Cite as: 515 U. S. 304 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
139, 144 (1993) (brackets in original) (quoting Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463, 468 (1978)).
In determining which "collateral orders" amount to "final decisions," these requirements help qualify for immediate appeal classes of orders in which the considerations that favor immediate appeals seem comparatively strong and those that disfavor such appeals seem comparatively weak. The requirement that the issue underlying the order be " 'effectively unreviewable' " later on, for example, means that failure to review immediately may well cause significant harm. See 15A C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3911, pp. 334-335 (1992) (hereinafter Wright & Miller). The requirement that the district court's order "conclusively determine" the question means that appellate review is likely needed to avoid that harm. Id., at 333. The requirement that the matter be separate from the merits of the action itself means that review now is less likely to force the appellate court to consider approximately the same (or a very similar) matter more than once, and also seems less likely to delay trial court proceedings (for, if the matter is truly collateral, those proceedings might continue while the appeal is pending). Id., at 333-334.
Third, in Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511 (1985), this Court held that a district court's order denying a defendant's motion for summary judgment was an immediately appealable "collateral order" (i. e., a "final decision") under Cohen, where (1) the defendant was a public official asserting a defense of "qualified immunity," and (2) the issue appealed concerned, not which facts the parties might be able to prove, but, rather, whether or not certain given facts showed a violation of "clearly established" law. 472 U. S., at 528; see Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818 (1982) (holding that public officials are entitled to a "qualified immunity" from "liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established . . . rights of which a reasonable person would have known"). Applying Cohen's criteria, the
311
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007