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Page Number: 9

6 

COINBASE, INC. v. BIELSKI 

Opinion of the Court 

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 belonged 
in arbitration all along.  Absent a stay, parties also could be
forced  to  settle  to  avoid  the  district  court  proceedings
(including discovery and trial) that they contracted to avoid
  That  potential  for  coercion  is 
through  arbitration. 
especially pronounced in class actions, where the possibility 
of colossal liability can lead to what Judge Friendly called 
“blackmail settlements.”  H. Friendly, Federal Jurisdiction:
A General View 120 (1973). 

As Judge Easterbrook stated, continuation of proceedings
in the district court “largely defeats the point of the appeal.” 
Bradford-Scott, 128 F. 3d, at 505.  A right to interlocutory 
appeal of the arbitrability issue without an automatic stay 
of  the  district  court  proceedings  is  therefore  like  a  lock
without a key, a bat without a ball, a computer without a
keyboard—in other words, not especially sensible.

From the Judiciary’s institutional perspective, moreover,
allowing  a  case  to  proceed  simultaneously  in  the  district
court and the court of appeals creates the possibility that 
the  district  court  will  waste  scarce  judicial  resources—
which could be devoted to other pressing criminal or civil
matters—on  a  dispute  that  will  ultimately  head  to
arbitration  in  any  event.    That  scenario  represents  the 
“worst  possible  outcome”  for  parties  and  the  courts:
litigating a dispute in the district court only for the court of
appeals to “reverse and order the dispute arbitrated.”  Id., 
at 506.  The Griggs rule avoids that detrimental result. 

Importantly,  Congress’s 

longstanding  practice  both 
reflects  and  reinforces  the  Griggs  rule.  When  Congress 
wants  to  authorize  an  interlocutory  appeal  and  to 
automatically  stay  the  district  court  proceedings  during