Tolson v. U.S., 83-1788

• Decision Date: 27 April 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-1788,83-1788
• Citation: 732 F.2d 998,235 U.S. App. D.C. 396
• Parties: Michelle TOLSON, on her own behalf and on behalf of a minor child born to her while committed to the custody and care of the U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Appellant v. UNITED STATES of America.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 998

732 F.2d 998

235 U.S.App.D.C. 396

Michelle TOLSON, on her own behalf and on behalf of a minor child born to her while committed to the custody and care of the U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Appellant v.UNITED STATES of America.

No. 83-1788.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued March 26, 1984.

Decided April 27, 1984.

Michael R. Smith, Washington, D.C., with whom William W. Taylor, III, Washington, D.C., was on the brief for appellant.

Robert E.L. Eaton, Jr., Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., with whom Joseph E. diGenova, U.S. Atty., R. Craig Lawrence, and Royce C. Lamberth, Asst. U.S. Attys., Washington, D.C., were on the brief for appellee.

Before GINSBURG, Circuit Judge, MacKINNON, Senior Circuit Judge, and PARKER, ^* United States District Judge for the District of Columbia.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GINSBURG.

GINSBURG, Circuit Judge:

The parties invite our review of a judgment entered by the district court pursuant to Rule 54(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.That Rule, applicable to multiple claim litigation, affords the district court discretion to enter a final judgment on a discrete but entire claim while other claims remain sub judice.¹The Rule, however, does not authorize the entry of final judgment on part of a single claim.We hold that the district court improperly invoked Rule 54(b).That court, we conclude, has not yet finally adjudicated any claim; instead, it has ruled on part of a single claim.Further, we do not consider it appropriate, in the particular circumstances this case presents, to treat the district court's disposition as an interlocutory appeal certification under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1292(b).²We therefore dismiss the appeal because it presents no final or otherwise immediately reviewable decision.

I.

Plaintiff-appellant Tolson alleges that, during her incarceration at a federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky, a prison guard coerced her into sexual intercourse and impregnated her.She seeks damages from the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. Secs. 2671-2680(1976).Her complaint asserts that the United States is answerable for the guard's conduct under the doctrine of respondeat superior.Further, the complaint states that the United States is liable for the neglect of the prison officials in failing to supervise the guard and in retaining him despite notice of his propensities.

The United States moved to dismiss the complaint in its entirety for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.The district court granted the motion in part and denied it in part.Pursuant to the federal choice-of-law rule governing FTCA actions, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1346(b), ³the district court looked to Kentucky law to determine the motion.It concluded that Kentucky law would not impute the guard's conduct to the United States under the doctrine of respondeat superior; instead, Kentucky would hold that the conduct in which the guard indulged was beyond the scope of his employment.The court also concluded, however, that Kentucky law would impute to the United States the prison officials' alleged negligence in failing to supervise the guard's conduct.It therefore granted the motion to dismiss"that portion of plaintiff's complaint which seeks to hold the United States liable ... for the alleged tortious actions of [the] guard," but denied the motion as to the negligent supervision and retention allegations.Civil ActionNo. 81-2626, Memorandum and Order (D.D.C. Feb. 22, 1983), reprinted in Record Excerpts (R.E.) 114-17.

On Tolson's unopposed motion, the district court entered final judgment under Rule 54(b) on the ruling that the guard's conduct could not be imputed to the United States.That ruling, the district court believed, finally disposed of an "issue ... sufficiently distinct" from the remaining claims for negligent supervision and retention of the guard.Civil ActionNo. 81-2626, Memorandum Opinion and Order, at 3(D.D.C.May 26, 1983), reprinted inR.E. 121.The complaint, as the district court ultimately viewed it, presented not one, but three, discrete claims against the United States: one for the guard's acts; another for negligent supervision; and a third for negligent retention.The claims were separate, the court reasoned, because each involved "[p]roof of different facts ... even though some facts are common to each claim," and "the law applicable to each claim is distinguishable as well."Id.

II.

Two procedural mechanisms for appeals while a case remains pending in district court are sometimes confused: Rule 54(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and28 U.S.C. Sec. 1292(b).Rule 54(b), applicable to litigation involving multiple claims or multiple parties, affords the district court discretion to "direct the entry of a final judgment as to one or more but fewer than all of the claims or parties."⁴The Rule, in conception, is an application of, not an exception to, the statutory instruction that, in the interest of efficient review and avoidance of wasteful trial court delay, appeals generally must abide final decision.See28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291(courts of appeals have jurisdiction of appeals from "final decisions" of district courts);Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Mackey, 351 U.S. 427, 437, 76 S.Ct. 895, 900, 100 L.Ed. 1297(1956)("The District Court cannot, in the exercise of its [Rule 54(b) ] discretion, treat as 'final' that which is not 'final' within the meaning of Sec. 1291.")(emphasis in original).

In contrast to Rule 54(b)'s provision for final judgment on separate claims, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1292(b) provides for appeals from interlocutory decisions.Section 1292(b) explicitly conditions appellate review on the exercise of discretion at two levels: if the district court certifies that it views its decision as involving "a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal ... may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation,"the court of appeals may permit instant appeal of the decision.⁵

In this case, the district court did not certify its respondeat superior ruling under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1292(b).Instead, it treated that ruling as finally dispositive of one entire claim in a multiple claim action, and accordingly invoked Rule 54(b) to justify the entry of a final judgment.We hold that, for the purpose at hand, the district court sliced the "claim" concept too thinly.

If the relevant criteria for defining a "separate" claim within the meaning of Rule 54(b) are, as the district court indicated, the necessity for proof of some different facts, ⁶ and the application of distinguishable law, ⁷ a host of pre-trial substantive rulings would be swept within the Rule's domain.In an action for damages for injury to person or property, for example, different facts and distinguishable law would be involved if plaintiff alleged several bases for relief--e.g., the defendant's simple negligence, gross negligence, breach of implied warranty, breach of express warranty.A pre-trial ruling rejecting simple negligence or implied warranty as a basis for relief could be split off, described as a rejection of plaintiff's "separate" claim for relief on the asserted ground, and made the subject of a Rule 54(b) judgment.

The provision for interlocutory appeals Congress ordered in 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1292(b) should reduce the temptation to so formulate the definition of "claim" and thereby erode the final decision rule.We recognize that Rule 54(b) precedent is untidy, ⁸ and that "courts have been completely unable to settle on a single test for determining when claims are 'separate.' "Local P-171, Amalgamated Meat Cutters v. Thompson Farms Co., 642 F.2d 1065, 1070(7th Cir.1981)(Wisdom, J.)(footnote omitted)[hereafter, Local P-171 ].We offer no universal formulas, but the matter before us affords an opportunity to state one "rule of thumb" for identifying a genre of "claims that clearly cannot be 'separate.' "Id.When alleged "claims [are] so closely related that they would fall afoul of the rule against splitting claims if brought separately,"id. at 1071(citations omitted), they do not qualify as "separate" claims within the meaning of Rule 54(b).Cf.Note, Appealability in the Federal Courts, 75 HARV.L.REV. 351, 359-61(1961)(courts generally hold 54(b) inapplicable when "fewer than all of a party's legal theories based on the same transaction" have been dismissed, so that it remains possible "that the party will still be awarded relief, an event that would render unnecessary an appellate determination of the dismissal").

This "rule of thumb" is reflected in our circuit's leading decision on the definition of a claim within the meaning of Rule 54(b): Gold Seal Co. v. Weeks, 209 F.2d 802, 809-10(D.C.Cir.1954)(res judicata doctrine is appropriate guide in Rule 54(b) determinations).It is also indicated in sensible precedent elsewhere.See, e.g., Local P-171, supra;Page v. Preisser, 585 F.2d 336, 339(8th Cir.1978)(Rule 54(b)"did not ... purport to amend or dilute the fundamental rule against splitting a cause of action and deciding appellate cases piecemeal.")(citations omitted).⁹

Tolson could not have maintained successive suits against the United States on the three claims the district court viewed as "separate."Had she limited her action to any one of the three, adjudication of that claim would have precluded subsequent airing of the others.See generallyRESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF JUDGMENTSSecs. 24, 25(1982).We restate and adhere to the sound precedent set in Gold Seal Co., supra."Different facts" and "distinguishable" law do not alone qualify an alleged claim for separate judgment under Rule 54(b); that Rule may not be invoked in opposition to "the fundamental rule against splitting a [claim for relief]."Page v. Preisser, 585 F.2d at...