Cite as: 515 U. S. 304 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
B
We now consider the appealability of a portion of a district court's summary judgment order that, though entered in a "qualified immunity" case, determines only a question of "evidence sufficiency," i. e., which facts a party may, or may not, be able to prove at trial. This kind of order, we conclude, is not appealable. That is, the District Court's determination that the summary judgment record in this case raised a genuine issue of fact concerning petitioners' involvement in the alleged beating of respondent was not a "final decision" within the meaning of the relevant statute. We so decide essentially for three reasons.
First, consider Mitchell itself, purely as precedent. The dispute underlying the Mitchell appeal involved the application of "clearly established" law to a given (for appellate purposes undisputed) set of facts. And, the Court, in its opinion, explicitly limited its holding to appeals challenging, not a district court's determination about what factual issues are "genuine," Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(c), but the purely legal issue what law was "clearly established." The opinion, for example, referred specifically to a district court's "denial of a claim of qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue of law." 472 U. S., at 530 (emphasis added). It "emphasize[d] . . . that the appealable issue is a purely legal one: whether the facts alleged (by the plaintiff, or, in some cases, the defendant) support a claim of violation of clearly established law." Id., at 528, n. 9. It distinguished precedent not permitting interlocutory appeals on the ground that "a qualified immunity ruling . . . is . . . a legal issue that can be decided with reference only to undisputed facts and in isolation from the remaining issues of the case." Id., at 530, n. 10. And, it explained its separability holding by saying that "[a]n appellate court reviewing the denial of the defendant's claim of immunity need not consider the correctness of the plaintiff's version of the facts." Id., at 528. Although there is some language in the opinion that sounds as if it
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