Page:Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski.pdf/27

14 The Court today ventures down an uncharted path—and that way lies madness. Never before had this Court mandated a general stay simply because an interlocutory appeal poses the question “whether the litigation may go forward in the district court.” (internal quotation marks omitted). And a wide array of appeals seemingly fits that bill.

Indeed, any appeal over the proper forum for a dispute would arguably raise the same question. After all, “an arbitration agreement is ‘a specialized kind of forum-selection clause.’ ” Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 11) (quoting Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U. S. 506, 519 (1974)). If arbitration appeals require stays of all pre-trial and trial proceedings, why not all appeals about forum-selection agreements? And why not appeals over non-contractual disputes over the proper adjudicator, like venue, personal jurisdiction, forum non conveniens, federal-court jurisdiction, and abstention?

For that matter, “virtually every right that could be enforced appropriately by pretrial dismissal might loosely be described as conferring a ‘right not to stand trial.’ ” Digital Equipment Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U. S. 863, 873 (1994). “Such motions can be made in virtually every case.” Ibid. Does every interlocutory appeal concerning a case-dispositive issue now trigger a mandatory general stay of trial court proceedings?

Taken that broadly, the mandatory-general-stay rule the Court adopts today would upend federal litigation as we know it. Aware that any interlocutory appeal on a dispositive issue grinds the plaintiff’s case to a halt, defendants would presumably pursue that tactic at every opportunity. This would occur, for example, in interlocutory appeals available as of right under 28 U. S. C. §1292(a)(1) from orders granting preliminary injunctions. Any defense lawyer worth her salt would invoke the right to take that appeal