Opinion ID: 201179
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 8 Our jurisdiction to hear an interlocutory appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction is provided by 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), which states in relevant part that the courts of appeals shall have jurisdiction of appeals from ... [i]nterlocutory orders of the district courts of the United States ... refusing... injunctions.... Under 28 U.S.C. § 1294(1), appeals from reviewable decisions of the district and territorial courts shall be taken to the courts of appeals ... [f]rom a district court of the United States to the court of appeals for the circuit embracing the district. Matrix's right of appeal under § 1292(a)(1), therefore, can only be realized in the First Circuit, a sensible result given this court's supervisory duty over the district courts of our circuit. As [Matrix] filed [its] appeal on [February 27, 2004], before the papers were docketed in [Missouri], this court had already acquired appellate jurisdiction before the transfer was effective. Once jurisdiction is properly obtained by the appellate court it is not terminated by the subsequent completion of a section 1404 transfer. Lou v. Belzberg, 834 F.2d 730, 733 (9th Cir.1987). 9 Since this case was docketed in the Eastern District of Missouri on March 25, 2004, though, our power to enforce a reversal of the district court's denial of the preliminary injunction — should that be our judgment — takes an unusual cast. We cannot order the Eastern District of Missouri, embraced by the Eighth Circuit, to enter a preliminary injunction. We can, however, order the District Court of Maine to request that the Eastern District of Missouri return the case file so that the District Court of Maine may enter a preliminary injunction. 2 Cf. In re Warrick, 70 F.3d 736, 740 (2d Cir.1995) (This Court's need to protect its jurisdiction justifies the rule that when the transferred case has been docketed in the transferee court despite the petitioner's diligence, this Court can order a district court in this circuit to request the transferee court to return the case.) (ellipses, quotation marks, brackets, and citations omitted). 10 Suffice it to say that transferring a case outside the circuit while an interlocutory appeal is pending should be disfavored. The preferred procedure is for § 1404 transfer orders to be stayed when issued until any available interlocutory appeals arising from the case are resolved by this court or by expiration of the notice of appeal period. 3 In that manner, we would retain unmediated authority to enforce all judgments that can result from review. In the event, for example, that we should reverse the denial of a preliminary injunction and order an injunction issued by the district court, the stayed transfer order would safeguard the protection against irreparable injury that federal courts as courts of equity may provide. Fed.R.Civ.P. 1, 65. 11 Neither Matrix nor Rawlings has called into doubt our jurisdiction to hear this appeal. Under the circumstances, however, we have deemed it appropriate to identify the difficulties of this peculiar procedural posture with a view to protecting our appellate jurisdiction and ensuring litigants in our district courts the benefits of 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). See Bachowski v. Usery, 545 F.2d 363, 367 (3d Cir.1976) (Though appeals were only permitted from final orders in the nineteenth century, Congress began to realize ... that rigid application of the final judgment rule in all cases might inflict irreparable harm upon litigants in certain instances, and might actually have the effect of unnecessarily prolonging the litigation.). We now turn to the merits of Matrix's appeal.