Appellate Jurisdiction—Cases Consolidated in District Court

Hall v. Hall, No. 16-1150

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42 permits a district court to consolidate actions that involve a common question of law or fact.  Sometimes, even though cases are consolidated, one of the consolidated cases will reach final judgment while others remain pending.  The lower courts have divided as to whether a final judgment in a subset of the consolidated cases is a final, appealable order—or whether the parties must wait until all of the consolidated actions have been resolved.  In Gelboim v. Bank of America Corp., 135 S. Ct. 897 (2015), the Court resolved a similar question in the context of multidistrict litigation, holding unanimously that the losing party has an immediate right to appeal when final judgment is entered in its case, regardless of the status of the other cases.  The Court today granted certiorari to consider whether the same rule should apply in actions consolidated under Rule 42 within a single federal judicial district.