Swint v. Chambers County Comm'n, 514 U.S. 35, 14 (1995)

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48

SWINT v. CHAMBERS COUNTY COMM'N

Opinion of the Court

Two relatively recent additions to the Judicial Code also counsel resistance to expansion of appellate jurisdiction in the manner endorsed by the Eleventh Circuit. The Rules Enabling Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2071 et seq., gives this Court "the power to prescribe general rules of practice and procedure . . . for cases in the United States district courts . . . and courts of appeals." § 2072(a). In 1990, Congress added § 2072(c), which authorizes us to prescribe rules "defin[ing] when a ruling of a district court is final for the purposes of appeal under section 1291." Two years later, Congress added § 1292(e), which allows us to "prescribe rules, in accordance with section 2072 . . . to provide for an appeal of an interlocutory decision to the courts of appeals that is not otherwise provided for under [§ 1292] (a), (b), (c), or (d)."

Congress thus has empowered this Court to clarify when a decision qualifies as "final" for appellate review purposes, and to expand the list of orders appealable on an interlocutory basis. The procedure Congress ordered for such changes, however, is not expansion by court decision, but by rulemaking under § 2072. Our rulemaking authority is constrained by §§ 2073 and 2074, which require, among other things, that meetings of bench-bar committees established to recommend rules ordinarily be open to the public, § 2073(c)(1), and that any proposed rule be submitted to Congress before the rule takes effect, § 2074(a). Congress' designation of the rulemaking process as the way to define or refine when a district court ruling is "final" and when an interlocutory order is appealable warrants the Judiciary's full respect.6

6 In the instant case, the Eleventh Circuit asserted not merely pendent appellate jurisdiction, but pendent party appellate jurisdiction: The court appended to its jurisdiction to review the denial of the individual defendants' qualified immunity motions jurisdiction to review the denial of the commission's summary judgment motion. We note that in 1990, Congress endeavored to clarify and codify instances appropriate for the exercise of pendent or "supplemental" jurisdiction in district courts. 28 U. S. C. § 1367 (1988 ed., Supp. V); see § 1367(a) (providing for "supplemen-

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