Mesa Oil, Inc. v. United States , 467 F.3d 1252 ( 2006 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
October 31, 2006
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
PUBLISH Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
TENTH CIRCUIT
M ESA OIL, IN C.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v. No. 05-1107
U N ITED STA TES O F A M ER ICA,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Colorado
(D.C. No. 03-F-1677 (PAC))
Theodore H. M erriam (Kevin A. Planegger with him on the briefs), M erriam Law
Firm, P.C., Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Teresa E. M cLaughlin, Attorney, Tax Division (Eileen J. O’Connor, Assistant
Attorney General; and John A. Nolet, Attorney, Tax Division, with her on the
brief), Department of Justice, W ashington, D.C., for Defendant-Appellee.
Before L UC ER O, SE YM OU R, and O’BRIEN, Circuit Judges.
SE YM O UR, Circuit Judge.
M esa Oil, Inc. (“M esa”) appeals from the partial judgment of the district
court upholding the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) Appeals Office’s denial of
M esa’s request for abatement of financial penalties. The district court also
ordered a remand to the Appeals Officer for reconsideration of M esa’s request for
an alternative payment plan to repay its delinquent taxes and penalties. W e
dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
I
M esa failed to pay federal employment taxes for three fiscal quarters in
2002 and corporate income taxes for the year 2001. After the IRS expressed its
intent to satisfy unpaid taxes and penalties via a levy on its corporate assets, M esa
initiated a collection due process (“CDP”) hearing with the Rocky M ountain
Appeals O ffice of the IRS. At the CDP hearing, M esa asserted it was entitled to
penalty abatement for reasonable cause. It also argued it should be permitted to
pay in installments or be afforded additional time to arrange financing sufficient
to satisfy its tax liabilities. The Appeals Officer concluded M esa was not entitled
to penalty abatement and rejected its request for an alternative payment plan.
M esa appealed the A ppeal Officer’s decision to the district court. On
cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court issued a judgment and
remand order on January 31, 2005 affirming the Appeals Officer’s denial of
M esa’s request for penalty abatement and reversing and remanding to the
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Appeal’s Officer for further consideration of M esa’s alternative collection
request. M esa filed a notice of appeal to this court seeking review of the district
court’s decision upholding the Appeals Officer’s denial of a penalty abatement.
M esa does not, of course, seek review of the district court’s order in its favor
remanding payment issues to the Appeals Officer.
II
This court has jurisdiction to entertain appeals from “final decisions of the
district courts.” 28 U.S.C. § 1291. To be final, a decision ordinarily “ends the
litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the
judgment.” Cunningham v. Hamilton Cty., Ohio, 527 U.S. 198, 204 (1999)
(quotations and citations omitted). “The finality requirement in § 1291 evinces a
legislative judgment that restricting appellate review to final decisions prevents
the debilitating effect on judicial administration caused by piecemeal appeal
disposition of what is, in practical consequences, but a single controversy.”
Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 471 (1968) (quotations and
citations omitted).
In general, a “decision to remand is not a resolution of the controversy on
its merits,” and is not a final decision. Loffland Bros., Co. v. Rougeau, 655 F.2d
1031, 1032 (10th Cir. 1981). The district court’s bifurcated order here,
determining one issue but remanding M esa’s alternative payment request, is
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clearly not a final decision ending the litigation on the merits and it therefore
does not fall within the ordinary application of the jurisdictional grant of 28
U.S.C. § 1291.
Neither party disputes the interlocutory nature of this appeal. Instead, both
assert we have jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine, claiming the
penalty abatement issue may become effectively unreviewable if we do not
consider it at this time. In a “small class” of cases, we have jurisdiction over
interlocutory appeals from non-final orders that “finally determine claims of right
separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, 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.” Cohen v.
Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546 (1949). A case fits within this
discrete subset of interlocutory orders when the appeal meets the three
requirements of the collateral order doctrine. First, “the order must conclusively
determine the disputed question;” second, it must “resolve an important issue
completely separate from the merits of the action;” and third, it must be
“effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.” Coopers & Lybrand,
437 U .S. at 468 (footnote omitted). “The conditions are ‘stringent,’ and unless
they are kept so, the underlying doctrine will overpower the substantial finality
interests § 1291 is meant to further . . . .” Will v. Hallock, 126 S. Ct. 952, 957
(2006). A district court order that “fails to satisfy any one of [the Cohen]
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requirements” is not reviewable under the collateral order doctrine. Gulfstream
Aerospace Corp. v. M ayacamas Corp., 485 U.S. 271, 276 (1988).
Because we conclude M esa does not meet the third requirement of the
Cohen doctrine, we bypass an analysis of the first tw o prongs. See Lauro Lines
S.R.L. v. Chasser, 490 U.S. 495, 498 (1989) (“[W]e need not decide whether an
order [meets the first two requirements,] for the District Court’s orders fail to
satisfy the third requirement of the collateral order test.”) . The collateral order
doctrine’s third prong requires that the district court order be “effectively
unreviewable” in order to trigger the extension of appellate jurisdiction to an
interlocutory appeal. The Supreme Court has consistently “reiterated the general
rule that 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.” Id. at 498-99 (quotations and
citations omitted). The costs of unnecessary litigation caused by what eventually
turns out to be an error by the district court is insufficient to warrant an
interlocutory appeal. Id. at 499. Rather, the Court has “insisted that the right
asserted be one that is essentially destroyed if its vindication must be postponed
until trial is completed.” Id.The unreviewability requirement promotes judicial efficiency by restricting
the application of the collateral order doctrine and limiting our acceptance of
cases where future, successive appeals are possible. In adherence to the broader
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finality requirement and the stringent nature of the collateral order doctrine, we
are required to abstain from review of an individual issue until the entire case is
complete in order to prevent piecemeal appeals. Coopers & Lybrand, 437 U.S. at
468 n.8 (quoting Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U.S. 323, 325 (1940)).
The determinative question for finding jurisdiction in this case is whether
the district court’s ruling on penalties will be effectively unreviewable following
the Appeal Officer’s resolution of the manner of payment. W ithout citing any
authority, both parties express concern that if M esa prevails on remand on the
payment matter, it will be precluded from obtaining review of the penalty
abatement decision. This is clearly not the case. See State Bank of Spring Hill v.
Anderson (In re Bucyrus Grain Co., Inc.), 905 F.2d 1362 (10th Cir. 1990). In
Bucyrus, the district court reversed a determination by the bankruptcy court that a
secured creditor had priority over customers of the debtor, and remanded for a
determination of the value of the customers’ claims. Following the bankruptcy
court’s valuation decision on remand, the secured creditor attempted to bypass the
district court by appealing that court’s earlier adverse priority determination
directly to this court. W e held that the district court’s partial remand order was
not a final order because the court remanded to the bankruptcy court for
“significant further proceedings.” See id. at 1366. W e further held that “the
proper procedural course for the [secured creditor] is to appeal the bankruptcy
court's decision on remand to the district court first. Then, if the district court
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rules unfavorably, the [secured creditor] could appeal to this court.” Id. at 1367.
The creditor in Bucyrus was thus instructed to first raise in district court any
outstanding issues after the remand and then, if needed, in a later appeal to this
court. As Bycyrus suggests, a decision generated coincident to a remand decision
retains a viable path of review following a ruling on remand. See also Lakes
Pilots Ass’n,, Inc. v. United States Coast Guard, 359 F.3d 624, 625 (D.C. Cir.
2004) (“[Appellants] will still be aggrieved by the outcome [after the decision on
remand] . . . and thus will be able again to seek judicial review, including review
in the court of appeals, raising not only new issues but all those on which it got
no satisfaction in its original challenge.”); Howell v. Schweiker, 699 F.2d 524,
526 (11th Cir. 1983) (Appeal dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, the court stating
“[a]ny legal ruling made in the present order can be reviewed effectively after the
remand.”).
Both parties cite Sullivan v. Finkelstein, 496 U.S. 617 (1990), to support
our exercise of jurisdiction over this appeal. Although the Supreme Court in
Finkelstein found appellate jurisdiction over a partial remand order was proper,
the Court’s legal support for finality and appellate review derived from specific
statutory language in 42 § U.S.C. 405(g) of the Social Security Act. See
Finkelstein, 496 U.S. at 625 (“such a remand order is a ‘judgment’ in the
terminology of § 405(g)”). See also Forney v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 266, 270 (1998)
(“[Finkelstein] reasoned primarily from the language of § 405(g), that a district
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court judgment remanding a Social Security disability benefit case” was
appealable.). In this case, we are reviewing a district court judgment that
received its jurisdictional grant from 26 U.S.C. § 6330(d)(1)(B) of the Internal
Revenue Code, not from § 405 of the Social Security Act. Because Finkelstein’s
justification for review was grounded in the statutory language of § 405(g), and §
405(g) has no relevance to the present case, the Court’s holding in Finkelstein
does not support a present exercise of jurisdiction.
The availability of review after remand also distinguishes this case from
the more common application of the collateral order doctrine to appeals in
administrative actions by the government. As we noted in Bender v. Clark, 744
F.2d 1424, 1428 (10th Cir. 1984), for example, “because the government in such a
case has no avenue for obtaining judicial review of its own administrative
decisions, it may well be foreclosed from again appealing the district court's
determination at any later stage of this proceeding.” See also Occidental
Petroleum C orp., v. SEC, 873 F.2d 325, 332 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (finding jurisdiction
where after remand SEC “will not be able to appeal its own decision”); Stone v.
Heckler, 722 F.2d 464, 467 (9th Cir. 1983) (finding jurisdiction because Secretary
of Health and Human Services would not be able to appeal following a decision
on remand).
The district court’s affirmation of penalties and remand on payment issues
was in this case does not similarly satisfy the requirements of the collateral order
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doctrine. Consequently, M esa must follow the procedural course outlined in
Bucyrus and await the appeal on its penalty decision until completion of the
remanded proceedings. By forgoing review until the Appeals Officer resolves the
payment issue, we avoid the undesirable possibility of multiple, piecemeal
appeals. Because the penalty decision is reviewable upon conclusion of the
remanded proceedings irrespective of who prevails upon the payment issue, the
collateral order doctrine does not shelter M esa’s interlocutory appeal from the
finality requirement.
Accordingly, this appeal is DISM ISSED for a lack of jurisdiction.
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