Gelboim v. Bank of Am. Corp. (574 U.S. 405)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 21, 2015 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 574 U.S. 405 · 135 S. Ct. 897
- Docket
- No. 13-1174
- Argued
- December 9, 2014
- Decided
- January 21, 2015
- Term
- October Term 2014
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Ginsburg
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, Justice Thomas, Justice Ginsburg (wrote), Justice Breyer, Justice Alito, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan
Oral argument transcript and advocates · Opinion on Justia
Opinion excerpt
Justice GINSBURGdelivered the opinion of the Court. An unsuccessful litigant in a federal district court may take an appeal, as a matter of right, from a "final decisio[n] of the district cour[t]." 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The question here presented: Is the right to appeal secured by § 1291affected when a case is consolidated for pretrial proceedings in multidistrict litigation (or MDL) authorized by 28 U.S.C. § 1407? Petitioners Ellen Gelboim and Linda Zacher filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York a class-action complaint raising a single claim. They alleged that a number of banks, acting in concert, had violated federal antitrust law. Their case was consolidated for pretrial proceedings together with some 60 other cases, commenced in different districts, raising "one or more common questions of fact," § 1407(a). The defendant banks, respondents here, moved to dismiss the Gelboim-Zacher complaint on the ground that the plaintiffs had suffered no antitrust injury. The District Court granted the motion, denied leave to amend the complaint, and dismissed the case in its entirety. Other cases made part of the multidistrict pretrial proceedings, however, presented discrete claims and remained before the District Court. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, acting on its own motion, dismissed the appeal filed by Gelboim and Zacher for want…
Excerpt of a 19,503-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.