Cite as: 515 U. S. 304 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
Regional Health Center, Inc., 800 F. 2d 199, 203 (CA8 1986) (saying that this question "is . . . less clearly separable from the merits" than the question in Mitchell); see also Brief for United States 18 ("In one sense, a ruling regarding the sufficiency of the evidence is closely intertwined with the merits").
It has been suggested that Mitchell implicitly recognized that "the need to protect officials against the burdens of further pretrial proceedings and trial" justifies a relaxation of the separability requirement. 15A Wright & Miller § 3914.10, at 656; see id., § 3911, at 344-345; id., § 3911.2, at 387; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 20 ("[W]here the right not to be tried is at stake, [closer] association with the merits is tolerated") (argument of the United States). Assuming that to be so, and despite a similar interest in avoiding trial in the kind of case here at issue, we can find no separability. To take what petitioners call a small step beyond Mitchell, Brief for Petitioners 18, would more than relax the separability requirement—it would in many cases simply abandon it.
Finally, consider the competing considerations that underlie questions of finality. See supra, at 309-310. We of course decide appealability for categories of orders rather than individual orders. See Digital Equipment Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U. S. 863, 868 (1994). Thus, we do not now in each individual case engage in ad hoc balancing to decide issues of appealability. See generally P. Bator, D. Meltzer, P. Mishkin, & D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler's The Federal Courts and The Federal System 1810 (3d ed. 1988). But, that does not mean that, in delineating appealable categories, we should not look to "the competing considerations underlying all questions of finality—'the inconvenience and costs of piecemeal review on the one hand and the danger of denying justice by delay on the other.' " Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U. S. 156, 171 (1974) (quoting Dickinson v. Petroleum Conversion Corp., 338 U. S. 507, 511 (1950)). And, those considerations, which we discussed above in Part
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