion  to compel Mohawk to 
produce  information  concerning  his  meeting  with  retained  counsel  and 
the company’s termination decision, the District Court agreed with Mo­
hawk  that  the  requested  information  was  protected  by  the  attorney-
client  privilege,  but  concluded  that  Mohawk  had  implicitly  waived  the 
privilege  through  its  disclosures  in  the  Williams  case.  The  court  de­
clined  to  certify  its  order  for  interlocutory  appeal,  and  the  Eleventh 
Circuit dismissed Mohawk’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction, holding, inter 
alia,  that  the  District  Court’s  ruling  did  not  qualify  as  an  immediately 
appealable  collateral  order  under  Cohen  v.  Beneﬁcial  Industrial  Loan 
Corp., 337 U. S. 541, because a discovery order implicating the attorney-
client  privilege  can  be  adequately  reviewed  on  appeal  from  ﬁnal 
judgment. 

Held:  Disclosure  orders  adverse  to  the  attorney-client  privilege  do  not 
qualify for immediate appeal under the collateral order doctrine. 
Pp. 106–114. 

(a)  Courts of Appeals “have jurisdiction of appeals from all ﬁnal deci­
sions of the district courts.”  28 U. S. C. § 1291.  “[F]inal decisions” en­
compass  not  only  judgments  that  “terminate  an  action,”  but  also  a 
“small  class”  of  prejudgment  orders  that  are  “collateral  to”  an  action’s 
merits  and  “too  important”  to  be  denied  immediate  review,  Cohen, 
337 U. S., at 545–546.  “That small category includes only decisions that 
are . . .  effectively  unreviewable  on  appeal  from  the  ﬁnal  judgment  in 
the underlying action.”  Swint v.  Chambers County Comm’n, 514 U. S. 
35,  42.  The  decisive  consideration  in  determining  whether  a  right  is 
effectively  unreviewable  is  whether  delaying  review  until  the  entry  of 
ﬁnal  judgment  “would  imperil  a  substantial  public  interest”  or  “some