Opinion ID: 548
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: We ordered the parties to brief the issue of whether the district court's order on discovery issues was immediately appealable. Also before us is whether this court has jurisdiction over Dr. Gerber's challenge to the magistrate judge's order permitting the government to intervene in this action.
Dr. Gerber contends that the government's motion to intervene should have been denied as untimely. He did not, however, specifically object to the magistrate judge's order permitting intervention. His failure to do so strips us of jurisdiction to review the challenged order. Under [28 U.S.C.] § 636(b)(1)(A), a magistrate judge may not issue a final order directly appealable to the court of appeals. Properly filed objections resolved by the district court are a prerequisite to our review of a magistrate judge's order under § 636(b)(1)(A). Hutchinson v. Pfeil, 105 F.3d 562, 566 (10th Cir.1997) (citation omitted). See also Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(a) (A party may not assign as error a defect in the [magistrate judge's] order not timely objected to.). Dr. Gerber contends that he did raise the untimeliness of the government's intervention before the district court. He cites references to the standards required for intervention that he made in his response to the government's objections to the discovery portion of the magistrate judge's order. We do not agree that this sufficiently presented the issue of intervention. Dr. Gerber should have filed his own objections to the timeliness of the government's motion to intervene. Dr. Gerber also contends that his silence did not operate as a waiver because there was nothing to appeal on the intervention issue in the magistrate judge's ruling. He reasons that the magistrate judge merely permitted the government to intervene for the limited purpose of responding to discovery and did not actually rule on his primary objections to intervention. A careful reading of the order, however, does not bear out this contention. The magistrate judge specifically found that the United States of America ... should be permitted to intervene for the limited purpose of resolving the issues raised in its motion and in Dr. Gerber's motion. Aplt. App. at 321. It granted the motion of the United States of America ... for purposes of seeking clarification or modification of the protective orders. Id. at 322. We therefore conclude that Dr. Gerber's failure to appeal the magistrate judge's order granting intervention deprives us of jurisdiction to hear his appeal of that order.
The government contends that we lack jurisdiction to review the district court's discovery order. This court has jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the district courts of the United States. 28 U.S.C. § 1291. A decision is final when it ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment. Boughton v. Cotter Corp., 10 F.3d 746, 748 (10th Cir.1993) (quotation omitted). Discovery orders entered during the course of litigation ordinarily are not final under this definition. Id. Dr. Gerber contends that jurisdiction exists under an exception to the final order rule known as the collateral order rule or  Cohen doctrine. See Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949). In order to fall under this exception, an order must [1] conclusively determine the disputed question, [2] resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and [3] be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. Boughton, 10 F.3d at 749 (quotation omitted). As a general matter, discovery orders are not appealable under the Cohen doctrine. Id. But we recognized an exception in a case where a third party was granted leave to intervene solely for the purpose of seeking modification of a protective order and where the underlying controversy had already been concluded. United Nuclear Corp. v. Cranford Ins. Co., 905 F.2d 1424, 1426 (10th Cir.1990). In United Nuclear, we held this court had jurisdiction either under the Cohen doctrine or because the order modifying the terms of a protective order was an appealable final judgment. Id. [1] For similar reasons, the order challenged here also meets the Cohen test. It conclusively determined the question of whether the protective order would be modified and the Confidential Material returned to Dr. Gerber. The issue of disclosure of the Confidential Material was wholly separate from the underlying merits of this action, which involves alleged violations of the securities laws by another party. And, while the underlying controversy between the SEC and Merrill Scott may not yet have concluded, that portion of the underlying controversy involving Dr. Gerber is complete. There is no indication that he will have any right of review from the district court's modification of the protective order at the ultimate conclusion of this litigation. Cf. Mohawk Indus. Inc. v. Carpenter, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 599, 607, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2009) (rejecting collateral appeal of discovery order by party in part because district court could vacat[e] an adverse judgment and remand[ ] for a new trial in which the protected material and its fruits are excluded from evidence.). We conclude that we have jurisdiction to address the merits of the challenged order of the district court.