Civil Procedure — appellate jurisdiction

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Procedure — appellate jurisdiction

Where one party abandoned the one issue remaining before the district court, the order resolving the other issues is a final appealable order.

“In reaching these prior decisions, we have hearkened back to the legislative purpose for enacting the § 1291 finality requirement: to ‘prevent[] the debilitating effect on judicial administration caused by piecemeal appeal disposition of what is, in practical consequence, but a single controversy.’ Coopers, 437 U.S. at 471 (quotation and citation omitted). Once a party repudiates all potentially remaining (or refileable) claims, ‘[t]he risk of piecemeal appeals from the district court . . . [becomes] nonexistent,’ and any concern about the effect on judicial administration disappears. Mostly Memories, 526 F.3d at 1097. Here, since Arlene has repudiated her claim for additional interest against Minnesota Life, which was the only issue still awaiting resolution by the district court, the risk of a later, piecemeal appeal in this case is similarly nonexistent.”

Affirmed.

12-1840 Minnesota Life Ins. Co. v. Kagan

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Castillo, J., Tinder, J.