For appellate mavens only

Federal appellate practitioners know that not every trial court ruling may be appealed. The Court of Appeals only has jurisdiction to hear cases from final judgments, which means the entire case must be over and done with before you can file a notice of appeal. This is a stark contrast from the New York appellate system, where just about anything can be appealed, even if the case is not over, such as the denial of summary judgment or a discovery ruling. This case would be included in any textbook on appellate practice, as it raises a rare issue that only an appellate maven would love.

The case is Bey v. City of New York, issued on June 9. I wrote about this case at this link. The Court holds that the Americans with Disabilities Act is not violated if the employer denies an accommodation that is prohibited under a binding federal regulation. But the Court also had to deal with another issue: appellate jurisdiction.

What happened here was that the district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, granting their motion for summary judgment on ADA liability. The City appealed from that ruling, but plaintiffs argued there was no appellate jurisdiction because the district court still had to rule on their damages claim, which was not part of the summary judgment ruling. If the plaintiffs are right, then there is no appellate jurisdiction and the City cannot take up the appeal until the district court makes a damages determination.

But the plaintiffs are not correct here. The Court of Appeals (Raggi, Sullivan and Bianco) notes that on issues like this, "we eschew formalism in favor of a pragmatic approach," and "we . . . look to whether, following the district court's decision, further proceedings are contemplated or required." We have appellate jurisdiction because the district court styled its decision as "Memorandum, Order, Judgment, and stay." The word "judgment" in that equation suggests the district court was issuing a judgment. While plaintiffs argue that they also sought damages in this case for the reasonable accommodation denial, the Court of Appeals draws the inference that the district court had intended to deny them any damages even though it ruled in their favor on the merits, as the district court noted during the pre-motion conference that damages were minimal and possibly frivolous in this case. "While the district court's decision stayed mum on the issue of damages, the court's silence is most naturally understood as a denial."