Court Opinion

ID: 9421581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:58:59.489842+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:31.251184
License: Public Domain

*251Mr. Justice Harlan,
dissenting.
The effort which has gone into this case has at least ended happily from the point of view of preserving the integrity of those provisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure bearing on the timeliness of appeals. The Court’s opinion, and the dissent of Mr. Justice Frankfurter which I have joined, are at one on the basic issue, namely, that entry of a formal judgment is not necessary to start the time for appeal running, and also agree that the determinative question in any given case is whether the District Court intended its decision on the merits to be a final disposition of the matter. After an en banc Court of Appeals had decided that the District Court in this instance did intend to make a final disposition of the case, I should have thought this Court would have considered it the better course to affirm the judgment below, with an appropriate suggestion to district judges to leave no room for argument about their intentions respecting finality, rather than to reverse the Court of Appeals on what was essentially an issue of fact.
Even so, the Court’s action perhaps has a silver lining, for I daresay it will stimulate district judges to be more at pains in the future, cf. Matteson v. United States, 240 F. 2d 517, 518, to give in their opinions in these “money” cases an affirmative indication of intention regarding the finality or nonfinality of their decisions. If such is the effect of this decision, it will be a healthy thing, for surely such a commonplace affair as the time for appeal should not be permitted to breed litigation.