Court Opinion

ID: 9458324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:48:52.368204+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:43.223411
License: Public Domain

FEINBERG, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I dissent from the majority opinion because the district court’s order is not appealable. In my view, there is no compelling reason in cases like this to justify abandoning the historic federal policy against piecemeal appeals. Nor can justification be found in the purpose of 28 U.S.C.A. § 1292(a) (1), which must be our guide rather than the statute’s literal language. See Chappell & Co. v. Frankel, 367 F.2d 197, 202 (2d Cir. 1966) (in banc). The clear purpose of section 1292 (a) (1) is to “permit litigants to effectually challenge interlocutory orders of serious, perhaps irreparable, consequence.” Baltimore Contractors v. Bodinger, 348 U.S. 176, 181, 75 S.Ct. 249, 252, 99 L.Ed. 233 (1955). Moreover, when Congress amended the original exception to the final judgment rule for the grant or continuance of injunctive relief to add the refusal of such relief, “it seems rather plain that Congress was thinking primarily of the ease where erroneous denial of a temporary injunction may cause injury quite as irreparable as an erroneous grant of one.” See Stewart-Warner Corp. v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 325 F.2d 822, 830 (2d Cir. 1963) (dissent), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 944, 84 S.Ct. 800, 11 L.Ed.2d 767 (1964). But plaintiff does not, and indeed cannot, claim that it will suffer special or irreparable temporary harm unless allowed to appeal the trial court’s order immediately. Any such assertion would be belied by plaintiff’s failure to seek preliminary injunctive relief in the district court in the period since the complaint was filed in January 1970.
Plaintiff’s suit asks for a permanent injunction against the use by defendant of plaintiff’s mark “Safari” on various classes of goods and an accounting from defendant. That suit still remains untried, except that the district judge has limited plaintiff’s case as follows: Plaintiff cannot stop defendant from using “Safafi” on a safari hat, “Minisafari” on a smaller hat, “Safariland” in the name of its shop and newsletter, or “Safari” on products relating to “the practice or cult of safari.” What the latter are we do not know. But we do know that plaintiff still has a case to prove regarding defendant’s use of “Safari” on other products, such as shoes. In that sense, and in the absence of any threat of imminent irreparable injury, the situation resembles a pre-trial order limiting the *1045type of damages plaintiff may prove, e. g., in a contract suit, eliminating lost profits. Cf. Clark v. Kraftco Corp., 447 F.2d 933, 936 (2d Cir. 1971). In such a ease, a plaintiff should not be able to appeal the adverse determination until the entire case has been tried, unless there is ground for an immediate appeal under Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b) or 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), not applicable here.1 The permanent injunction plaintiff seeks has not yet been fully and finally granted or denied. Until it is, and in the absence of a motion in the trial court for a preliminary injunction, see Build of Buffalo, Inc. v. Sedita, 441 F.2d 284 (2d Cir. 1971), we should not allow the appeal.
Admittedly, this position perhaps conflicts with the reasoning of our decision in Glenmore v. Ahern, 276 F.2d 525 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 362 U.S. 964, 80 S.Ct. 877, 4 L.Ed.2d 878 (1960). There we allowed, over strong dissents, an appeal under section 1292(a) (1) from a district court order which dismissed one count of a multi-count complaint. The dismissed count requested the same injunctive relief as did other counts in the complaint but was based on a “distinct legal theory.” But one of the principal cases on which the court in Glen-more relied in reaching its decision, Federal Glass Co. v. Loshin, 217 F.2d 936 (2d Cir. 1954), was subsequently overruled by this court in Chappell & Co. v. Frankel, supra, and disapproved by the Supreme Court in Switzerland Cheese Ass’n, Inc. v. E. Horne’s Market, Inc., 385 U.S. 23, 87 S.Ct. 193, 17 L.Ed.2d 23 (1966). Moreover, the writer of the majority opinion in Glenmore, now Chief Judge Friendly, has suggested that “it may be appropriate for us to give further consideration to . [the appealability question] should it again arise.” Western Geophysical Co. of America v. Bolt Associates, Inc., 440 F.2d 765, 770-771 n. 4 (2d Cir. 1971). In holding that an order granting partial summary judgment against defendant was not appealable under section 1292(a) (1), the court in Western Geophysical distinguished Glenmore on the ground that in the case then before it “no single counterclaim . . . had been dismissed in its entirety.” 440 F.2d at 770-771.
Thus, the question of appealability in cases such as this is far from closed. Arguably, since the district court’s order here did not dismiss a separate “count” of plaintiff’s complaint, there is no right to an interlocutory appeal under our cases. That argument, of course, is complicated by the fact that the effect of the trial court’s order was to narrow the scope of injunctive relief sought by plaintiff. Cf. Build of Buffalo, Inc. v. Sedita, supra (plaintiffs allowed to appeal where scope of injunctive relief sought was reduced by order dismissing three defendants, but plaintiffs had moved for preliminary injunction); McMillan v. Bd. of Educ., 430 F.2d 1145 (2d Cir. 1970). But aside from such technical arguments, both the policy behind section 1292(a) (1) and considerations of judicial administration, see American Express Warehousing, Ltd. v. Trans-america Ins. Co., 380 F.2d 277, 280-282 (2d Cir. 1967), support the conclusion that the order here is not now appeal-able. The remainder of this case should be tried promptly and concluded, rather than have it surface in this court in bits and pieces.

. Plaintiff did try tliose routes, but Judge Lasker refused to direct entry of a final judgment under Rule 54(b) or to grant a certification under § 1292(b), both prerequisites to jurisdiction in this court,