Harmston v. City and County of San Francisco
| Citation | 78 Fed.R.Serv.3d 234,627 F.3d 1273 |
| Decision Date | 10 December 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 09-16562,09-16562 |
| Parties | Clayton HARMSTON; Gigi George; James Lewis; Erik Evanson; Erik Solares; Dave Parry; Noah Mallinger; Carlos Mustafich; Luis Dejesus; James D. Aherne; Jason Kirchner; Reginald Scott; Gerald P. Lyons; Wendy Hurley; Holly Stoumen; Christine Arndt; Shareef Nasir, individuals, Plaintiffs, and Andrew Cohen, an individual, Plaintiff-Appellant, Waukeen Q. McCoy, Appellant, v. CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO; Heather Fong, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit) |
Waukeen Q. McCoy, Esq., San Francisco, CA, for the plaintiff-appellant.
Lawrence Hecimovich, Deputy City Attorney, San Francisco, CA, for the defendants-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Susan Illston, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 3:07-cv-01186-SI.
Before: MARY M. SCHROEDER and JAY S. BYBEE, Circuit Judges, and OWEN J. PANNER, District Judge.*
The district court sanctioned police officer Andrew Cohen and attorney Waukeen Q. McCoy (collectively, "Cohen") in 2007 for violating the court's discovery protective order. After the district court remanded the case to state court in 2008, and after the state court entered judgment, Cohen appealed the district court's sanctions order in 2009. We are first asked to decide whether the remand order was a "final" order for purposes of permitting Cohen to appeal the sanctions order. Concluding that the remand order was final, we then must determine whether the appeal was timely filed under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a). We conclude that it was not and that we lack jurisdiction to hear Cohen's appeal.
Eighteen San Francisco police officers-most of whom were stationed in Bayview-created a comedy video in 2005. Finding the video offensive, Police Chief Heather Fong ("Fong") disciplined several of the participating police officers. In August 2006, eighteen of those officers (including co-appellant Andrew Cohen), represented by co-appellant McCoy, filed suit in state court, alleging race discrimination, retaliation, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. When the officers subsequently amended their complaint to include federal discrimination claims, CCSF removed the case to federal court on February 28, 2007.
Fearing public disclosure "of confidential, proprietary, or private information" during the course of discovery, the parties agreed to a Stipulated Protective Order ("Protective Order") on August 20, 2007. The district court later held that McCoy and Cohen violated the Protective Order when McCoy provided or showed a copy of the video of Chief Fong's deposition to a reporter for ABC News on September 20 or September 21, 2007, even though Fong's counsel had designated the deposition as confidential. While McCoy had objected to designating Fong's deposition as confidential, he never pressed this objection to the court. Citing this and three other examples of Protective Order violations,1 none of which appellants dispute, the district court held McCoy and Cohen in contempt. Because the "evidence" of Cohen's violations was "clear and convincing," the court concluded "that sanctions for th[eir] contempt [were] appropriate to compensate [CCSF] for [their] noncompliance."
On November 16, 2007, Cohen appealed to this court, arguing that the district court's order held Cohen in criminal contempt, and that the court should have therefore provided procedural protections. In an unpublished order, we "conclude[d] that the district court found [Cohen] in civil contempt and that the district court imposed monetary sanctions against [Cohen] to compensate [CCSF] for losses sustained when [Cohen] violated the district court's protective order and to coerce compliance with the district court's protective order in the future." Because Cohen was held in civil contempt, we concluded, the sanctions order was "not an immediately appealable order," and we sua sponte dismissedthe appeal. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291; Bingman v. Ward, 100 F.3d 653, 656 (9th Cir.1996); Kordich v. Marine Clerks Ass'n, 715 F.2d 1392, 1393 (9th Cir.1983) (per curiam).
On January 29, 2008, the district court granted in part Appellants' Motion for Clarification of the Court's Contempt Order. The court made clear "that the sanctions imposed on Cohen ... were civil, not criminal," because "the Court awarded sanctions to defendants to compensate them for injuries associated with the improper disclosure of Chief Fong's deposition," and because "the Court intended in part to coerce plaintiffs to comply with the protective order in the future."
On October 9, 2008, the district court granted Cohen's motion to dismiss all federal claims and remand the case to state court. Citing 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a), and relying on its "discretion to remand a properly removed case to state court when no federal claim remains," the district court concluded "that the interests of judicial economy, comity and convenience ... favor[ed] remand to state court for determination of the state law issues that ... exclusively control[led] this case." On October 16, 2008, the district court issued an "Amended Clerk's Notice," in which the district court clerk notified the San Francisco Superior Court of the remand and transmitted the docket materials. On July 1, 2009, the San Francisco Superior Court entered summary judgment on most of Cohen's claims. Cohen filed a notice of appeal to this court on July 22, 2009.
We may not proceed to the merits of this appeal until we are satisfied that we have jurisdiction. Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, --- U.S. ----, 129 S.Ct. 1436, 1442, 173 L.Ed.2d 333 (2009). Whether we have jurisdiction depends on affirmative answers to two questions. First, does Cohen's appeal arise from a "final decision[ ] of [a] district court[ ] of the United States"? 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Second, has Cohen filed a notice of appeal within the time required by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)? See Bowles v. Russell, 551 U.S. 205, 209, 127 S.Ct. 2360, 168 L.Ed.2d 96 (2007). If the answer to either question is no, we must dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. We now turn to these questions.
Decisions from which a party may appeal under § 1291 come in two varieties. Typically, a "final decision" under § 1291 "is ... one by which a district court disassociates itself from a case." Mohawk Indus., Inc. v. Carpenter, --- U.S. ----, 130 S.Ct. 599, 604-05, 175 L.Ed.2d 458 (2009) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Jurisdiction under § 1291 may also arise, however, from "a 'small class' of collateral rulings." Id. at 605. "Under the collateral order exception, an appellate court may exercise its § 1291 jurisdiction to review a district court order that is not a final decision." McElmurry v. U.S. Bank Nat'l Ass'n, 495 F.3d 1136, 1140 (9th Cir.2007) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). See also Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546-47, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949).
Here, Cohen challenges only the district court's sanctions order. The difficulty for us is whether and how we may reach the merits of that order. It is law of the case that the sanctions order was not immediately appealable, which leaves two other possible orders from which Cohen could be appealing the sanctions order: (1) the district court's 2008 remand order or, as Cohen argues, (2) the California Superior Court's summary judgment order. We can dismiss the latter possibility by quickreference to § 1291, which limits our jurisdiction to "all final decisions of the district courts of the United States." 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (emphasis added). The state court's summary judgment order obviously did not arise from a "district court[ ] of the United States." The other possibility is more intriguing, but requires us to answer two related questions. First, is a remand order appealable? Second, is a remand order a "final" rather than a "collateral" order such that prior non-final orders in the litigation-such as the district court's sanctions order here-may be appealed with it? The answer to both questions is yes.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d), "[a]n order remanding a case to the State court from which it was removed is not reviewable on appeal or otherwise." Contrary to what appears to be the most natural reading of this provision, "the Supreme Court has explained that [§ 1447(d) ] does not prohibit review of all types of remands." Cal. Dept. of Water Res. v. Powerex Corp., 533 F.3d 1087, 1091 (9th Cir.2008). Instead, § 1447(d) is limited by § 1447(c), which permits a district court to remand because "the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction." Reading these provisions " in pari materia," the Supreme Court has held that "only remands based on grounds specified in § 1447(c) are immune from review under § 1447(d)." Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 711-12, 116 S.Ct. 1712, 135 L.Ed.2d 1 (1996) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, if a district court remands a case to state court for any reason other than lack of subject matter jurisdiction, its remand order is appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
Applying these principles, the Supreme Court recently held that a district court's dismissal of all federal claims and subsequent remand to state court after declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction under § 1367(a), is not based on a "lack of subject matter jurisdiction" for purposes of § 1447(c) and can be appealed. Carlsbad Tech., Inc. v. HIF Bio, Inc., ---U.S. ----, 129 S.Ct. 1862, 1867, 173 L.Ed.2d 843 (2009); see also Powerex, 533 F.3d at 1092-97 (). These principles leave little doubt that the district court's remand order here, in which the court expressly used its discretion under § 1367(c)(3) to decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, was an...
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