Opinion ID: 201063
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the favorable termination defense

Text: 38 Our work here is not done. Limone succeeded in having his conviction set aside in 2001, see Commonwealth v. Limone, 2001 WL 30494, at  (Mass.Super.Ct.2001), and the district attorney subsequently declined further prosecution. Greco and Tameleo died in prison before they could secure similar remediation. In their motions to dismiss, the appellants argued that the lack of favorable terminations precludes the Greco and Tameleo plaintiffs from pursuing their claims for damages. See Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486-87, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994) (holding that a plaintiff, in order to recover damages for an allegedly unconstitutional conviction, must show a favorable termination of the underlying conviction); Figueroa v. Rivera, 147 F.3d 77, 80 (1st Cir.1998) (same). The district court rejected this defense, holding that the Greco and Tameleo plaintiffs could ride piggyback on the vacation of Limone's conviction to satisfy the favorable termination requirement under a theory of constructive reversal, or in the alternative, that any failure to secure favorable termination was excused by allegations of government wrongdoing that effectively denied access to post-conviction remedies. Limone, 271 F.Supp.2d at 361. 39 The appellants ask us to review this determination here and now. That request runs headlong into the general rule that only final judgments and orders are immediately appealable in civil cases. See Espinal-Dominguez v. Puerto Rico, 352 F.3d 490, 495 (1st Cir.2003) (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1291). This rule admits of exceptions, however, and one judge-made exception allows for interlocutory review of an order rejecting a qualified immunity defense so long as the order turns on a purely legal question. See, e.g., Stella, 63 F.3d at 73-74. The appellants assert that we may use this exception as a vehicle to review the Heck issue as well. We demur. 40 Federal courts long have recognized that interlocutory review of a denial of qualified immunity does not in and of itself confer jurisdiction over other contested issues in the case. Roque-Rodriguez v. Lema Moya, 926 F.2d 103, 105 (1st Cir.1991). To overcome this obstacle, the appellants invite us to embrace the seldom-used doctrine of pendent appellate jurisdiction. See Swint v. Chambers County Comm'n, 514 U.S. 35, 50-51, 115 S.Ct. 1203, 131 L.Ed.2d 60 (1995); Nieves-Márquez v. Puerto Rico, 353 F.3d 108, 123 (1st Cir.2003). We decline the invitation. 41 The Supreme Court repeatedly has cautioned that exceptions to the final judgment rule should be narrowly construed. See, e.g., Digital Equip. Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U.S. 863, 868, 114 S.Ct. 1992, 128 L.Ed.2d 842 (1994). In an effort to avoid needless encroachments on the final judgment rule, we have been quite sparing in our endorsement of pendent appellate jurisdiction. See Fletcher v. Town of Clinton, 196 F.3d 41, 55 (1st Cir.1999) (noting that the exercise of pendent appellate jurisdiction is discouraged); Roque-Rodriguez, 926 F.2d at 105 n. 2 (classifying this restraint as self-imposed). Thus, we have required that, at a bare minimum, a party promoting the exercise of pendent appellate jurisdiction demonstrate either that the pendent issue is inextricably intertwined with the issue conferring the right of appeal or that review of the pendent issue is essential to ensure meaningful review of the linchpin issue. See, e.g., Nieves-Márquez, 353 F.3d at 123; Suboh v. Dist. Atty's Office of the Suffolk Dist., 298 F.3d 81, 97 (1st Cir.2002); see also Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 707 n. 41, 117 S.Ct. 1636, 137 L.Ed.2d 945 (1997). Because these two considerations were limned by the Court in Swint, 514 U.S. at 51, 115 S.Ct. 1203, we sometimes refer to them as the Swint criteria. 42 Here, the linchpin issue and the pendent issue cannot fairly be described as intertwined, let alone inextricably intertwined. Whereas the former (qualified immunity) focuses principally on the appellants' conduct leading up to the plaintiffs' convictions, the latter (favorable termination) entails an examination of post-conviction events. The fact that we already have conducted an exhaustive review of the district court's qualified immunity ruling without needing to touch upon the favorable termination issue, see supra Part II, makes manifest this lack of imbrication. By the same token, it conclusively proves that the exercise of pendent appellate jurisdiction is not essential to our ability to conduct meaningful review of the linchpin issue. On that score alone, this case is an unfit candidate for the invocation of pendent appellate jurisdiction. 43 The appellants strive to parry this thrust by arguing that failure to satisfy the Swint criteria should bar the exercise of pendent appellate jurisdiction only when the party appealing the linchpin issue and the party appealing the pendent issue are different. They posit that where, as here, the same parties seek review of both issues, pendent appellate jurisdiction may be justified on the basis of fairness and efficiency concerns. See, e.g., Jungquist v. Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, 115 F.3d 1020, 1026-27 (D.C.Cir.1997) (exercising pendent appellate jurisdiction on that basis when the same parties sought review of both issues); Gilda Marx, Inc. v. Wildwood Exercise, Inc., 85 F.3d 675, 679 & n. 4 (D.C.Cir.1996) (declining to read fulfillment of the Swint criteria as an absolute condition precedent to the exercise of pendent appellate jurisdiction). They tell us that exercising pendent appellate jurisdiction in the instant case would allow for the early resolution of a potentially dispositive issue, thus catering to fairness and efficiency concerns. 44 We think that the appellants' position ignores reality. There is no sound reason why the identity of the parties should have decretory significance in deciding whether to exercise pendent appellate jurisdiction. This court has used the Swint criteria as the benchmark for pendent appellate jurisdiction in all sorts of cases, including cases in which the party appealing the pendent issue was also appealing the linchpin issue. See, e.g., Nieves-Márquez, 353 F.3d at 123; Suboh, 298 F.3d at 97. So too the Second Circuit. See Rein v. Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 162 F.3d 748, 757 (2d Cir.1998) (stating that pendent issues raised by the party that has the right to bring an interlocutory appeal are at least as great a threat to the final-order scheme as are pendent issues raised by other parties). Several other courts of appeals have likewise endorsed a universal application of the Swint criteria. See id. at 758 (collecting cases). Consequently, we hold explicitly that when a party who has the right to bring an interlocutory appeal on one issue attempts simultaneously to raise a second issue that ordinarily would be barred by the final judgment rule, we will not exercise appellate jurisdiction over the pendent issue unless one of the Swint criteria is satisfied. 45 Given this paradigm, instances demanding the exercise of pendent appellate jurisdiction are likely to be few and far between. This is not one of them. We conclude, therefore, that it would be ultracrepidarian — and wrong — for us to exercise pendent appellate jurisdiction over the favorable termination issue just for the Heck of it.