Opinion ID: 6534
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: louisiana law regarding immediate

Text: APPEALS FROM PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENTS Up to this point we have assumed the accuracy of the district court's holding that the partial summary judgment entered by the state court in the instant case would have been immediately appealable. Before proceeding further, however, we [usf&g.002] 7 must scrutinize this holding closely. If the judgment entered by the Louisiana state court and adopted by the district court was not final and immediately appealable under Louisiana law, then the district court erred in concluding (1) that it lacked the power to examine the state court judgment under federal summary judgment standards and (2) that immediate appellate review of the state judgment was available from this court. We review the district court's interpretation of state law de novo. Salve Regina College v. Russell, 499 U.S. 225, 231 (1991); Commons W. Office Condos, Ltd. v. RTC, 5 F.3d 125, 127 (5th Cir. 1993). The Louisiana Supreme Court recently considered the problem of piecemeal appeals in Everything on Wheels Subaru, Inc. v. Subaru South, Inc., 616 So. 2d 1234 (La. 1993). That case arose in the context of an action for wrongful termination of franchise. Id. at 1235. The plaintiff sued for damages based on four theories, and the defendant filed an exception of no cause of action, which is the Louisiana equivalent of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. See id. (The function of an exception of no cause of action is to test the legal sufficiency of the petition by determining whether the law affords a remedy on the facts alleged in the pleading.). The trial court maintained the exception as to only two of the plaintiff's theories and granted an immediate appeal. Id. The Louisiana Supreme Court took the opportunity to clarify the rules governing the appealability of partial final judgments rendered on exceptions of no cause of action. Most important for our purposes, the court concluded that a partial [usf&g.002] 8 final judgment on an exception of no cause of action that does not dismiss any party and adjudicates some but not all claims, defenses, or issues, is an interlocutory judgment not appealable in the absence of a showing of irreparable injury. Id. at 124142. The court clearly desired to ensure that there is only one appeal in most cases. Id. at 1242. The Everything on Wheels court explicitly limited its decision to partial final judgments rendered on exceptions of no cause of action. Id. at 1241 n.12. It reserved the question of whether a partial judgment on a motion for summary judgment, that merely decides one of several claims, defenses or issues without dismissing any party . . . must be appealed immediately in order to prevent the judgment from acquiring the authority of the thing adjudged. Id. The clear hint, however, was that the same rules should govern both kinds of partial final judgments. Id. (There does not appear to be any logical reason to treat partial judgments resulting from a motion for summary judgment any differently from partial judgments resulting from an exception of no cause of action.). The court of appeals that decided the Graham case did not mention Everything on Wheels in reaching its conclusion that a partial summary judgment in favor of one defendant on one theory of liability had been final and appealable when entered by the trial court. Graham, 619 So. 2d at 898. A more recent court of appeals case, however, came to the opposite conclusion. In Caire v. Fremen, 630 So. 2d 297, 297-98 (La. Ct. App. 1993), the [usf&g.002] 9 plaintiff sued the other driver in a traffic accident and his insurer. The action against the insurer included a direct action claim under Louisiana's direct action statute and a claim for arbitrary refusal to pay a claim; the trial court granted the insurer partial summary judgment on the latter claim only. Id. at 298. The court of appeals dismissed the appeal from the partial summary judgment, concluding that the judgment was an interlocutory judgment not appealable in the absence of a showing of irreparable injury, relying on Everything on Wheels. Id. at 299. The Caire reading of Everything on Wheels appears to us to be correct, and we conclude that the partial summary judgment rendered in favor of USF&G in the instant case was interlocutory and unappealable under both Louisiana and federal law. In the absence of a final, appealable judgment from the district court, we are without jurisdiction. Kahlil, 978 F.2d at 184. In the absence of an appealable order from the district court, the RTC's notice of appeal was ineffective either to divest the district court of jurisdiction or to confer jurisdiction on this court. Id. This case does not pose the difficult question of whether we would have jurisdiction to review a state court order that is immediately appealable under state law but interlocutory and unappealable under federal law, and we express no opinion regarding that question. [usf&g.002] 10