Cite as: 515 U. S. 304 (1995)
Syllabus
and (2) the issue appealed concerned, not which facts the parties might be able to prove, but, rather, whether or not certain given facts show a violation of "clearly established" law. Pp. 309-312. (b) Orders of the kind here at issue are not appealable for three reasons. First, considered purely as precedent, Mitchell itself does not support appealability because the underlying dispute therein involved the application of "clearly established" law to a given (for appellate purposes undisputed) set of facts, and the Court explicitly limited its holding to appeals challenging, not a district court's determination about what factual issues are "genuine," but the purely legal issue what law was "clearly established." Second, although Cohen's conceptual theory of appealability finds a "final" district court decision in part because the immediately appealable decision involves issues significantly different from those that underlie the plaintiff's basic case, it will often prove difficult to find any such "separate" question where a defendant simply wants to appeal a district court's determination that the evidence is sufficient to permit a particular finding of fact after trial. Finally, the competing considerations underlying questions of finality—the inconvenience and costs of piecemeal review, the danger of denying justice by delay, the comparative expertise of trial and appellate courts, and the wise use of appellate resources—argue against extending Mitchell to encompass orders of the kind at issue and in favor of limiting interlocutory appeals of "qualified immunity" matters to cases presenting more abstract issues of law. Pp. 313-318. (c) Neither of petitioners' arguments as to why the Court's effort to separate reviewable from unreviewable summary judgment determinations will prove unworkable—that the parties can easily manipulate the Court's holding and that appellate courts will have great difficulty in accomplishing such separation—presents a problem serious enough to require a different conclusion. Pp. 318-319.
26 F. 3d 727, affirmed.
Breyer, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Charles A. Rothfeld argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was Mark F. Smolens.
Cornelia T. L. Pillard argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Days, Assistant Attorney Gen-
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