Opinion ID: 757729
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sua Sponte Consideration of Jurisdiction

Text: 16 The two sets of appellants present significantly different theories of appellate jurisdiction. The Allen Defendants assert that the District Court entered a final summary judgment and that this Court therefore has appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. This claim is problematic for at least two reasons. First, the action remains pending against other defendants who are not parties to this appeal, and the District Court did not enter a separate, final judgment as to the Defendants-Appellants pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b). Accordingly, there is no final judgment from which section 1291 would give the Appellants a present right to appeal. Second, because the Court ordered, among other relief, disgorgement of the Appellants' ill-gotten profits, no final judgment could be entered until those profits were calculated. See, e.g., In re Fugazy Express, Inc., 982 F.2d 769, 775 (2d Cir.1992) (outside the bankruptcy context, the following are not appealable as final orders: (i) order granting summary judgment on issue of liability, but not calculating damages, (ii) order determining liability, but directing accounting, or (iii) order finding party in contempt, but not determining the sanction). 17 The Ace Defendants correctly assert that this Court has appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), which generally confers jurisdiction on Courts of Appeals over [i]nterlocutory orders of the district courts ... granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions. We have jurisdiction to review the District Court's ordering of injunctive relief, and additionally may consider the underlying 'merits of the case, to the extent they relate to the propriety of granting ... injunctive relief,'  Etuk v. Slattery, 936 F.2d 1433, 1443 (2d Cir.1991) (citation omitted). 18 We therefore have jurisdiction to review the merits of the District Court's determination that the Government was entitled to summary judgment on the issue of Appellants' RICO liability since this determination served as a basis for the Court's issuance of injunctive relief. However, there are two remaining jurisdictional wrinkles. First, this Court has jurisdiction to consider only (i) the propriety of injunctive relief and (ii) the merits to the extent necessary to review issuance of the injunction. Since the disgorgement order is not part of the injunction and since that order's propriety need not be decided to determine the propriety of the injunction, the disgorgement order is not reviewable as such. However, since we conclude, upon review of the injunction, that summary judgment for the Government was inappropriate, the disgorgement remedy will necessarily be invalidated for now since it too rests upon the summary judgment ruling. 19 A second jurisdictional issue arises from the fact that the Ace Defendants purport to appeal only from an order entered ... on September 30, 1997. While the docket sheet does not indicate that any order was entered on September 30, 1997, the Ace Defendants presumably refer to the Court's order dated September 30, 1997 (and shown on the docket sheet as entered October 2, 1997), which granted the Government's motion for summary judgment against them. The problem is that the only remedy mentioned in this order is disgorgement. Subsequently the Court issued an injunction against the Ace Defendants in an order dated October 6, 1997, and entered on October 9, 1997. 20 If we construed the Ace Defendants' notice of appeal strictly,--i.e., as an appeal only from the District Court's September 30, 1997, order--then they would be unable to invoke jurisdiction under section 1292(a). However, since it is evident that the Ace Defendants wish to seek review of the injunction, which is appealable under section 1292(a), and since the disgorgement order was issued in contemplation of the injunction, we will deem their notice of appeal to be a notice of appeal of the injunction. 21