Page:Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Frank Varela.pdf/28

Rh such complaint. See §§16(b)(1)–(4). I recognize that Lamps Plus is dissatisfied with the arbitration that the District Court ordered here. But the District Court’s order nonetheless granted the motion compelling arbitration, leaving Lamps Plus to bring its claim to an appellate court only after the arbitration is completed. See §16(b)(2). I believe we should enforce the statutory provisions that lead to this conclusion.

Lamps Plus offers three arguments in response. First, Lamps Plus suggests the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction over Lamps Plus’ appeal because the District Court order at issue here not only granted Lamps Plus’s motion to compel arbitration, but also granted Lamps Plus’ motion to dismiss the case. See Brief for Petitioners 29. Lamps Plus points out that §16(a) permits the appeal of “a final decision with respect to an arbitration.” 9 U. S. C. §16(a)(3). Lamps Plus reasons that, so long as a decision is final, it is appealable under the FAA.

I disagree because I do not believe that the District Court had the discretion to dismiss the case immediately after granting Lamps Plus’ motion to compel arbitration. Section 4 of the FAA permits a district court to compel the parties to arbitrate their claim, and §16(b)(2) explains that “an appeal may not be taken from an interlocutory order… directing arbitration to proceed under section 4 of this title.” Thus, the District Court order compelling arbitration was interlocutory and generally unappealable. As I have just explained, to read the statute any other way would contravene §16’s proarbitration appeal scheme by turning an interlocutory order that would have been unappealable under §16(b) of the Act into a dismissal order that is appealable under §16(a).

And because the order granting Lamps Plus’ motion to compel was interlocutory, the District Court’s dismissal of the case—in the very same order, see App. to Pet. for Cert. 23a—did not give the Court of Appeals jurisdiction over