490 U.S. 495, 109 S. Ct. 1976, 104 L.Ed.2d 548, 1989 AMC 1474 (1989)
The individual respondents were, or represent the estates of persons who were, passengers aboard the cruise ship Achille Lauro when it was hijacked by terrorists in the Mediterranean in October 1985.1 Petitioner Lauro Lines s.r.l., an Italian company, owns the Achille Lauro.2
Respondents filed suits against Lauro Lines in the District Court for the Southern District of New York to recover damages for injuries sustained as a result of the hijacking. Respondents also sought recovery for the wrongful death of passenger Leon Klinghoffer.3
Lauro Lines moved before trial to dismiss the actions, citing the forum-selection clause printed on each passenger ticket.4 This clause purported to obligate the passenger to institute any suit arising in connection with the contract in Naples, Italy, and to renounce the right to sue elsewhere.5 The District Court denied petitioner's motions to dismiss, holding that the ticket as a whole did not give reasonable notice to passengers that they were waiving the opportunity to sue in a domestic forum.6
Without moving for certification for immediate appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), Lauro Lines sought to appeal the District Court's orders.7 The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dismissed petitioner's appeal on the ground that the District Court's orders denying petitioner's motions to dismiss were interlocutory and not appealable under § 1291.8 The court held that the orders did not fall within the exception to the rule of non-appealability carved out for collateral final orders in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541 (1949).9
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a disagreement among the Courts of Appeals.10
Whether an interlocutory order of a United States District Court, denying a defendant's motion to dismiss a damages action on the basis of a contractual forum-selection clause, is immediately appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 as a collateral final order?11
Title 28 U.S.C. § 1291 provides for appeal to the courts of appeals only from final decisions of the district courts of the United States.12 The collateral order doctrine is a narrow exception for a small class of prejudgment orders that finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, and that are too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated.13 To fall within the exception, an order must satisfy at least three conditions: it must conclusively determine the disputed question, resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.14 An order is effectively unreviewable only where the order at issue involves an asserted right the legal and practical value of which would be destroyed if it were not vindicated before trial.15
No. The District Court's orders denying Lauro Lines' motions to dismiss the actions brought by the individual respondents, who were passengers or representatives of passengers on the Achille Lauro hijacked in October 1985, fail to satisfy the third requirement of the collateral order test.16 The orders do not involve a right not to be tried at all, but rather a right to be sued only in a particular forum, which is adequately vindicable on appeal from a final judgment, just as a claim that the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction would be.17
An interlocutory order denying a motion to dismiss based on a contractual forum-selection clause is not immediately appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 as a collateral final order.18
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Scalia joins the opinion of the Court and writes separately to make express what seems implicit in its analysis.19 The reason the right not to be sued elsewhere than in Naples is adequately vindicable by merely reversing any judgment obtained in violation of it is that the law does not deem the right important enough to be vindicated by an injunction against its violation obtained through interlocutory appeal.20 The importance of the right asserted has always been a significant part of the collateral order doctrine.21
The Court's later cases have retained that significant requirement.22 The same judgment applies when the right has been created by private agreement, if anything a fortiori.23