Court Opinion

ID: 9478082
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:39:46.437143+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:13.924239
License: Public Domain

KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I disagree with little in the majority’s scholarly and well-reasoned opinion — except the bottom line. While the court’s *631logic is flawless, it reaches a result that is difficult to square with judicial efficiency and common sense. The court is sending the case to the Appellate Division of the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, 5,625 miles away, whence it will inevitably sail back to us across the Pacific. On its return, the case will appear in precisely the same posture as it does today; we will owe the appellate division’s opinion no deference. Guam v. Yang, 850 F.2d 507, 511 (9th Cir.1988) (en banc). The net effect will be the multiplication of attorney’s fees and airfares for the litigants, and additional work for the three appellate division judges and three other judges of this court who will have to address an issue that stands fully briefed and argued and ready for decision by us today.
If the law were clear and there were no way of avoiding such an absurd result, I would have to go along with this transoceanic badminton match. But the law is not clear. As the majority aptly notes, this is the forgotten case, the situation Congress simply did not contemplate. Our latitude in making the ends of justice meet and avoiding unnecessary trouble for everyone involved is broader than usual under these circumstances.
I would cut the Gordian knot in this fashion: While we did not have jurisdiction at the time Saipan Stevedoring filed its notice of appeal with the district court, we would have jurisdiction if a timely notice of appeal were filed now. There is only one problem: A notice filed now would be woefully untimely. I would nevertheless encourage Saipan Stevedoring to file a notice of appeal, and would then deem it timely under the “unique circumstances” doctrine because of Saipan Stevedoring’s reasonable reliance on the appellate division’s previous assertion of jurisdiction. See Fiester v. Turner, 783 F.2d 1474, 1476 (9th Cir.1986); United Artists Corp. v. La Cage Aux Folles, Inc., 771 F.2d 1265, 1268 (9th Cir.1985). Then the appeal would be properly before us and we would be able to rule on the merits with a clear conscience, saving everybody a great deal of trouble.
I cannot fault my distinguished colleagues for eschewing this solution; the result they reach is certainly more elegant. But when we are dealing with a single case, trapped between two jurisdictional statutes, where our ruling will have no precedential effect whatsoever, I would be willing to swap a little bit of elegance for a whole lot of convenience to everyone involved.