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USCA1 Opinion
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
____________________
No. 96-2007
ROSEMARY PETRALIA,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
AT&T GLOBAL INFORMATION SOLUTIONS COMPANY,
ETC., ET AL.,
Defendants - Appellees.
____________________
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Steven J. McAuliffe, U.S. District Judge] ___________________
____________________
Before
Bownes and Cyr, Senior Circuit Judges, _____________________
and Keeton,* District Judge. ______________
_____________________
James A. Fuller for appellant. _______________
John A. Houlihan, with whom Edwards & Angell was on brief _________________ ________________
for appellees.
____________________
June 12, 1997
____________________
____________________
* Of the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation.
KEETON, District Judge. In this proceeding we conclude KEETON, District Judge ______________
that the remand order of the district court is not immediately
appealable as a final judgment, and that the collateral order
exception to the final judgment rule does not apply.
Accordingly, we dismiss for lack of appellate jurisdiction.
I. Background I. Background
The case before us arose from the termination of the
short-term disability benefits of the Plaintiff-Appellant,
Rosemary Petralia, by the Defendants-Appellees, AT&T Global
Information Solutions Company ("AT&T"), and The Employee and
Group Benefit Plan for Account Managers and Sales Representatives
for the Systemedia Division ("the plan").
Plaintiff-Appellant sought review of the termination in
the district court. The district court granted summary judgment,
in part, in favor of Petralia. Specifically, the district court
found that the termination notice Defendants-Appellees provided
to Petralia did not comply with requirements of the Employee
Retirement and Income Security Act, 29 U.S.C. 1001-1461
("ERISA"). The notice failed to inform Petralia of her right to
appeal the termination, and it failed to inform her of what
additional information she could provide to avoid termination.
The district court determined that the proper remedy for the
ERISA violations was to remand the issue of Petralia's continued
eligibility for short-term benefits to the plan fiduciary.
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of
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Defendants-Appellees on the issue of long-term disability
benefits. Since eligibility for long-term benefits is contingent
upon exhaustion of short-term benefits, and the Defendants-
Appellees terminated the Plaintiff-Appellant's short-term
benefits before she exhausted them, the Plaintiff-Appellant has
not applied for, and the Defendants-Appellees have not denied,
long-term benefits. Plaintiff-Appellant requests that this court
vacate the remand order of the district court, and use its
equitable powers to reinstate the Appellant to the plan
retroactively and to award past and future long-term disability
benefits to the Appellant.
II. Appellate Jurisdiction II. Appellate Jurisdiction
Before we inquire into the merits of a dispute, we must
address the question of appellate jurisdiction. Doughty v. _______
Underwriters at Lloyd's, London (In re Wallis), 6 F.3d 856, 860 _______________________________________________
(1st Cir. 1993). There is a "bedrock requirement that
jurisdiction can never be assumed but must be premised on some
affirmative source." Id. ___
Generally, appellate jurisdiction is limited to review
of final decisions of the district courts. 28 U.S.C. 1291; see ___
Massachusetts v. V & M Management, Inc., 929 F.2d 830, 833 (1st _____________ _______________________
Cir. 1991)(per curiam).
A "collateral order" may be immediately appealable,
however, if it has certain prescribed characteristics. Cohen v. _____
Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546 (1949) (immediate ____________________________
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appeal is proper if the decision of the district court "appears
to fall in that small class which finally determine claims of
right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the
action, too important to be denied review and too independent of
the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be
deferred until the whole case is adjudicated").
"[A]n order or judgment is usually considered 'final'
(hence, appealable) only when it resolves the contested matter,
leaving nothing to be done except execution of the judgment. A
corollary rule is that an order remanding a matter to an
administrative agency for further findings and proceedings is not
final." Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs, ______________________________________________________
United States Dep't of Labor v. Bath Iron Works Corp., 853 F.2d _____________________________ ______________________
11, 13 (1st Cir. 1988)(quotations, citations, and footnote
omitted).
We think this corollary rule applies to the order
remanding this case to the plan administrators. See, e.g., ___ ____
Shannon v. Jack Eckerd Corp., 55 F.3d 561, 563 (11th Cir. 1995). _______ _________________
The district court sent the present case back to the plan
administrators to determine "the issue of [Appellant's] continued
eligibility for short-term benefits." Petralia v. AT&T Global ________ ___________
Info. Solutions Co., No. 94-533-M (D.N.H. July 29, 1996) (order ____________________
remanding case to plan administrators). The district court
stated in its order: "[The plan] shall afford Ms. Petralia a
full opportunity under the plan's terms to establish her
continued eligibility for short-term benefits, as of the time of
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improper termination, which of course will require an assessment
of whatever evidence she might present to establish her continued
eligibility." Id. Rather than "leaving nothing to be done," the ___
district court required further proceedings and findings on ________
remand. Applying the standard cited above to the remand order in
this case, we conclude that the order is not a final judgment.
Therefore, 28 U.S.C. 1291 does not confer appellate
jurisdiction over this case.
The "collateral order" doctrine developed in Cohen and _____
later decisions does not apply in the circumstances of this case.
That doctrine is, in essence, "a 'narrow exception to the normal
application of the final judgment rule,'" prescribed in 28 U.S.C.
1291. Doughty, 6 F.3d at 862 (quoting Midland Asphalt Corp. v. _______ _______ _____________________
United States, 489 U.S. 794, 798 (1989)). The collateral order _____________
doctrine is "limited to orders that (1) conclusively determine
(2) important legal questions which are (3) completely separate
from the merits of the underlying action and are (4) effectively
unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment." Doughty, 6 F.3d _______
at 862.
The issue remanded to the plan in this case is not ___
collateral; Petralia's continued eligibility for benefits, the
issue remanded to the plan, is the very heart of this case.
Consequently, the issue is effectively reviewable on appeal from
a final judgment, and the rationale of the collateral order
doctrine does not apply to this case. Moreover, the issue has
not been conclusively determined below, as required by the first
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prong of the collateral order doctrine. "[T]o come within the
collateral order rule, a decree must definitively resolve the
merits of the collateral issue, not merely determine which court
will thereafter resolve it." Id. at 863. Because the order of ___
the district court did not conclusively determine a legal
question separate from the merits of the underlying action, and
the issue remains subject to review on appeal from a final
judgment, we conclude that the collateral order exception to the
final judgment rule does not apply to this case.
III. Mandamus or Other Prerogative Writ III. Mandamus or Other Prerogative Writ
The initial briefs of the parties having failed to
address the issue of appellate jurisdiction, the Panel questioned
counsel about jurisdiction and allowed the filing of Supplemental
Briefs. Appellees acknowledged lack of appellate jurisdiction.
In her Supplemental Brief, Appellant argues that in Gillespie v. _________
United States Steel Corp., 379 U.S. 148 (1964), the Court ___________________________
recognized "what might well be called the 'twilight zone' of
finality," id. at 152, and asks us to take jurisdiction on the ___
ground that otherwise Rosemary Petralia may be "forever
foreclosed" from appellate review of "the proof of her [claim of]
chronic fatigue syndrome." Supplemental Brief of
Plaintiff/Appellant at 4. Although this request in the
Supplemental Brief was not in the form of a petition for a
prerogative writ, in the interests of assurance of fair process
we address the request as if it were so designated.
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A writ of mandamus "must be used stintingly and brought
to bear only in extraordinary situations." Doughty, supra, 6 F.3d _______ _____
at 865. To show grounds for such extraordinary relief here,
Rosemary Petralia would be required to demonstrate that the
remand order was palpably erroneous and that she faces a special ___
risk of irreparable harm. Id. Plaintiff-Appellant has not made ___
this showing since, as noted above, issues regarding her proof of
her claim of chronic fatigue syndrome remain effectively
reviewable on appeal from a final judgment, after one is ordered
and entered. See id. at 866. ___ ___
IV. Retention of Jurisdiction in the District Court IV. Retention of Jurisdiction in the District Court
Ordinarily implicit in a district court's order of
remand to a plan fiduciary is an understanding that after a new
decision by the plan fiduciary, a party seeking judicial review
in the district court may do so by a timely motion filed in the
same civil action, and is not required to commence a new civil
action. To avoid any misunderstanding that might otherwise
occur, we state that we interpret the order of the district court
in this case as having retained jurisdiction, in this sense, to
hear and decide any timely motion for judicial review filed after
further proceedings before the plan fiduciary. This is so
regardless of whether the case is formally held open or instead
administratively closed on the district court docket in the
meantime.
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V. Conclusion V. Conclusion
Having determined that the remand order of the district
court is not a final judgment, that the collateral order doctrine
does not apply to the decision of the district court remanding an
issue to the plan administrators, and, that a prerogative writ is
not warranted, we dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
So ordered. Costs are awarded to Appellees.
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Document Info
Docket Number： 96-2007
Filed Date： 6/17/1997
Precedential Status： Precedential
Modified Date： 9/21/2015