Opinion ID: 770823
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 31 In general, we may review only final judgments of a district court on appeal. See Midland Asphalt Corp. v. United States, 489 U.S. 794, 798 (1989)(internal quotations omitted). Under the collateral order doctrine, however, we have jurisdiction to review a limited class of prejudgment orders. See Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949). The collateral order doctrine permits an appeal from a non-final judgment if three criteria are met: the order must (1) conclusively determine the disputed questions, (2) resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and (3) be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. Midland, 489 U.S. at 799. The Supreme Court has emphasized that the conditions for collateral order appeal are to be stringently applied to ensure that this narrow exception never be allowed to swallow the general rule  requiring a judgment to be final prior to appeal. Digital Equip. Corp. v. Desktop Direct Inc., 511 U.S. 863, 868 (1994). We therefore determine the applicability of the collateral order doctrine without regard to the chance that the litigation at hand might be speeded, or a particular injustic[e] averted by a prompt appellate court decision. Id. (internal citation and quotation marks omitted).
32 We have jurisdiction to review a district court's order denying summary judgment on a qualified immunity defense under the collateral order doctrine. See Armendariz v. Penman, 75 F.3d 1311, 1316 (9th Cir. 1996). However, our jurisdiction is limited to purely legal issues. Watkins v. City of Oakland, 145 F.3d 1087, 1091 (9th Cir. 1998).
33 We need not address whether the Heck issue meets the first and second prongs of the test outlined above because it is effectively reviewable on appeal. Appellate courts can effectively review a district court's ruling on a Heck issue because, unlike immunity rights where the right is lost if the case goes to trial, an appellate court can reverse the district court after entry of a final judgment without departing from the holding or purpose of Heck.
34 The rule announced in Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 (1985), that individual defendants can appeal from the denial of a motion for summary judgment to obtain review of the merits of their qualified immunity defense does not empower a federal court to consider the denial of a municipality's motion for summary judgment in a section 1983 action. See Swint v. Chambers County Comm'n, 514 U.S. 35, 42-43 (1995).
35 Arguing in the alternative, defendants contend that we have pendent appellate jurisdiction to review the district court's Heck ruling and its denial of summary judgment for the City. Pendent appellate jurisdiction refers to the exercise of jurisdiction over issues that ordinarily may not be reviewed on interlocutory appeal, but may be reviewed on interlocutory appeal if raised in conjunction with other issues properly before the court. In Swint, the Supreme Court set out a general rule against exercising pendent jurisdiction over related rulings but left open the possibility that appellate courts could extend such jurisdiction if the rulings were inextricably intertwined or if review of the pendent issue was necessary to ensure meaningful review of the independently reviewable issue. See id. at 44 n.2, 50-51 (following review of the independently reviewable issue). 36 We have consistently interpreted inextricably intertwined very narrowly. 20 In California v. Campbell, 138 F.3d 772 (9th Cir. 1996), for instance, we stated that [g]iven the Supreme Court's criticism of pendent appellate jurisdiction, the Court's `inextricably intertwined' exception should be narrowly construed. Id. at 778. [M]ore is required than that separate issues rest on common facts. United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Coop., 190 F.3d 1109, 1113 (9th Cir. 1999). Two issues are not inextricably intertwined if we must apply different legal standards to each issue. Rather, the legal theories on which the issues advance must either (a) be so intertwined that we must decide the pendent issue in order to review the claims properly raised on interlocutory appeal, see, e.g., Paige v. California, 102 F.3d 1035, 1040 (9th Cir. 1996), or (b) resolution of the issue properly raised on interlocutory appeal necessarily resolves the pendent issue, see, e.g., Marks v. Clarke, 102 F.3d 1012, 1018 (9th Cir. 1996).
37 The Heck issue is not inextricably intertwined with the qualified immunity issues properly before us on interlocutory appeal, nor is it necessary to decide the issue to ensure meaningful review of the defendants' qualified immunity claims. The issues properly before us on interlocutory appeal are analytically distinct from the Heck analysis. In order to decide the qualified immunity claims, we must determine 1) whether non-shooting officers are entitled to qualified immunity because jamming does not violate clearly established law, 2) whether council members are entitled to qualified immunity because a policy of indemnifying officers against punitive damages does not violate clearly established law, and 3) whether City attorneys are entitled to qualified immunity because recommending that council members indemnify officers against punitive damage awards does not violate clearly established law. These analyses do not implicate the validity of Cunningham's criminal conviction. Moreover, for reasons to be discussed, we lack jurisdiction to review the only two issues arguably intertwined with the Heck analysis: 1) whether the shooting officers used excessive force against Cunningham and Soly and 2) whether the commissioners and supervising officers failed to take adequate steps to prevent the alleged use of excessive force. Thus, we find that we lack jurisdiction to review the district court's denial of defendants' motion for summary judgment pursuant to Heck v. Humphrey. 21
38 The City argues that the district court erred in denying its motion for summary judgment because (1) the alleged violation is contingent upon a violation of a constitutional right and (2) plaintiffs have no cognizable constitutional claim. After examining whether the City's appeal is inextricably intertwined with any of rulings we have jurisdiction to review, we conclude that we lack jurisdiction to review the City's appeal. 39
40 Plaintiffs challenge the City's policy, custom and usage, is not inextricably intertwined with the SIS officers' qualified immunity claims. See Chew v. Gates, 27 F.3d 1432 (9th Cir. 1994) (holding that the liability of Los Angeles for a police dog bite was separate from the officer's qualified immunity defense). Whether the City's policy, customs, or usage caused plaintiffs' injuries is a separate inquiry from whether the non supervisory officers are entitled to qualified immunity. See id. 41
42 In a recent decision, we held that a municipality's appeal in a section 1983 case was inextricably intertwined with a policy-making city attorney's appeal from a denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity. See Huskey v. City of San Jose, 204 F.3d 893, 906 (9th Cir. 2000). Our Huskey decision relied on the plaintiff's failure to demonstrate that the city attorney's actions deprived him of his constitutional rights. See id. Because the plaintiff's failure to demonstrate actual injury necessarily resolved the city's appeal, we found the two appeals inextricably intertwined  and exercised jurisdiction over the city's appeal. See id. 43 Unlike our Huskey opinion, our decision does not necessarily resolve the City's appeal by determining that plaintiffs did not demonstrate an actual injury. Cf. Marks, 102 F.3d at 1018. Rather, because the question of actual injury involves factual disputes outside of our scope of review, today's decision assumes plaintiffs may be able to convince a jury that they suffered constitutional injuries caused by some combination of police action and city official inaction. See V-1 Oil Co. v. Smith, 114 F.3d 854, 856 (9th Cir. 1997) (holding that court will exercise jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal that present[s] the question whether, assuming the disputed facts in favor of the nonmoving party, the moving party was entitled to qualified immunity). Thus, we lack jurisdiction to review the City's appeal from the district court's denial of its summary judgment motion because this issue is not inextricably intertwined with any of the issues properly before us on interlocutory appeal.