Opinion ID: 201172
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Denial of Intervention.

Text: 26 Against this backdrop, we turn to the question of whether the EAB's order denying Rhode Island's motion to intervene qualifies as an immediately appealable order under the collateral order doctrine. To reach that safe harbor, the order must conclusively determine the disputed question, resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978); accord In re Recticel Foam Corp., 859 F.2d 1000, 1003-04 (1st Cir.1988). The order must meet all three of these requirements in order to qualify for interlocutory review. 27 In this instance, the question of intervention plainly satisfies the second prong of the test; the issue is separable from the merits of the underlying proceeding. Cf. Williams v. Katz, 23 F.3d 190, 192 (7th Cir.1994) (holding that the question of a putative intervenor's status was entirely separate from the underlying tort action). The first and third prongs, however, comprise greater obstacles to Rhode Island's aspirations. 28 Under the first prong of the collateral order test, an order must conclusively determine the disputed question. Coopers & Lybrand, 437 U.S. at 468, 98 S.Ct. 2454 . Tentative orders, subject to change before the end of the proceedings, fall short of this benchmark. Id. at 469 & n. 11, 96 S.Ct. 2737. This presents a potential problem here because the EAB denied Rhode Island's motion to intervene without prejudice and indicated that it would allow the state to renew its motion if an evidentiary hearing eventuated. 29 There is some authority suggesting that denials of intervention without prejudice fail to satisfy Cohen's conclusiveness requirement. See, e.g., United States v. City of Milwaukee, 144 F.3d 524, 528-29 (7th Cir.1998) (dismissing appeal when district court had denied a motion to intervene on technical grounds but at the same time had invited the appellant to refile). Still, we easily can envision circumstances in which a denial of intervention that is nominally without prejudice nonetheless may be sufficiently conclusive to warrant immediate review. See, e.g., Conservation Law Found. of New Engl., Inc. v. Mosbacher, 966 F.2d 39, 41 (1st Cir.1992). In this context, therefore, we are reluctant to accord talismanic significance to a trier's use of the term without prejudice. Accord City of Milwaukee, 144 F.3d at 531 & n. 14. Because the third prong of the collateral order test offers a more clear-cut basis for resolving the issue, we leave the questions surrounding the conclusiveness prong for another day. 30 This brings us to the third prong of the test: unreviewability. An order flatly denying a motion to intervene in a judicial proceeding is an immediately appealable collateral order. See 6 James Wm. Moore, Moore's Federal Practice ¶ 24.24[1], at 24-90 to 24-92 (3d ed.2004); see, e.g., Pub. Serv. Co. v. Patch, 136 F.3d 197, 204 (1st Cir.1998) (reviewing an order denying intervention claimed as of right under Rule 24(a)). The central rationale for permitting immediate review is that once intervention has been denied, the putative intervenor cannot appeal from any subsequent order or judgment in the proceeding. Bhd. of R.R. Trainmen v. Balt. & Ohio R.R. Co., 331 U.S. 519, 524, 67 S.Ct. 1387, 91 L.Ed. 1646 (1947). Thus, in the absence of immediate appellate review, a denial of intervention becomes, in Cohen terms, effectively unreviewable. 31 A denial of intervention in an EAB proceeding carries critically different consequences. As said, a party who is refused intervention in a court case cannot thereafter appeal from a final judgment. 6 Moore's Federal Practice, supra ¶ 24.24[1], at 24-92 & n. 5.4 (collecting cases). Under the CWA, however, any interested person, whether or not a party to the permit proceedings before the EAB, is entitled to judicial review of the final agency action (the regional administrator's issuance or denial of a permit). 1 See 33 U.S.C. § 1369(b)(1). While courts have read this statute to incorporate, at a minimum, the injury-in-fact requirement for Article III standing, see, e.g., Am. Forest & Paper Ass'n v. EPA, 154 F.3d 1155, 1158 (10th Cir.1998); Montgomery Envtl. Coalition v. Costle, 646 F.2d 568, 578 (D.C.Cir.1980), judicial review is not restricted to the parties in the EAB proceeding. 32 For present purposes, this distinction looms large. Assuming that Rhode Island meets the threshold interested person requirement — if it does not, then it hardly can complain about the denial of intervention — it will be entitled to appeal from the EPA's final permitting decision, even without intervenor status. See 33 U.S.C. § 1362(5) (defining person to include states). In the course of that appeal, the state can challenge not only the EAB's merits decision but also its decision to deny intervention. Cf. 5 U.S.C. § 704 (A preliminary, procedural, or intermediate agency action or ruling not directly reviewable is subject to review on the review of the final agency action.). Therefore, the cases authorizing collateral review of denials of intervention in judicial proceedings have scant persuasive force here. 33 We are guided, instead, by the Supreme Court's opinion in Stringfellow v. Concerned Neighbors in Action, 480 U.S. 370, 107 S.Ct. 1177, 94 L.Ed.2d 389 (1987). There, the district court denied a neighborhood group's motion to intervene as of right and granted its motion for permissive intervention while placing restrictions on the group's ability to conduct discovery and assert new claims for relief. Id. at 373, 107 S.Ct. 1177. The group prosecuted an immediate appeal. In due course, the Supreme Court held that the grant of intervention, though severely circumscribed, was not an immediately appealable collateral order. Id. at 375, 107 S.Ct. 1177. It emphasized the fact that the intervenor, although limited as to the scope of its involvement in the litigation, retained the power to appeal any final judgment and, in the process, could attack the conditions imposed by the lower court. Id. at 376, 107 S.Ct. 1177. Distinguishing the case from those involving outright denials of intervention, the Court concluded that the intervenor could obtain effective review of its claims on appeal from final judgment. Id. Consequently, the appellants failed to satisfy the third prong of the collateral order test. Id. at 375, 107 S.Ct. 1177. 34 This emphasis on the ability vel non to prosecute an efficacious end-of-case appeal after a denial of intervention has not escaped notice. Precedent in this and other circuits draws the same distinction. See, e.g., Eng v. Coughlin, 865 F.2d 521, 524-27 (2d Cir.1989); Kartell v. Blue Shield of Mass., Inc., 687 F.2d 543, 550 (1st Cir.1982). 35 We find this line of authority compelling. The judicial review provisions of the CWA ensure that the denial of intervention will neither extinguish nor curtail Rhode Island's right to appeal upon the issuance of a final permit. This means, of course, that there is nothing unreviewable about the EAB's denial of intervention. 36 Of course, Stringfellow advisedly phrased the requirement, for purposes of the third prong of the collateral order test, in terms of whether an order was amenable to  effective review. 480 U.S. at 375, 107 S.Ct. 1177 (emphasis supplied). The use of this adjective recognizes that, occasionally, an order may be technically subject to end-of-case review but that the appealing party's interests may not be capable of vindication at that late date. See, e.g., Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526-27, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) (discussing need for immediate review of interlocutory orders refusing to grant qualified immunity); Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 660-62, 97 S.Ct. 2034, 52 L.Ed.2d 651 (1977) (discussing need for immediate review of interlocutory orders rejecting claims of double jeopardy). 37 This qualification does not help Rhode Island. In Stringfellow, the Supreme Court held that the putative intervenors' interest in taking a more robust role in the proceedings, however substantial, would not be irretrievably lost in the absence of an immediate appeal. 480 U.S. at 376, 107 S.Ct. 1177 (citation omitted). So it is here: any harm that Rhode Island might suffer as a result of its relegation to amicus status can be adequately redressed on appeal from a final permitting decision. We explain briefly. 38 We have equated a showing of effective unreviewability with a showing of irreparable harm arising out of the postponement of appellate review. In re Recticel Foam, 859 F.2d at 1004. Rhode Island has made no such showing here. Although the EAB denied Rhode Island's motion to intervene, the state retains the ability to take part in the proceedings as an amicus. That status confers upon it the same right to file briefs on both the evidentiary question and the merits as the parties possess. See In re USGen, supra, slip op. at 9-10. Unless there is an evidentiary hearing — and in that contingency, Rhode Island is free to renew its motion to intervene — those filings will end the parties' substantive participation. It is, therefore, unsurprising that Rhode Island has been unable to identify any cognizable harm that it stands to suffer at this stage of the proceedings by virtue of participating as an amicus rather than as an intervenor. 2 Even were we to accept Rhode Island's (counterfactual) assertion that it has been prejudiced by the distinction, we see no basis for concluding that this harm could not be vindicated adequately on judicial review of a final permitting decision. It follows inexorably that there is no theoretical foundation upon which to rest an invocation of the collateral order doctrine. See Stringfellow, 480 U.S. at 376, 107 S.Ct. 1177; Kartell, 687 F.2d at 550. 39 To say that Rhode Island's interests will not be irretrievably prejudiced in the absence of an immediate appeal is not to say that postponing review until the occurrence of final agency action is cost-free. By refusing to intercede at this stage, we introduce the prospect of duplicative proceedings should the denial of intervention eventually be deemed improvident. That sort of cost is real, but it is an almost inevitable byproduct of the finality rule in ordinary litigation as well as in administrative adjudication. Cf. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. v. FTC, 931 F.2d 430, 431 (7th Cir.1991) (If the cost, delay, and aggravation of litigation made an order final, the distinction between interlocutory and final decisions would collapse, and courts of appeals would be deluged.). The finality requirement embodies a preference that some erroneous trial court rulings go uncorrected until the appeal of a final judgment, rather than having litigation punctuated by piecemeal appellate review. Richardson-Merrell, 472 U.S. at 430, 105 S.Ct. 2757 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). This case is no exception.