Court Opinion

ID: 9495990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:14:59.56514+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:17.919995
License: Public Domain

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ,
concurring:
I concur in the judgment and in much of the majority’s rationale. I write separately in an effort to reconcile some of the collateral order precedent on the “serious *487and unsettled question” factor and more fully explain why I believe this factor is not a collateral order requirement.
At the outset, it seems only fair to note that the conflict within the precedent of this circuit noted by the majority, ante at 481-482 and 483-484, undoubtedly stems from the disarray in Supreme Court precedent. Since establishing the collateral order doctrine more than fifty years ago in Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949), the high court has not hewed to an entirely consistent approach.
In Cohen itself the Court stated the rationale for the collateral order doctrine as follows:
[When a final judgment on the merits is issued] it will be too late effectively to review the present order and the rights conferred by the statute, if it is applicable, will have been lost, probably irreparably. ... This decision appears to fall in that small class which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred.... We hold this order appealable because it is a final disposition of a claimed right which is not an ingredient of the cause of action and does not require consideration with it. But we do not mean that every order fixing security is subject to appeal. Here it is the right to security that presents a serious and unsettled question. If the right were admitted or clear and the order involved only an exercise of discretion ... appealability would present a different question.
337 U.S. at 546-47, 69 S.Ct. 1221 (emphasis added). Thus, in the Court’s seminal explication of the collateral order doctrine, it clearly attached some importance to the fact that the order before it “presented] a serious and unsettled question.” Id.
Additionally, in four subsequent cases, the Court has mentioned the “serious and unsettled question” factor in discussing the collateral order doctrine. See Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 85 n. 1, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963) (stating as the very first factor, in explaining its rationale for finding the order before it appealable, that “the right to a trial on the issue of guilt ... presents a serious and unsettled question” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)); Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 742, 102 S.Ct. 2690, 73 L.Ed.2d 349 (1982) (stating that “[a]s an additional requirement, Cohen established that a collateral appeal of an interlocutory order must ‘presen[t] a serious and unsettled question’ ”); McDonald v. Smith, 472 U.S. 479, 482 n. 3, 105 S.Ct. 2787, 86 L.Ed.2d 384 (1985) (noting without disapproval, in a case arising from the denial of a motion on the pleadings, that the Fourth Circuit had “accepted jurisdiction under the ‘collateral order’ doctrine,” “[b]ecause petitioner raised a ‘serious and unsettled question’”); Hohn v. United States, 524 U.S. 236, 246-47, 118 S.Ct. 1969, 141 L.Ed.2d 242 (1998) (describing without disapproval, the District of Columbia Circuit’s summary dismissal of the interlocutory appeal in Nixon v. Fitzgerald for failure of the order “to satisfy th[e] threshold requirement” of presenting a “‘serious and unsettled question’ of law sufficient to bring the case within the collateral order doctrine”); see also Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. v. Mayacamas, 485 U.S. 271, 292, 108 S.Ct. 1133, 99 L.Ed.2d 296 (1988) (Scalia, J., concurring) (noting “some support” in Supreme Court precedent for viewing “serious and unsettled question” as a factor under collateral order doctrine).
Given these cases, it is hardly surprising that several courts of appeals, including *488ours, have on occasion concluded that whether an interlocutory order involved a “serious and unsettled question” was relevant in determining whether it was immediately appealable as a collateral order. See, e.g., Chaves v. M/V Medina Star, 47 F.3d 153, 155 (5th Cir.1995); Banque Nordeurope S.A. v. Banker, 970 F.2d 1129, 1131 (2d Cir.1992); Jim, Walter Res., Inc. v. Fed. Mine Safety & Health Review Com’n., 920 F.2d 738, 744-45 n. 3 (11th Cir.1990); see also ante at 481-482 and 483-484.
But the Supreme Court has never held an interlocutory order not to qualify as an immediately appealable collateral order because it did not involve a “serious and unsettled question.” Furthermore, in the years that followed Cohen, the Court has considered the collateral order doctrine on “many occasions,” Gulfstream, 485 U.S. at 276, 108 S.Ct. 1133, and the few cases mentioning a “serious and unsettled question” factor are mere drops in this sea of collateral order jurisprudence.
Very frequently the Court has applied the abbreviated, three-factor test (containing no mention of the “serious and unsettled question” factor), which it originally set forth in Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978):
the order must [1] conclusively determine the disputed question, [2] resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and [3] be effectively unreviewable on appeal.
See also Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 310-11, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995) (quoting test with bracketed numbers indicating the three-factors, and noting that the Court “restated” the Cohen test in Coopers & Lybrand); Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 144-45, 113 S.Ct. 684, 121 L.Ed.2d 605 (1992) (quoting test, inserting bracketed numbers, and stating that “to come within” the Cohen rule an order must meet these factors); Midland Asphalt Corp. v. United States, 489 U.S. 794, 799, 109 S.Ct. 1494, 103 L.Ed.2d 879 (1989) (quoting test and stating that “[t]o fall within the limited class of final collateral orders, an order” must meet these requirements); Lauro Lines s.r.l. v. Chasser, 490 U.S. 495, 498, 109 S.Ct. 1976, 104 L.Ed.2d 548 (1988) (quoting test and noting that the Court has “held that to fall within the Cohen exception an order must satisfy at least [these] three conditions”); Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 U.S. 517, 522, 108 S.Ct. 1945, 100 L.Ed.2d 517 (1988) (quoting test and noting that “[t]he Court refined the ‘collateral order’ doctrine of Cohen in Coopers & Lybrand ”); Richardson-Merrell, Inc. v. Roller, 472 U.S. 424, 431, 105 S.Ct. 2757, 86 L.Ed.2d 340 (1985) (quoting test and noting “an order must at a minimum satisfy [these] three conditions”); Flanagan v. United States, 465 U.S. 259, 265, 104 S.Ct. 1051, 79 L.Ed.2d 288 (1984) (same); Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U.S. 368, 375, 101 S.Ct. 669, 66 L.Ed.2d 571 (1981) (quoting test and stating that Coopers & Lybrand had “recently defined this limited class of final ‘collateral orders’ in these terms”); Moses H. Cone Mem’l Hosp. v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 11, 103 S.Ct. 927, 74 L.Ed.2d 765 (1983) (quoting test and stating it “summarize[s]” “[t]he factors required”).
In addition, as the majority demonstrates, ante at 481-482, even when the Court has not phrased the test in precisely this way, it has almost always applied a similar test that includes no “serious and unsettled question” factor. See, e.g., Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 658, 97 S.Ct. 2034, 52 L.Ed.2d 651 (1977). And often the Court has expressly denominated the governing test as a three-factor or *489three-pronged test. See ante at 481-482. But see Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 171, 94 S.Ct. 2140, 40 L.Ed.2d 732 (1974) (characterizing Cohen as holding an “order appealable on two grounds”: “[f]irst [the order] settled conclusively [a] claim” and “[s]econd, ... it concerned a collateral matter that would not be reviewed effectively on appeal from the final judgment” (emphasis added)); Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 712, 116 S.Ct. 1712, 135 L.Ed.2d 1 (1996) (stating four requirements: collateral orders must [1] “conclusively determine a disputed question, that is [2] completely separate from the merits of the action, [3] effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment, and [4] too important to be denied review.” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).1
Moreover, mandating proof that an order involves a “serious and unsettled question” would seem to present new complications in the already murky and often criticized collateral order jurisprudence. See, e.g., 15A Charles A. Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice & Proc. § 3911.5 at 432, 438 (2d ed.1991) (noting “[t]he ambiguity of the Supreme Court’s approach over time,” on this issue and that “[t]he status of the serious and unsettled question aspect of collateral order doctrine thus remains uncertain”); Lloyd C. Anderson, The Collateral Order Doctrine: A New ‘Serbonian Boy’ and Four Proposals, 46 Drake L.Rev. 539 (1998). For example, it is unclear whether a question would have to be “serious” to the parties, or to society in general, or to the development of the law, or that seriousness should be determined in some other way. Precisely when a question no longer remains “unsettled” is also unclear. Generally, we regard a published Court of Appeals opinion as settling a question within the circuit. See, e.g., Scotts Co. v. United Indus. Corp., 315 F.3d 264, 271 n. 2 (4th Cir.2002) (“[A] panel of this court cannot overrule, explicitly or implicitly, the precedent set by a prior panel of this court ....” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). But in Nixon, the District of Columbia Circuit had previously issued a published opinion on point but the Supreme Court found the question “unsettled” because the Supreme Court itself had “never so held.” Nixon, 457 U.S. at 742, 102 S.Ct. 2690. Given these uncertainties, I think it unlikely that the Supreme Court intended, without greater explanation, to impose this factor as a collateral order requirement.
For all of these reasons, I agree that the “Supreme Court’s collateral order test” does not contain a fourth factor requiring the interlocutory order to involve “a serious and unsettled question.” See ante at 483. It seems to me that when discussing the “serious and unsettled” factor initially in Cohen itself, the Court was simply describing several features of the interlocutory order before it, which persuaded the Court that the order was immediately ap-pealable. Thus, the Cohen Court noted the “serious and unsettled question” in an effort to pro-vide a full rationale for its holding, not as part of a multi-factor “test.” In Brady, 373 U.S. at 85 n. 1, 83 S.Ct. 1194, the Court similarly found that the order before it included a “serious and unsettled question,” without stating this as a collateral order requirement.
Nor did the Court in McDonald, 472 U.S. at 482 n. 3, 105 S.Ct. 2787, suggest that the “serious and unsettled question” *490constituted a necessary ingredient for a collateral order. The McDonald Court did not explain its own rationale for entertaining a case arising from a trial court’s denial of a judgment on the pleadings, but merely noted that the court of appeals had “accepted jurisdiction under the ‘collateral order’ doctrine” on the theory that the “petitioner raised a ‘serious and unsettled question.’” Id.
In Nixon, 457 U.S. at 742, 102 S.Ct. 2690, however, the Court did characterize the “serious and unsettled” factor as “an additional requirement,” which “Cohen established.” And in Hohn, 524 U.S. at 246-47, 118 S.Ct. 1969, the Court recently repeated Nixon’s characterization without disapproval. These cases do give me pause. However, the context of the Nixon Court’s statement and the rationale for its holding on this issue seem to me to render it questionable to rely on this characterization as signaling establishment of a fourth factor.
In Nixon, 457 U.S. at 741, 102 S.Ct. 2690, the Supreme Court was reviewing an unpublished appellate order, apparently without a stated rationale, “dismiss[ing] summarily” the district court’s denial of immunity to a former president and his aides. The Nixon Court thus surmised that the “Court of Appeals appears to have reasoned that petitioner’s appeal lay outside the Cohen doctrine because it raised no ‘serious and unsettled question’ ” since “[t]his argument was pressed by the respondent” on the basis of an earlier holding in a similar case by the Court of Appeals. Id. at 742-43, 102 S.Ct. 2690. If we are correct as to the limits of the collateral order test, the Nixon Court could have summarily rejected this view. But, facing an appellate order issued without explanation, on a question of great public interest, it is hardly surprising that the Supreme Court instead determined to meet the issue head on. Moreover, the ease with which the Nixon Court could dispose of the “serious and unsettled question” argument perhaps contributed to its decision to follow this direct approach. Obviously, the Court found the argument meritless, quickly concluding that notwithstanding the court of appeals’ earlier decision, the immunity question was unsettled because the Supreme Court itself had not resolved it. Id. at 743, 102 S.Ct. 2690.
Given this context and holding, I believe the fairest way to read Nixon is as a discussion of the “serious and unsettled question” which assumes, but does not decide, that it is a collateral order requirement. Moreover, in view of the extensive Supreme Court collateral order precedent post-dating Nixon, which I discuss above, I am satisfied that even if the Supreme Court in Nixon did intend to establish a fourth factor, it subsequently changed course.2

. The Supreme Court has increasingly emphasized that the right asserted must be "important." See, e.g., Digital Equip. Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U.S. 863, 878-79, 114 S.Ct. 1992, 128 L.Ed.2d 842 (1994).

. Finally, it is worth noting that even if there were a “serious and unsettled question” requirement, the order in this case would still be appealable under the Supreme Court's articulation of this requirement in Nixon, 457 U.S. at 743, 102 S.Ct. 2690. Because that case suggests that an issue remains unsettled until the Supreme Court itself has settled the matter, and I am aware of no Supreme Court case that has definitively settled the issue of when courts may unseal the record of a previously sealed complaint brought under the False Claims Act’s qui tarn provision, the issue in this case remains "serious and unsettled.”