Court Opinion

ID: 9460835
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:01:18.387884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:48.013277
License: Public Domain

SEITZ, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I agree with the majority that a party may not appeal a civil contempt order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (1970). I cannot, however, accept the majority’s conclusion that the remainder of the order below is not appealable.
One count of plaintiff’s complaint alleges that Plast-A-Form has competed unfairly by utilizing specialized and confidential knowledge, acquired by Carl Ferm as an employee of plaintiff’s predecessor corporation, in the manufacture and sale of aerobic sewage treatment equipment. Plaintiff prayed for preliminary and permanent injunctive relief on the basis of this allegation. The district court ordered taken as established the facts that Ferm acquired no such specialized or confidential knowledge while employed by plaintiff’s predecessor and that Plast-A-Form used no such knowledge in its manufacture and sale of aerobic sewage treatment equipment. The court also prohibited plaintiff from introducing evidence to support its specialized knowledge count except to show that Plast-A-Form does manufacture and sell the sewage treatment equipment.
It seems clear to me that the district court order effectively decides the unfair-eompetition-from-Ferm’s specialized knowledge count against plaintiff. Under the strictures of the district court’s order, plaintiff clearly cannot obtain relief on this count of its complaint. Since the relief sought was injunctive, the order is one refusing an injunction. To hold as the majority does that no injunction had been denied does not represent a realistic analysis of what the district court’s order does to plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief. To put it another way, it exalts form over substance. I would not have a party’s right to appeal the denial of injunc-tive relief depend on the district court’s choice in the form of that denial.
The majority, however, finds support for its conclusion in Switzerland Cheese Association v. Horne’s Market, Inc., 385 U.S. 23, 87 S.Ct. 193, 17 L.Ed.2d 23 (1966). The district court there had denied a motion for summary judgment because it found disputed material issues of fact. As the Supreme Court noted, that order did not prevent the plaintiffs from obtaining injunctive relief, preliminary or permanent; the order decided “only one thing — that the case should go to trial.” Id. at 25, 87 S.Ct. 195. I see no relation between the Horne’s Market order and one, such as the order appealed from here, deciding that a party will not be allowed to prove matters necessary to obtain injunctive relief.
While the order undoubtedly forecloses plaintiff’s ability to secure the requested injunctive relief, there is a more difficult problem in determining whether the order below is appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) (1970) as an interlocutory order refusing an injunction: does the compláint’s inclusion of other claims for which injunctive relief *610is prayed destroy appealability here?1 The majority, which does not reach this matter, has quoted much of the decisional law relevant to this problem. The Second Circuit’s position, basically, is that where more than one count of a complaint seeks injunctive relief, a denial of injunctive relief on less than all such counts is not appealable under § 1292(a) (1) unless the struck counts seek different injunctive relief than those remaining or seek relief on a “distinct legal theory.” I believe this position properly harmonizes the policy against “piecemeal appeals” with the congressional desire to allow immediate review of interlocutory grants or refusals of in-junctive relief. Applying this analysis to the instant case, I would find the order appealable because plaintiff’s complaint seeks different injunctive relief under the specialized knowledge count than under other counts and does so on a distinct legal theory.2
Because I would find the order appeal-able under § 1292(a) (1) insofar as it established certain facts and prohibited proof of others, I would also find that we might properly decide the contentions concerning the civil contempt. The order appealed from contains not only the sanctions effectively denying plaintiff injunctive relief but also the civil contempt sanctions. The two matters might have been disposed of in separate orders; I, therefore, would not find decision of both matters mandated when only one is interlocutorily appealable. Since, however, § 1292(a) grants jurisdiction of appeals from orders, not of appeals from decisions of specified questions, I would find that we are authorized to decide other questions presented in an order appealable under § 1292(a) when decision of those questions is appropriate to proper judicial administration. See McCreary Tire & Rubber Co. v. CEAT, S.p.A., 501 F.2d 1032 (3d Cir. 1974); cf. Johnson v. Alldredge, 488 F.2d 820, 822-823 (3d Cir. 1973). The imposition of civil contempt sanctions involves the same issues as the district court’s imposition of substantive sanctions, and where the latter action is appealable, decision of the propriety of both actions would promote efficient use of judicial resources.
Given the majority’s disposition of this appeal, I deem it inadvisable to express my views on the merits.
Judge ADAMS joins in this opinion.

. The parties obliquely address a related point that I think deserves at least oblique answer. Rule 54(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows appeal as a final judgment of any disposition of less than all claims if the district judge certifies his order as a final disposition of the affected claims. Although Rule 54(a) makes and rule applicable to all appealable orders and judgments, a literal interpretation of the rule would be inconsistent with § 1292— since a similar certification is required for certain interlocutory appeals (§ 1292(b)) but not for others (§ 1292(a)) authorized by the section, it seems clear the drafters of § 1292 chose not to require such certification as a prerequisite to appeals under § 1292(a). I would read Rule 54(b) as limited to appeals under § 1291. See C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure, Civil § 2962 (1973).

. While the count involved here claimed unfair competition from Plast-A-Form’s use of Ferm’s specialized knowledge, the other counts claim patent infringement and false advertising. The complaint seeks, on the basis of the specialized knowledge count, in-junctive relief against Plast-A-Form’s use of Ferm’s knowledge to manufacture and sell sewage treatment equipment; other counts support claims for relief from Plast-A-Form’s use of certain designs for such equipment and their means of advertising the equipment, both different and more limited types of relief than sought under the foreclosed count.