Opinion ID: 203971
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Trying to Determine the Basis for the District Court's Order

Text: In arguing that the reason for the dissolution is ultimately unknowable, Arch first observes that the court may have determined that, in light of MRCP 4.1(h), the references in USF & G's unverified complaint to the value of claims received were an inadequate substitute for similar averments in the affidavit supporting the motion for an attachment. Interestingly, USF & G explicitly argues that one of the legal issues on which the district court ruled was whether it had satisfied the requirements of Rule 4.1. Indeed, in the jurisdictional statement in its brief, it characterizes the issues on appeal as whether it was entitled to an attachment based on the receipt of claims and demands prior to their actual payment and whether USF & G satisfied the requirements of Mass. R. Civ. P. 4.1 (emphasis added). [20] USF & G characterizes both of these as important and unsettled legal issues that would justify invocation of the collateral order doctrine. In the merits portion of its brief, it includes a section arguing that the references in its complaint to claims received satisfied the requirements of Rule 4.1. If indeed the district court's ruling was based on the insufficiency of USF & G's affidavit, it is hard to see how that would constitute an important enough issue to justify the application of the collateral order doctrine. Admittedly, we find it less likely that the district court judge, after explicitly resolving the affidavit issue in USF & G's favor, would have reversed herself on that pleading issue and characterized what was at stake in her ruling as a question of law sufficiently important to permit interlocutory review. On the other hand, one can imagine characterizing an affidavit's sufficiency as a matter of law in the same way that we treat the sufficiency of a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) as a legal question subject to de novo review. Moreover, as we have mentioned, the language in the district court's stay order, which USF & G relies on for the proposition that the issues involved here are important enough to warrant immediate appellate review, is strictly boilerplate. The court's quotation of Swift, and its further citation to that case for the proposition that an order dissolving a prejudgment attachment is immediately appealable, further reflect the possibility that the court was mistakenly adhering to the now rejected general rule that orders dissolving attachments are automatically appealable so long as they are separable from the merits of the underlying dispute, regardless of the basis for the dissolution (which might have been the Rule 4.1 issue). Alternatively, the court could have based its decision on one of the provisions of the MSA. Even under that assumption, given the tangled procedural history that we described above, see supra Part I.B., the precise legal issue that prompted the court to dissolve the attachment is far from clear. The record reflects several possible issues. The district court's dissolution order could have reflected the judge's determination 1) that her previous interpretation of the indemnification clause was erroneous and should be considered by an appellate tribunal; 2) that her original interpretation of the indemnification clause was erroneous, but that the collateral security provision had not been invoked by USF & G in a timely fashion as the basis for its motion for an attachment; or 3) that her initial interpretation of the indemnification clause was erroneous and that USF & G did not have the right, as a matter of law, to seek a prejudgment attachment based on the collateral security provision.