Hall v. Hall
| Decision Date | 27 March 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 16–1150.,16–1150. |
| Citation | 200 L.Ed.2d 399,138 S.Ct. 1118 |
| Parties | Elsa HALL, as personal representative of the Estate of Ethlyn Louise Hall and as successor trustee of the Ethlyn Louise Hall Family Trust, Petitioner v. Samuel HALL, et al. |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Andrew C. Simpson, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, for Petitioner.
Neal K. Katyal, Washington, DC, for Respondents.
Andrew C. Simpson, Andrew C. Simpson, P.C., St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, for Petitioner.
Marie E. Thomas Griffith, Hall & Griffith, P.C., St. Thomas, VI, Neal Kumar Katyal, Mitchell P. Reich, Sundeep Iyer, Reedy C. Swanson, Hogan Lovells US LLP, Washington, DC, for Respondents.
Three Terms ago, we held that one of multiple cases consolidated for multidistrict litigation under 28 U.S.C. § 1407 is immediately appealable upon an order disposing of that case, regardless of whether any of the others remain pending. Gelboim v. Bank of America Corp., 574 U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 897, 190 L.Ed.2d 789 (2015). We left open, however, the question whether the same is true with respect to cases consolidated under Rule 42(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Id., at ––––, n. 4, 135 S.Ct., at 904, n. 4. This case presents that question.
Petitioner Elsa Hall and respondent Samuel Hall are siblings enmeshed in a long-running family feud. Their mother, Ethlyn Hall, lived and owned property in the United States Virgin Islands. Samuel, a lawyer in the Virgin Islands, served as Ethlyn's caretaker and provided her with legal assistance. But trouble eventually came to paradise, and Samuel and Ethlyn fell out over Samuel's management of Ethlyn's real estate holdings. During a visit from Elsa, Ethlyn established an inter vivos trust, transferred all of her property into the trust, and designated Elsa as her successor trustee. Ethlyn then moved to Miami—under circumstances disputed by the parties—to live with her daughter.
The family squabble made its way to court in May 2011. Ethlyn, acting in her individual capacity and as trustee of her inter vivos trust, sued Samuel and his law firm in Federal District Court (the "trust case"). Ethlyn's claims—for breach of fiduciary duty, legal malpractice, conversion, fraud, and unjust enrichment—concerned the handling of her affairs by Samuel and his law firm before she left for Florida.
Then Ethlyn died, and Elsa stepped into her shoes as trustee and accordingly as plaintiff in the trust case. Samuel promptly filed counterclaims in that case against Elsa—in both her individual and representative capacities—for intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, and tortious interference. Samuel contended that Elsa had turned their mother against him by taking advantage of Ethlyn's alleged mental frailty. But Samuel ran into an obstacle: Elsa was not a party to the trust case in her individual capacity (only Ethlyn had been). So Samuel filed a new complaint against Elsa in her individual capacity in the same District Court (the "individual case"), raising the same claims that he had asserted as counterclaims in the trust case.
The trust and individual cases initially proceeded along separate tracks. Eventually, on Samuel's motion, the District Court consolidated the cases under Rule 42(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, ordering that "[a]ll submissions in the consolidated case shall be filed in" the docket assigned to the trust case. App. to Pet. for Cert. A–15.
Just before the trial commenced, the District Court dismissed from the trust case Samuel's counterclaims against Elsa. Those claims remained in the individual case. The parties then tried the consolidated cases together before a jury.
In the individual case, the jury returned a verdict for Samuel on his intentional infliction of emotional distress claim against Elsa, awarding him $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1.5 million in punitive damages. The clerk entered judgment in that case, but the District Court granted Elsa a new trial, which had the effect of reopening the judgment. The individual case remains pending before the District Court.
In the trust case, the jury returned a verdict against Elsa, in her representative capacity, on her claims against Samuel and his law firm. The clerk entered judgment in that case directing that Elsa "recover nothing" and that "the action be dismissed on the merits." Id., at A–12.
Elsa filed a notice of appeal from the District Court's judgment in the trust case. Samuel and his law firm moved to dismiss the appeal on jurisdictional grounds, arguing that the judgment was not final and appealable because his claims against Elsa remained unresolved in the individual case. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agreed. When two cases have been consolidated for all purposes, the court reasoned, a final decision on one set of claims is generally not appealable while the second set remains pending. The court explained that it considers "whether a less-than-complete judgment is appealable" on a 679 Fed.Appx. 142, 145 (2017). Here, the fact that the claims in the trust and individual cases had been "scheduled together and tried before a single jury" "counsel[ed] in favor of keeping the claims together on appeal." Ibid. The court dismissed Elsa's appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
We granted certiorari, 582 U.S. ––––, 138 S.Ct. 54, 198 L.Ed.2d 780 (2017), and now reverse.
Had the District Court never consolidated the trust and individual cases, there would be no question that Elsa could immediately appeal from the judgment in the trust case. Title 28 U.S.C. § 1291 vests the courts of appeals with jurisdiction over "appeals from all final decisions of the district courts," except those directly appealable to this Court. A final decision "ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment." Ray Haluch Gravel Co. v. Central Pension Fund of Operating Engineers and Participating Employers, 571 U.S. 177, 183, 134 S.Ct. 773, 187 L.Ed.2d 669 (2014). The archetypal final decision is "one[ ] that trigger[s] the entry of judgment." Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U.S. 100, 103, 130 S.Ct. 599, 175 L.Ed.2d 458 (2009). Appeal from such a final decision is a "matter of right." Gelboim, 574 U.S., at ––––, 135 S.Ct., at 898–899. Under § 1291, "any litigant armed with a final judgment from a lower federal court is entitled to take an appeal," Arizona v. Manypenny, 451 U.S. 232, 244, 101 S.Ct. 1657, 68 L.Ed.2d 58 (1981), which generally must be filed within 30 days, 28 U.S.C. § 2107(a).
Here the jury's verdict against Elsa resolved all of the claims in the trust case, and the clerk accordingly entered judgment in that case providing that "the action be dismissed on the merits." App. to Pet. for Cert. A–12. With the entry of judgment, the District Court "completed its adjudication of [Elsa's] complaint and terminated [her] action." Gelboim, 574 U.S., at ––––, 135 S.Ct., at 905. An appeal would normally lie from that judgment.
But, Samuel contends, there is more to the litigation than the suit Elsa pursued against him in her representative capacity. There is also his suit against her in her individual capacity, which has not yet been decided. Because the District Court consolidated the trust and individual cases under Rule 42(a)(2), he argues, they merged and should be regarded as one case. Viewed that way, the judgment in the trust case was merely interlocutory, and more remains to be done in the individual case before the consolidated cases in the aggregate are finally resolved and subject to appeal.
Rule 42(a) —entitled "[c]onsolidation"—provides that if "actions before the court involve a common question of law or fact, the court may" take one of three measures. First, the court may "join for hearing or trial any or all matters at issue in the actions." Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 42(a)(1). Second, the court may "consolidate the actions." Rule 42(a)(2). Third, the court may "issue any other orders to avoid unnecessary cost or delay." Rule 42(a)(3). Whether the judgment entered in the trust case is an immediately appealable final decision turns on the effect of consolidation under Rule 42(a).
Samuel, looking to dictionary definitions, asserts that the "plain meaning of the phrase ‘consolidate the actions' is ... to unite two or more actions into one whole—that is, to join them into a single case." Brief for Respondents 23 (citing Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014); some internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). But the meaning of "consolidate" in the present context is ambiguous. When Rule 42(a) was adopted, the term was generally defined, as it is now, as meaning to "unite, as various particulars, into one mass or body; to bring together in close union; to combine." Webster's New International Dictionary 570 (2d ed. 1942). Consolidation can thus sometimes signify the complete merger of discrete units: "The company consolidated two branches." But the term can also mean joining together discrete units without causing them to lose their independent character. The United States, for example, is composed of States "unite[d], as various particulars, into one mass or body," "br[ought] together in close union," or "combine[d]." Yet all agree that entry into our Union "by no means implies the loss of distinct and individual existence ... by the States." Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 725, 19 L.Ed. 227 (1869). "She consolidated her books" hardly suggests that the "books" became "book." The very metaphor Samuel offers—that consolidation "make[s] two one, like marriage"—highlights this point. Tr. of Oral Arg. 56. However dear to each other, spouses would be surprised to hear that their union extends beyond the metaphysical. This is not a plain meaning case.
It is instead about a term—consolidate—with a legal lineage stretching back at least to...
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