Gelboim v. Bank of Am. Corp.

• Decision Date: 21 January 2015
• Docket Number: No. 13–1174.,13–1174.
• Citation: 574 U.S. 405,190 L.Ed.2d 789,135 S.Ct. 897
• Parties: Ellen GELBOIM, et al., Petitioners v. BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION et al.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

574 U.S. 405

135 S.Ct. 897

190 L.Ed.2d 789

Ellen GELBOIM, et al., Petitioners

v.BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION et al.

No. 13–1174.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued Dec. 9, 2014.

Decided Jan. 21, 2015.

Thomas C. Goldstein, Washington, DC, for Petitioners.

Seth P. Waxman, Washington, DC, for Respondents.

Karen Lisa Morris, Morris and Morris LLC, Counselors At Law, Wilmington, DE, David H. Weinstein, Weinstein Kitchenoff & Asher LLC, Philadelphia, PA, Thomas C. Goldstein, Counsel of Record, Tejinder Singh, Goldstein & Russell, P.C., Bethesda, MD, for Petitioners.

Brian E. Pastuszenski, Goodwin Procter LLP, New York, NY, William M. Jay, Counsel of Record, Keith Levenberg, Tamara H. Schulman, Goodwin Procter LLP, Washington, DC, for Respondents.

Jeffrey B. Wall, Counsel of Record, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Washington, DC, for Respondent Barclays Bank PLC.

Robert F. Wise, Jr., Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, New York, NY, for Respondents Bank of America Corporation and Bank of America, N.A.

Seth P. Waxman, Paul R.Q. Wolfson, Matthew Guarnieri, Thomas G. Sprankling, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Washington, DC, Fraser L. Hunter, Jr., David S. Lesser, Alan E. Schoenfeld, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, New York, NY, for Respondent The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc.

Daryl A. Libow, Christopher M. Viapiano, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Washington, DC, for Respondent The Bank of Tokyo–Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd.

Andrew A. Ruffino, Covington & Burling LLP, New York, NY, Alan M. Wiseman, Thomas A. Isaacson, Jonathan Gimblett, Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, DC, Michael R. Lazerwitz, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, New York, NY, for Respondents Citibank, N.A. and Citigroup Inc.

Moses Silverman, Andrew C. Finch, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, New York, NY, for Respondent Deutsche Bank AG.

David H. Braff, Yvonne S. Quinn, Jeffrey T. Scott, Matthew J. Porpora, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, New York, NY,

Jonathan D. Schiller, Leigh M. Nathanson, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, New York, NY, Michael Brille, Michael J. Gottlieb, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, Washington, DC, for Respondent Barclays Bank PLC

David R. Gelfand, Sean M. Murphy, Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP, New York, NY, for Respondent Cooperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen–Boerenleenbank B.A.

Ed De Young, Roger B. Cowie, Locke Lord LLP, Dallas, TX, Gregory T. Casamento, Locke Lord LLP, New York, NY, for Respondents HSBC Holdings plc and HSBC Bank plc.

Alan M. Unger, Andrew W. Stern, Nicholas P. Crowell, Sidley Austin LLP, New York, NY, for Respondent The Norinchukin Bank.

Arthur W. Hahn, Christian T. Kemnitz, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, Chicago, IL, for Respondent Royal Bank of Canada.

Herbert S. Washer, Elai Katz, Joel Kurtzberg, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, New York, NY, for Respondent Credit Suisse Group AG.

Neal Kumar Katyal, Jessica L. Ellsworth, Hogan Lovells US LLP, Washington, DC, Marc J. Gottridge, Lisa J. Fried, Hogan Lovells US LLP, New York, NY, for Respondents Lloyds Banking Group plc and HBOS plc.

Thomas C. Rice, Paul C. Gluckow, Omari L. Mason, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, New York, NY, for Respondents JPMorgan Chase & Co. and JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.

Robert Houck, James Miller, Alejandra deUrioste, Clifford Chance LLP, New York, NY, for Respondent The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc.

Ethan E. Litwin, Christopher M. Paparella, Marc A. Weinstein, Morgan J. Feder, Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, New York, NY, for Respondent Portigon AG (f/k/a WestLB AG).

Peter Sullivan, Lawrence J. Zweifach, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, New York, NY, Thomas G. Hungar, D. Jarrett Arp, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Washington, DC, for Respondent UBS AG.

Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.

An unsuccessful litigant in a federal district court may take an appeal, as a matter of right, from a "final decisio[n] of the district cour[t]." 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The question here presented: Is the right to appeal secured by § 1291 affected when a case is consolidated for pretrial proceedings in multidistrict litigation (or MDL) authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 1407 ?

Petitioners Ellen Gelboim and Linda Zacher filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York a class-action complaint raising a single claim. They alleged that a number of banks, acting in concert, had violated federal antitrust law. Their case was consolidated for pretrial proceedings together with some 60 other cases, commenced in different districts, raising "one or more common questions of fact," § 1407(a).

The defendant banks, respondents here, moved to dismiss the Gelboim–Zacher complaint on the ground that the plaintiffs had suffered no antitrust injury. The District Court granted the motion, denied leave to amend the complaint, and dismissed the case in its entirety. Other cases made part of the multidistrict pretrial proceedings, however, presented discrete claims and remained before the District Court.

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, acting on its own motion, dismissed the appeal filed by Gelboim and Zacher for want of appellate jurisdiction. We reverse the Second Circuit's judgment and hold that the Gelboim–Zacher complaint retained its independent status for purposes of appellate jurisdiction under § 1291. Petitioners' right to appeal ripened when the District Court dismissed their case, not upon eventual completion of multidistrict proceedings in all of the consolidated cases.

I

Three legal prescriptions figure in this case: Title 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291 and 1407, and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b).

Section 1291 gives the courts of appeals jurisdiction over appeals from "all final decisions of the district courts of the United States." A "final decision" is one "by which a district court disassociates itself from a case."

Swint v. Chambers County Comm'n, 514 U.S. 35, 42, 115 S.Ct. 1203, 131 L.Ed.2d 60 (1995). While decisions of this Court have accorded § 1291 a "practical rather than a technical construction," Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U.S. 100, 106, 130 S.Ct. 599, 175 L.Ed.2d 458 (2009) (quoting Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949) ), the statute's core application is to rulings that terminate an action, see Catlin v. United States, 324 U.S. 229, 233, 65 S.Ct. 631, 89 L.Ed. 911 (1945) (final decision is "one which ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment").

Rule 54(b) permits district courts to authorize immediate appeal of dispositive rulings on separate claims in a civil action raising multiple claims:

"When an action presents more than one claim for relief ... or when multiple parties are involved, the court may direct entry of a final judgment as to one or more, but fewer than all, claims or parties only if the court expressly determines that there is no just reason for delay."¹

Rule 54(b) relaxes "the former general practice that, in multiple claims actions, all the claims had to be finally decided before an appeal could be entertained from a final decision upon any of them." Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, 351 U.S. 427, 434, 76 S.Ct. 895, 100 L.Ed. 1297 (1956). The Federal Rules allow a plaintiff to "state [in one complaint] as many separate claims ... as it has." Rule 8(d)(3). Rule 54(b) was adopted in view of the breadth of the "civil action" the Rules allow, specifically "to avoid the possible injustice" of "delay[ing] judgment o[n] a distinctly separate claim [pending] adjudication of the entire case." Report of Advisory Committee on Proposed Amendments to Rules of Civil Procedure 70 (1946) (explaining that Rule 54(b) was recast in 1946 to avoid confusion and misapplication); see Dickinson v. Petroleum Conversion Corp., 338 U.S. 507, 511, 70 S.Ct. 322, 94 L.Ed. 299 (1950) ( Rule 54(b) responded to liberalized joinder of claims and parties under the Federal Rules, which "increased the danger of hardship and denial of justice through delay if each issue must await the determination of all issues as to all parties before a final judgment can be had"). The Rule thus aimed to augment, not diminish, appeal opportunity.

Section 1407 is of more recent vintage. Enacted in 1968 in response to a growing number of complex but related cases filed in multiple districts, § 1407 authorizes the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to transfer civil actions "involving one or more common questions of fact ... to any district for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings" in order to "promote the just and efficient conduct of such actions." § 1407(a) ; see H.R.Rep. No. 1130, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1968) ( § 1407 codified procedures used in the early 1960's to resolve more than 1,800 separate actions filed against electrical equipment manufacturers in 33 District Courts, all of the actions seeking damages for antitrust law violations).

Transfer under § 1407 aims to "eliminate duplication in discovery, avoid conflicting rulings and schedules, reduce litigation cost, and save the time and effort of the parties, the attorneys, the witnesses, and the courts." Manual for Complex Litigation § 20.131, p. 220 (4th ed. 2004). "Each action" transferred pursuant to § 1407, the provision instructs, "shall be remanded by the panel at or before the conclusion of ... pretrial proceedings to the district from which it was transferred unless it shall have been previously terminated." § 1407(a).

II

The London InterBank Offered Rate (LIBOR) is a benchmark interest rate disseminated by the British Bankers' Association based on the rate at which certain banks predict they can borrow funds. LIBOR is a reference point in determining interest rates for financial instruments in the United States and globally.

In August 2011, the JPML established MDL No. 2262 (LIBOR MDL) for cases involving allegations that the banks named as defendants understated their borrowing costs, thereby depressing LIBOR and enabling the banks to pay lower...