Page:Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Frank Varela.pdf/30

Rh but instead seeks “review of only the inherently interlocutory order” compelling arbitration. Ibid. (alterations omitted). Therefore, like the Court in Microsoft, I would hold that Lamps Plus cannot, by securing an unlawful dismissal, find a way around the appellate jurisdiction scheme that Congress wrote into the FAA.

Second, Lamps Plus suggests that this Court has already decided that a district court order compelling arbitration and dismissing a plaintiff’s complaint creates no jurisdictional problem. Brief for Petitioners 29–30. Lamps Plus cites Green Tree Financial Corp.–Ala. v. Randolph, 531 U. S. 79 (2000), in support of that argument. And according to Lamps Plus, “this Court held in Randolph” that “when a district court orders arbitration and dismisses the plaintiff’s claims,” the order is “final” and therefore appealable under §16 of the FAA. Brief for Petitioners 29–30.

But Randolph does not control the jurisdictional aspect of this case. The Randolph Court explicitly reserved the question that we face now, stating: “Had the District Court entered a stay instead of a dismissal in this case, that order would not be appealable. 9 U. S. C. §16(b)(1). The question whether the District Court should have taken that course is not before us, and we do not address it.” Randolph, supra, at 87, n. 2 (emphasis added). Thus, although the Randolph Court stated that §16(a)(3) of the FAA permits appeals of final orders entered under the FAA, the Court did not decide whether a district court could convert an interlocutory, unappealable order under §16(b) into an appealable order under §16(a) by entering a dismissal instead of a stay. For that reason, Randolph does not answer the jurisdictional question here.

Third, and finally, Lamps Plus suggests that the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction because the District Court “effectively denied Lamps Plus’s motion to compel arbitration” when the District Court interpreted the arbitration