Source: http://ga.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20180322_0000404.C11.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 18:17:39+00:00

Document:
L-3 COMMUNICATIONS VERTEX AEROSPACE LLC, ESTATE OF CHARLES HAROLD MCDANIEL, Defendants-Appellants.
Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, DUBINA, Circuit Judge, and ABRAMS, [*] District Judge.
Kimberly Nice filed this wrongful death action against L-3 Communications Vertex Aerospace and the Estate of Charles McDaniel after a Navy aircraft crashed during a training exercise, killing her husband and everyone else on board. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on political question grounds, which the district court denied. The defendants appeal that order, contending that interlocutory review is proper under the collateral order doctrine and, alternatively, that it is appropriate under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).
First Lieutenant Shawn Nice was training as a navigator on a Navy-owned jet aircraft during a training exercise when the aircraft crashed in north Georgia. Charles McDaniel, a Navy-approved pilot and Vertex employee, was piloting the aircraft when it crashed. An investigation showed that the aircraft was travelling at a speed of 330 knots when a malfunction caused an inadvertent left rudder movement, which McDaniel countered by moving the rudder to the right. McDaniel's attempt to compensate for the malfunction at that speed broke the tail apart, causing the crash.
Nice's wife filed this wrongful death action against Vertex and McDaniel's estate. She claimed that McDaniel's negligent response to the malfunction caused the tail to fail and the aircraft to crash. The defendants raised the affirmative defense of comparative fault by the Navy, arguing that the Navy's choice of the aircraft, selection of the mission speed and altitude, and oversights in the training manual contributed in whole or in part to the crash. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the ground that their comparative fault defense would require the jury to evaluate sensitive Navy decisions, making the case nonjusticiable under the political question doctrine.
The district court denied the motion, finding that the negligence claim hinged on McDaniel's reaction to the malfunction, which had nothing to do with the Navy's decisions. The defendants appealed that order, asserting appellate jurisdiction as of right under the collateral order doctrine. The defendants also filed a petition for permission to appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), which permits discretionary interlocutory appeals, and a motions panel of this Court granted that petition.
We have jurisdiction over "appeals from all final decisions of the district courts of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 1291. A decision "is considered final and appealable only if it ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment, " W.R. Huff Asset Mgmt. Co. v. Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co., L.P., 566 F.3d 979, 984 (11th Cir. 2009), so denials of a motion to dismiss are normally not considered final under § 1291, see Foy v. Schantz, Schatzman & Aaronson, P.A., 108 F.3d 1347, 1350 (11th Cir. 1997).
This appeal presents two jurisdictional issues: (1) whether the district court's order is appealable as of right under the collateral order doctrine, which is an exception to the final judgment rule, and (2) whether we should exercise our discretion to permit the defendants' appeal under § 1292(b).
The collateral order doctrine recognizes "a small category of decisions that, although they do not end the litigation, must nonetheless be considered final." In re Hubbard, 803 F.3d 1298, 1305 (11th Cir. 2015) (quotation marks omitted). That small category "includes only decisions that are conclusive, that resolve important questions separate from the merits, and that are effectively unreviewable on appeal from the final judgment in the underlying action." Mohawk Indus., Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U.S. 100, 106, 130 S.Ct. 599, 605 (2009). Nice does not contest the first two requirements. As for the third requirement, the defendants argue that without an immediate appeal their comparative fault defense will require the jury to second-guess sensitive Navy decisions, which harms the public's interest in separation of powers, and a later appeal will not undo that damage. That argument fails.

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