Opinion ID: 176129
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Do We Have Appellate Jurisdiction to Review the District Court's Order?

Text: Section 1291 of the Judicial Code provides federal courts of appeals with jurisdiction to review final decisions of the district courts. 28 U.S.C. § 1291; accord Mohawk Indus., Inc. v. Carpenter, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 599, 603, 175 L.Ed.2d 458 (2009). A final decision is typically one by which a district court disassociates itself from a case. Mohawk, 130 S.Ct. at 604-05 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). However, a small set of prejudgment orders that are `collateral to' the merits of an action and `too important' to be denied immediate review, id. at 603, quoting Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949), are also considered final decisions for purposes of the statute. Id. This small set of interlocutory orders that are deemed final includes only decisions [(1) ] that are conclusive, [ (2) ] that resolve important questions separate from the merits, and [ (3) ] that are effectively unreviewable on appeal from the final judgment in the underlying action. Id. at 605 (internal quotations marks omitted). In determining whether an interlocutory order fits within this exception, we do not engage in an individualized jurisdictional inquiry into the specific order appealed from. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, our focus is on the entire category to which a claim belongs. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). So long as the category of claim can be vindicated by other means, the chance that the litigation at hand might be speeded, or a particular injustice averted, does not provide a basis for jurisdiction under § 1291. Id. (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). The Supreme Court has emphasized that the collateral order exception to the final judgment rule must never be allowed to swallow the general rule that a party is entitled to a single appeal, and that [p]ermitting piecemeal, prejudgment appeals... undermines efficient judicial administration and encroaches upon the prerogatives of district court judges, who play a special role in managing ongoing litigation. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); see also id. at 609 ([W]e reiterate that the class of collaterally appealable orders must remain `narrow and selective in its membership.'). The parties disagree about how to define the category of orders to which the challenged order belongs. The SEC would define the category as civil discovery orders requiring disclosure of wiretap materials, while Appellants would define it as wiretap disclosures to third parties. We conclude that the category should be described more broadly as discovery orders allegedly adverse to a claim of privilege or privacy, and that, as we recognized in our recent decision in In re City of New York, 607 F.3d 923 (2d Cir.2010), we lack jurisdiction to review such orders. In City of New York, we addressed whether or not a writ of mandamus was appropriate to review a discovery order requiring the City of New York to produce sensitive intelligence reports prepared by undercover police officers to class action plaintiffs. Id. at 928. The City argued that the documents were protected from disclosure by the law enforcement privilege. Id. In explaining why a petition for mandamus was the only adequate means for the City to seek review of the order, we found that it was clear that the City cannot challenge the District Court's order by means of an interlocutory appeal. Id. at 933. We noted that the Supreme Court has recently clarified [that] the collateral order doctrine does not extend to disclosure orders adverse to a claim of privilege. Id., citing Mohawk, 130 S.Ct. at 609 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court has made clear that when a court rejects a claim of privilege, the losing party must pursue other `avenues of review apart from collateral order appeal,' including, `in extraordinary circumstances,' a `petition to the court of appeals for a writ of mandamus.'  Id., quoting Mohawk, 130 S.Ct. at 607 (brackets omitted). While it is true that both Mohawk and City of New York dealt with claims of common-law evidentiary privilege, and the instant case involves statutorily recognized privacy rights that carry constitutional overtones, we do not think that difference is sufficient to take the instant case outside of our holding in City of New York. Indeed, while Appellants do not phrase their argument as involving a privilege, in effect, they seek a finding that Title III makes wiretap materials privileged vis-à-vis a civil enforcement agency's discovery request. Moreover, while the claimed privilege at issue in the instant case derives from statute, City of New York also dealt with a privilege that was at least partially embodied in statutes. See id. at 941 (noting that the law enforcement privilege developed at common law from executive privilege, but that it had been largely incorporated into both New York state and federal statutory law. (footnotes omitted)). In any event, even if City of New York had dealt with a purely common-law privilege, we do not see why the fact that the instant case involves a claimed statutory privacy right would take it outside our holding in City of New York that disclosure orders adverse to a claim of privilege are categorically not immediately reviewable. For this reason, while there may be arguments in any particular case, as there are in the instant case, that the rejection of a claim of privilege by a discovery order impinges significant interests, there is no interlocutory jurisdiction to review the order. [6]