Argument of Speaker
Mr. Speaker: The opinion of the Court in No. 98-727, Cunningham versus Hamilton County, Ohio will be announced by Justice Thomas.
Argument of Justice Thomas
Mr. Thomas: This case comes to us on a writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Involves a question, what happens to when an attorney is sanctioned from his conduct doing discovery, can that attorney appeal that even though the case continuous on?
Petitioner is an attorney who initially represented a plaintiff and sued against respondent and others.
After petitioner failed to obey certain pretrial discovery orders, a Magistrate judge directed her to pay monetary sanctions pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a).
A District Court affirmed the sanctions order and also disqualified petitioner as plaintiff's counsel.
While the suit went forward as I indicated petitioner immediately appealed the sanctions order.
The Court of Appeals dismissed her appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
It held that the Rule 37(a) sanctions order did not fall within a narrow category of orders known as collateral orders, which maybe appealed prior to the entry of judgment.
In an opinion filed with the Clerk today, we affirm.
28 U.S.C. Section 1291 gives federal appellate courts with the jurisdiction over appeals from final decisions of the District Courts.
We have interpreted this provision to mean that an appeal ordinarily will not lie until the District Court has entered final judgment unless the order being appealed is a collateral order.
A collateral order is conclusive, resolves an important question completely separate from the merits and is effectively unreviewable on appeal from the final judgment.
We hold today that a Rule 37(a) sanctions order does not qualify as a collateral order, and thus is not the final decision under Section 1291.
Review of sanctions orders often will be an inextricably intertwined with the merits of the case.
Moreover, an attorney suffers no undue hardship from deferring appellate consideration of a Rule 37(a) sanction which unlike a contempt finding is not designed to compel immediate compliance with an order of the court.
Our conclusion that a Rule 37(a) sanctions order is not a final decision, applies even where as here the attorney no longer participates in the case.
The opinion of the Court is unanimous.
Justice Kennedy has filed a concurring opinion.
