Opinion ID: 194981
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Possible Sources of Appellate Jurisdiction.

Text: 12 Our determination that 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1447(d) does not operate to bar appellate review merely removes the first hurdle blocking the jurisdictional path. To pass the next hurdle, the Reinsurers must demonstrate the existence and applicability of some affirmative authority conferring jurisdiction on the courts of appeals to review remand orders of the sort at issue here. The Reinsurers try to clear this hurdle from three different angles. They urge that the remand order is appealable under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291 (1988) (conferring jurisdiction on the courts of appeals to review final decisions of the district courts), or, alternatively, as a collateral order, see Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 1225, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949), or, if all else fails, on the basis that the district court's rulings, taken in their totality, constitute a set of orders appealable under the Federal Arbitration Act. We find these exhortations unconvincing. 13 1. The Final Judgment Rule. In respect to the suggestion that the remand order is appealable as a final judgment, the sockdolager is that the Supreme Court has said exactly the opposite: 14 [B]ecause an order remanding a removed action does not represent a final judgment reviewable by appeal, the remedy in such a case is by mandamus to compel action, and not by writ of error to review what has been done. 15 Thermtron, 423 U.S. at 352-53, 96 S.Ct. at 594 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 16 The Reinsurers attempt to deflect the force of this blunt statement by suggesting that it should be regarded as dictum. They posit that, because the Thermtron Court found the remand order so egregious as to justify mandamus, no need to decide the availability of direct appellate review ever arose. In advancing this suggestion, the Reinsurers are whistling past the graveyard. 17 Dictum is a term that judges and lawyers use to describe comments relevant, but not essential, to the disposition of legal questions pending before a court. See Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 454-55, 92 S.Ct. 1653, 1661-62, 32 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972); Dedham Water Co. v. Cumberland Farms Dairy, Inc., 972 F.2d 453, 459 (1st Cir.1992); United States v. Crawley, 837 F.2d 291, 292-93 (7th Cir.1988). Given the familiar principle that whatever may be done without the employment of [mandamus], may not be done with it, Ex parte Rowland, 104 U.S. 604, 617, 26 L.Ed. 861 (1882)); see also Helstoski v. Meanor, 442 U.S. 500, 505-08, 99 S.Ct. 2445, 2448-49, 61 L.Ed.2d 30 (1979), the Court's statement in Thermtron defies description as mere dictum. To the exact contrary, the mandamus remedy employed in Thermtron necessarily betokened, and, indeed, depended on, the Court's antecedent holding anent the unavailability of direct appellate review. Because deleting the challenged statement would have impaired the analytical foundation of the Court's ultimate decision to issue mandamus, that statement is properly categorized as part of the court's holding, not as dictum. 3 18 Still using the final judgment rule as their stepping stone, the Reinsurers make a second effort to boost themselves over the hurdle--an effort hinging on the assumption that Thermtron did not survive the Court's later decision in Moses H. Cone Memorial Hosp. v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 103 S.Ct. 927, 74 L.Ed.2d 765 (1983). This argument, too, is easily repelled. The short, dispositive answer to the argument is that this court only recently refused to follow those cases suggesting that Cone undermines Thermtron, and, instead, continued to apply Thermtron 's rule that remand orders are not final. See Garcia, 6 F.3d at 4-5. That ends the matter. It is black-letter law that, in a multi-panel circuit, newly constituted panels are, with few exceptions (none applicable here), bound by prior panel decisions closely in point. See, e.g., United States v. Wogan, 938 F.2d 1446, 1449 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 441, 116 L.Ed.2d 460 (1991); Jusino v. Zayas, 875 F.2d 986, 993 (1st Cir.1989). Thus, principles of stare decisis require our allegiance to the Thermtron rule in this situation. 19 The slightly longer, but equally forceful, rebuttal is that there seem to be other good reasons counselling in favor of Thermtron's continued vitality. In Cone, the Court held that a stay, issued in order to permit a related state case to proceed prior to the federal case, could be appealed as a final order. But, Cone makes no reference to Thermtron 's holding vis-a-vis remand orders, a circumstance which strongly suggests that the Court viewed the rules pertaining to remands and to stays, respectively, as separate and distinct. Moreover, the Supreme Court has continued to rely on Thermtron in the post-Cone era. See, e.g., Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 347 & n. 4, 108 S.Ct. 614, 617 & n. 4, 98 L.Ed.2d 720 (1988). Such continuing reliance indicates that Thermtron is still alive and well. Then, too, our reluctance to find that Cone implicitly overruled Thermtron is sharpened by the fact that Thermtron 's language is rather absolute. Garcia, at 4. Where the Court has expressed a rule so clearly, inferior courts are entitled to expect equally blunt guidance should the Court wish to retract the rule or declare that it is no longer good law. Cone sends no such signal. 20 Lastly, and relatedly, Thermtron and Cone, scrutinized side by side, highlight certain differences between remand orders and stay orders. Whereas stay orders ordinarily signal a determination that there are federal interests at stake, sufficient ultimately to justify a hearing in federal court, remands, by definition, embody a determination that the cognizable federal interests, if any, when compared to the cognizable state interests, are so lacking in weight that the federal court either does not have, or should not appropriately exercise, jurisdiction. A remanded case's failure to pass a threshold test of this sort might possibly explain why a federal appeal as of right does not attach and the back-up remedy of mandamus is deemed adequate protection. Furthermore, remand orders typically involve a single case that a federal court returns to the state tribunal whence it emanated. Consequently, the litigation continues to progress, albeit in a state rather than a federal forum. In that sense, there is neither a permanent disposition of the case nor a disruption of its progress. A stay, on the other hand, typically involves two separate proceedings, say, one in a state court and one in a federal court. When the federal tribunal stays the latter pending the outcome of the former in state court, res judicata principles make that decision effectively final as to certain aspects of the federal case. See Cone, 460 U.S. at 10-13 & n. 11, 103 S.Ct. at 933-36 & n. 11. We think this finality helps to explain why the Court has permitted appeals to be taken from stay orders in situations where remand orders would not be appealable. See In re Amoco Petroleum Additives Co., 964 F.2d 706, 712 (7th Cir.1992). And we think that this twist affords an added reason why, notwithstanding Cone, Thermtron 's holding that a remand order is not a final judgment remains intact. 21 2. The Collateral Order Doctrine. Next, the Reinsurers argue that the remand order, even if not a final judgment, may nonetheless be appealable under the collateral order doctrine. That doctrine carves out a narrow exception to the normal application of the final judgment rule, Midland Asphalt Corp. v. United States, 489 U.S. 794, 798, 109 S.Ct. 1494, 1498, 103 L.Ed.2d 879 (1989), limited to orders that (1) conclusively determine (2) important legal questions which are (3) completely separate from the merits of the underlying action and are (4) effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. See Lauro Lines S.R.L. v. Chasser, 490 U.S. 495, 498, 109 S.Ct. 1976, 1978, 104 L.Ed.2d 548 (1989); Cohen, 337 U.S. at 546, 69 S.Ct. at 1225-26; In re Insurers Syndicate, etc., 864 F.2d 208, 210 (1st Cir.1988). The Reinsurers contend that the district court's remand order meets these four preconditions. 22 Once outside the purview of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1447(d), see supra Part II(A), there is no absolute rule either prohibiting or permitting immediate appellate review of remand-related orders under the Cohen rubric. Compare, e.g., Karl Koch Erecting Co. v. New York Convention Ctr. Dev. Corp., 838 F.2d 656, 658-59 (2d Cir.1988) (permitting review of decision to remand based on interpretation of forum selection clause) with, e.g., Corcoran v. Ardra Ins. Co., 842 F.2d at 35 (dismissing appeal of decision to remand based on Burford abstention). Rather, courts must apply the multi-pronged Cohen test to each remand order (or, at least, to each type of remand order) in an individualized, case-specific manner. See, e.g., Garcia, 6 F.3d at 4-5 (undertaking case-specific analysis). And, in determining whether a particular remand order falls within or without Cohen 's collateral order exception, courts must look to the general circumstances surrounding the order's issuance, including the reasons underlying it. See Travelers Ins. Co. v. Keeling, 996 F.2d 1485, 1488-89 (2d Cir.1993); Corcoran, 842 F.2d at 35. 23 The remand order here at issue does not pass muster under Cohen. The salient legal question that stands separate and apart from the merits in this case--that is, the collateral issue--is whether the parties' overall dispute should be resolved in arbitration. The district court's ruling did not conclusively determine this issue. Instead, the district court's order set to rest only the preliminary question of which court should resolve the collateral issue. In other words, the collateral issue remains an open matter--a matter that the state court must yet decide. We agree with the Second Circuit that, to come within the collateral order rule, a decree must definitively resolve the merits of the collateral issue, not merely determine which court will thereafter resolve it. See Corcoran, 842 F.2d at 35; see also Bennett v. Liberty Nat'l Fire Ins. Co., 968 F.2d 969, 970-71 (9th Cir.1992). Determining whether a state or federal court is to resolve an issue constitutes the definitive resolution of a collateral matter only when special circumstances exist, such as when the remand is pursuant to judicial interpretation of a forum-selection provision. See Corcoran, 842 F.2d at 35. That is not the case here. Hence, the order that the Reinsurers contest does not satisfy the first precondition to appealability under the Cohen doctrine. 24 The Reinsurers attempt to subvert this conclusion by redefining the collateral issue. They suggest that the question is not whether the underlying dispute should be resolved in arbitration, but, rather, whether a federal or state court is the proper forum for determining the dispute's arbitrability. We think this argument proves too much. Every remand order conclusively determines which court will thereafter determine the issues in controversy. Thus, appellants' approach could easily expand Cohen beyond the isthmian confines that the Court envisioned, see Cohen, 337 U.S. at 546, 69 S.Ct. at 1225-26 (predicting that only a small class of cases would be affected by the doctrine), and thereby thwart the strong federal interest in precluding piecemeal appeals. See Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 471, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 2459, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978); Recticel, 859 F.2d at 1003 & n. 3. At any rate, we are skeptical about permitting litigants to avoid Cohen 's first prong by the simple expedient of distilling issues to the smallest possible unit of measurement. We, therefore, decline to accept the Reinsurers' attempted reformulation of the collateral issue. See generally Travelers Ins. Co. v. Keeling, 996 F.2d at 1489 (refusing, in nearly identical circumstances, to redefine the issue in dispute); Corcoran, 842 F.2d at 35 (similar). 25 In all events, we conclude that, whatever way the collateral issue is defined, the remand order is not immediately appealable because it fails another element of the test. Cohen requires that the disputed issue represent an important and unsettled question of controlling law, not merely a question of the proper exercise of the trial court's discretion. Boreri v. Fiat S.p.A., 763 F.2d 17, 21 (1st Cir.1985); accord Insurers Syndicate, 864 F.2d at 210; United States v. Sorren, 605 F.2d 1211, 1213 (1st Cir.1979); see also Lauro Lines, 490 U.S. at 503, 109 S.Ct. at 1980 (Scalia, J., concurring) (explaining that the collateral issue must be sufficiently important to overcome the policies militating against interlocutory appeals). Although the question, admittedly, is not free from doubt--the Convention, after all, contemplates the possibility of removal when a state-court proceeding relates to an arbitration agreement and involves a foreign reinsurer--we believe that the Burford-based decision as to which forum, state or federal, will ultimately determine arbitrability lacks the necessary high degree of importance that is demanded. This conclusion is scarcely original. Both the Court, in Thermtron, and the Congress, in enacting 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1447, have adumbrated that, absent exceptional circumstances, the determination that one particular court, rather than some other equally qualified court, will adjudicate an issue is not so vital as to outweigh the interests of the parties and of society in the swift, efficient administration of justice. Indeed, Thermtron and section 1447 serve as vivid reminders that, when remand is at stake, the policies militating against interlocutory appeal possess their full vigor. See generally 14A Charles A. Wright, et al., Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 3740 (1985 & Supp.1993). 26 We hold, therefore, that an order to remand premised on Burford abstention is not immediately appealable under the Cohen rubric. In reaching this result, we find ourselves in agreement with the Second Circuit. See Corcoran, 842 F.2d at 35. We expressly decline to extend the Fifth Circuit's decision in McDermott Int'l v. Lloyds Underwriters, 944 F.2d 1199, 1203 & n. 5 (5th Cir.1991), beyond the facts there presented. 4 When all is said and done, in this case, as in Garcia, 6 F.3d at 5, we cannot find a 'collateral order' exception large enough to fit our case that does not swallow up (and thereby simply disregard) the general rule. 27 3. The Federal Arbitration Act. The Federal Arbitration Act is the last source of the Reinsurers' effort to generate an adequate jurisdictional showing. 5 The Act provides, inter alia, that an appeal may be taken from an order refusing a stay pending arbitration or denying a motion to compel arbitration. See 9 U.S.C. Sec. 16(a)(1)(A), (C) (Supp. V 1992). Here, the district court, after remanding the case, stated that it was denying appellants' motions to compel arbitration and stay the litigation, without prejudice. The Reinsurers endeavor to appeal from these denials. We are unimpressed. 28 We think it is evident that the district court, having indicated its intention to remand the case to state court, added the denied without prejudice language merely as a way of flagging that it intended the arbitrability issue to be decided in a state court and that the federal court, in remanding, took no view of arbitrability. The district court's remarks, then, did not deal with the merits of the arbitration question and were not arbitrability denials of the sort that the Federal Arbitration Act makes immediately appealable. Compare Asset Allocation & Management Co. v. Western Employers Ins. Co., 892 F.2d 566, 574 (7th Cir.1989) (finding district court's order appealable under Federal Arbitration Act) with Jeske v. Brooks, 875 F.2d 71, 73 (4th Cir.1989) (finding district court's order inappropriate for appeal). To hold otherwise would be mechanically to elevate form over substance, a practice that we have consistently spurned. See, e.g., United States v. Bramble, 925 F.2d 532, 534 (1st Cir.1991); Maine v. Thomas, 874 F.2d 883, 886 (1st Cir.1989). 29 The Reinsurers cannot achieve a different result even if the district court acted with a more meddlesome intent. Once it remanded the case to a state forum, the district court lost jurisdiction over the case and, therefore, lacked the authority to issue substantive orders of the sort that the Reinsurers suggest were issued here. See, e.g., In re La Providencia Dev. Corp., 406 F.2d 251, 252-53 (1st Cir.1969); see also General Elec. Co. v. Byrne, 611 F.2d 670, 672-73 (7th Cir.1979) (per curiam) (stating that a transfer order deprives the transferor court of jurisdiction until the case is returned to it); cf. Moore v. Permanente Medical Group, Inc., 981 F.2d 443, 445 (9th Cir.1992) (holding that a district court possessed the authority to award attorneys' fees after remanding only because the award of fees was specifically authorized by the remand statute and was, therefore, collateral to the decision to remand); In re Spillane, 884 F.2d 642, 645-46 (1st Cir.1989) (similar, but in venue-transfer context). Put another way, absent an emergency or some other extraordinary circumstance, the district court could only have issued substantive orders necessary to reaching the decision to remand. 6 See, e.g., Karl Koch, 838 F.2d at 659 (remanding because court interpreted a forum-selection provision as requiring parties to litigate in state court); Pelleport Investors, Inc. v. Budco Quality Theatres, Inc., 741 F.2d 273, 275 (9th Cir.1984) (similar). 30 In the last analysis, whether or not we construe the district court's remarks as rulings, the bottom line is unaffected: the denials have no legal effect aside from making clear the dimensions of the issues that the court proposed to leave unadjudicated. 31 4. Summary. To recapitulate, under the circumstances of this litigation, the district court's remand order is not a final judgment; it is not an appealable collateral command; and its accouterments are not appealable under the Federal Arbitration Act. Because the Reinsurers have been wholly unable to demonstrate a cognizable hook on which appellate jurisdiction may be hung, their appeal must be dismissed for want of jurisdiction. 7