Court Opinion

ID: 9644353
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:53:48.399526+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:12.068481
License: Public Domain

FRANK, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the decision. But I think it desirable to add that the foregoing opinion neatly illustrates the desirability of our recommending changes in the statutes so as to confer on the courts of appeal discretion to allow interlocutory appeals where necessary to prevent substantial injustice. The making of recommendations in judicial opinions for statutory changes has distinguished precedent.1
*626As stated in the foregoing' opinion, we have no jurisdiction to consider the merits of the appeal. Yet the opinion, although obliquely, in part suggests’our views on the merits, for it broadly hints that the trial court should modify at least some of the rulings from which plaintiff sought to appeal. I may say that I, too, itch to discuss the merits and, if it were proper, would do so even, more in detail. But a statute which requires us to deny jurisdiction does not authorize us to intimate what we would decide if we could retain jurisdiction; when we do so intimate, we are circumventing the statute. The fact, however, that we are tempted to do so serves to show that there are cases — and this may well be one — in which our obligation to dismiss an interlocutory appeal, for want of jurisdiction, works hardship, unnecessary delay and consequently injustice.
It is, of course, true that it would be unwise to require that appeals from all intermediate rulings be granted. But' there is Ja middle road, as shown in the statutes authorizing interlocutory appeals in connection with injunctions and in admiralty and patent cases. Those statutory provisions were- the .fruit of the recognition of the unwisdom of never allowing “fragmentary” appeals in any cases. Those now opposed to extending the scope of interlocutory appeals (on the ground that attempts at “piecemeal adjudication” usually turn out to be unsuccessful and undesirable) would, if they were consistent, urge the repeal of those statutory provisions. For my part, the “piecemeal” appeals authorized by those provisions have turned out, on the whole, to be successful and desirable.
The hostility to further enlargement of the scope of interlocutory appeals is said to be based on the fact that they cause a waste of time and expense to the parties and the courts. Experience indicates that there is probably more waste of time for the courts and expense for the parties involved in cases, of which the books are full, in which the courts must determine whether an appeal is or is not interlocutory. We thus have “the spectacle of a labor-saving device which causes more labor than it saves.” 2
Aside from that, and far more important, is the fact that there are undeniably cases in which anyone can see that postponement of an appellate decision until all proceedings in the court below have terminated will, because of erroneous interlocutory rulings by the trial judge, require long and needless trials which could be avoided by permitting discretionary intermediate appeals. When I was at the Bar, I frequently encountered such unfortunate cases;3 their unfairness is perhaps less apparent to us when we are translated to the bench.
The refusal of an interlocutory appeal may, in actual result, deprive a party of *627any review at all where “an appeal from the final decree is likely to be worthless so far as the money already paid out is concerned.” 4 Judge Hosmer, in Magill v. Lyman, 6 Conn. 59, 67 (objecting to the denial of an appeal in that case because there was no final order) remarked: “Besides, if the error is reviewed, after the determination of the action at law, how inequitable and ruinous the delay! Years may elapse before this event takes place, and in the meantime the action may run the whole round of litigation until it is exhausted to the dregs, and the party is deprived of property in this unnecessary conflict much beyond the whole value of the matter in question.” The prospective cost of wastefully prolonged litigation, thus caused, often induces acceptance of an unfair settlement by a party who cannot afford the financial outlays needed to continue with the trial. As the Supreme Court has said (per Chief Justice Taft) : “One of the causes for complaint of the general administration of justice is the expense it entails upon the litigants * * *.” Los Angeles Brush Corp. v. James, 272 U.S. 701, 707, 47 S.Ct. 286, 289, 71 L.Ed. 481. The Bills of Rights in the Constitutions of many States provide, in varying forms, that “every person ought to obtain justice freely and without being obliged to purchase it,” an obviously basic principle of any decent legal system in a democracy. The needlessly excessive cost of litigation violates that principle, since, for many citizens, it puts a prohibitive price on justice. A right lost for such want of ability to buy it is no right at all.5
The problem is that of preventing undesirable interlocutory appeals on the one hand and of allowing desirable interlocutory appeals on the other. This problem can be solved by amending the statutes in the manner above suggested. Such amendments might well also provide that failure to seek any interlocutory appeal should not prevent a later appeal from a subsequent final order.6
It is suggested that a hearing by an appellate court to decide whether, in its discretion, in order to prevent injustice, it should entertain an interlocutory appeal would be almost as burdensome as the hearing of the appeal itself on the merits, and that for that reason it would be unwise to authorize such discretionary interlocutory appeals.' But the burden under the existing statutes is substantially as great. For we are constantly having to decide whether an order is interlocutory and not appealable or whether it is final and appealable; since there is little finality to what is “finality,” 7 and it' still remains much of a mystery, decisions on such questions are often by no means easy; tlje" very case at bar goes to show that, in determining that a case is not appealabíe\because there was no final order, we are frequently obliged to consider the merits; and this is so even when we refrain from discussing them in our opinion. The burden would be little heavier if we had the power to grant appeals in our discretion in order to avoid injustice. Moreover, if justice requires that we should be given such discretion, we should be glad to take on the additional labors, if any; should they prove to be too great, doubtless Congress would provide for the appointment of additional judges.
*628It is also suggested that, were we given such discretion, we would need to be hardy to resist lending an ear to litigants who have gone to the time and expense of bringing such applications before us. However, the Supreme Court, which has equivalent discretionary power with respect to the granting of writs of certiorari, seems capable often of refusing to lend an ear to litigants in a similar position; and we, too, who now have discretion in the matter of granting bail, setting aside defaults and allowing appeals in forma pauperis, are not too easily swayed by the efforts of the applicants.
Although the Act, 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 723b, 723c, which authorizes the Rules of Civil Procedure apparently precludes the making of rules which affect appellate jurisdiction,8 yet I think that the Committee now engaged in preparing proposed revisions of the Rules should carefully consider the problem above discussed and recommend suitable statutory changes. For procedure should be “the ‘handmaid rather than the mistress’ of justice.”9 Rule 1 states, in effect, that the purpose of the Rules is “to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.” The statutes relating to appealability often frustrate that laudable purpose.

 See D. Hand, J., in Parke-Davis & Co. v. H. K. Mulford Co., C.C., 189 F. 95, 316, recommending amendment of the patent law. Judge Hough’s opinion in United States Asphalt Refining Co. v. Trinidad Petroleum Co., D.C., 222 F. 1006, sharply criticizing the decisions as to arbitration, aided in procuring the enactment of the Arbitration Act, 9 U.S. C.A. § 1 et seq. as shown by the legislative history of that Act. Cf. Gardozo, A Ministry of Justice, 35 Harv.L. Rev. 113 (1921). And see the recommendation to Congress recently made by this court in United States v. Mook, 2 Cir., 125 F.2d 706.

 Crick, The -Final Judgment as a Basis for Appeal, 41 Yale L.J. (1932) 539, 557-558. Crick’s statement more in full reads as follows: “These considerations, then, should prepare us for the large volume of litigation over the question of what constitutes a final judgment, and we should not be surprised at the speetaele of a labor saving device which causes more labor than it saves. We are really seeking to determine whether this is the sort of decision which the appellate court wishes to hear, but we spend our time arguing the question of whether the decision is a final judgment. As the number of cases increase, generalizations which were used in past times must be reformulated, or cast aside for new ones which are yet more vague or which contain words capable of more than one meaning. Thus we create machines within machines in order to exclude or include given sets of cases as the situation may require. And as since so many different kinds of cases are included in these generalizations, learned counsel are able to parade a vast army of decisions for the edification of the court, although that subject matter involved in them is entirely different from the case which is being argued.” (Emphasis added.)

 In Thompson v. Murphy, 8 Cir., 93 F.2d 38, suit was begun quasi in rem on substituted service as to defendants who were non-residents of the district and in personam as to resident defendants. The resident defendants entered their appearance. But, on motion of the non-residents, the trial court entered an order dismissing the suit as to them. The non-residents moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the order appealed from was not final, citing Collins v. Miller, 252 U.S. 364, 40 S.Ct. 347, 64 L.Ed. 616, and similar cases. The motion was denied because the pleadings showed that there was no joint liability between the resident and the non-resident defendants. If there had been such joint liability, the Court of Appeals would have been obliged to dis*627miss the appeal. I was one of the counsel in this case and know that, had there been such joint liability and had there therefore been a dismissal of the appeal, the consequence would have been an expensive trial (with the residents as the sole parties defendant) lasting for several months, followed by an appeal in which the court of appeals would have reversed, because of the earlier dismissal as to the non-residents. Thompson v. Murphy, supra; Thompson v. Terminal Shares, Inc., 8 Cir., 89 F.2d 652; certiorari denied Guaranty Trust Co. of New York v. Thompson, 302 U.S. 735, 736, 58 S.Ct. 121, 82 L.Ed. 568. The result of this postponed reversal would have been another expensive trial, lasting for several months, with both the residents and the non-residents as parties. It was only the lucky accident that there was no joint liability between the resident and non-resident defendants that prevented such an unfortunate waste of time and money.

 Crick, loc.cit., 562.

 The postponement of an appeal from an erroneous interlocutory order often imposes needless expense on the party in whose favor that order was made.

 Cf. Finality of Judgment in Appeals From Federal District Courts, 49 Yale L.J. (1940) 1476, 1482-1483; Moore, 3 Federal Practice, 1942 Supplement, 131, note 34; Crick, loc.cit., 562.

 United States v. 243.22 Acres of Land, 2 Cir., 129 F.2d 678, 680.

 3 Moore, Federal Practice, 3155.

 Clark, Code Pleading (1928) 28.