Page:Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Frank Varela.pdf/29

6 Lamps Plus’ appeal. An improper dismissal cannot create appellate jurisdiction to review an interlocutory order.

Our decision in Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, 582 U. S. ___ (2017), holds as much. The plaintiffs in Microsoft sought to appeal a district court order denying certification of a class. Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 23(f), plaintiffs can ordinarily bring such an appeal only with the court of appeals’ permission. But the plaintiffs in Baker, who had been denied permission to appeal, tried to circumvent that denial by stipulating to a voluntary dismissal of their claims. The voluntary dismissal, they claimed, was an appealable “final decisio[n]” under 28 U. S. C. §1291. And in their appeal of the dismissal, they would be free to also seek review of the order denying class certification. We disagreed. As we explained there, to permit plaintiffs to “transform a tentative interlocutory order into a final judgment… simply by dismissing their claims with prejudice” would be to “undermine §1291’s firm finality principle, designed to guard against piecemeal appeals, and subvert the balanced solution Rule 23(f) put in place for immediate review of class-action orders.” Microsoft, supra, at ___, ___ (slip op., at 2, 16) (citation omitted).

The same reasoning applies here. Section 16(a)(3) of the FAA, like 28 U. S. C. §1291, creates appellate jurisdiction only over “final decisions.” Despite that jurisdictional limit, Lamps Plus, like the plaintiffs in Microsoft, seeks review of an interlocutory order. Like the plaintiffs in Microsoft, Lamps Plus attempts to obtain appellate review by “transform[ing]” an interlocutory order into a final decision. 582 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 16). Like the plaintiffs in Microsoft, Lamps Plus has done so based on an order “purporting to end the litigation”—an order that Lamps Plus itself “persuade[d] a district court to issue.” Ibid. And like the plaintiffs in Microsoft, Lamps Plus does not “complain of the ‘final’ order that dismissed [the] case,”