(Download) "In Re Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc." by Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: In Re Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc.
- Author : Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
- Release Date : January 16, 1995
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 76 KB
Description
POSNER, Chief Judge. Drug companies that manufacture blood solids are the defendants in a nationwide class action brought on behalf of hemophiliacs infected by the AIDS virus as a consequence of using the defendants' products. The defendants have filed with us a petition for mandamus, asking us to direct the district Judge to rescind his order certifying the case as a class action. We have no appellate jurisdiction over that order. An order certifying a class is not a final decision within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291; it does not wind up the litigation in the district court. And, in part because it is reviewable (at least in principle--the importance of this qualification will appear shortly) on appeal from the final decision in the case, it has been held not to fit any of the exceptions to the rule that confines federal appellate jurisdiction to final decisions. In short, as the Supreme Court made clear in Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463 (1978), and Gardner v. Westinghouse Broadcasting Co., 437 U.S. 478, 480-82 (1978), it is not an appealable order. Those decisions involved the denial rather than the grant of motions for class certification, but the grant is no more final than the denial and no more within any of the exceptions to the final-decision rule. Hoxworth v. Blinder, Robinson & Co., 903 F.2d 186, 208 (3d Cir. 1990); 7B Charles Alan Wright, Arthur A. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1802, pp. 484-86 (2d ed. 1986). Still, even nonappealable orders can be challenged by asking the court of appeals to mandamus the district court. Indeed, as a practical matter only such orders can be challenged by filing a petition for mandamus; an appealable order can be challenged only by appealing from it; the possibility of appealing would be a compelling reason for denying mandamus. For obvious reasons, however, mandamus is issued only in extraordinary cases. Otherwise, interlocutory orders would be appealable routinely, but with "appeal" renamed "mandamus." Kerr v. United States District Court, 426 U.S. 394, 403 (1976); Eisenberg v. United States District Court, 910 F.2d 374, 375 (7th Cir. 1990).