This month, we examine the recent decisions of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in In re City of New York1 and S.E.C. v. Rajaratnam,2 in which the court clarified when the “extraordinary remedy” of a writ of mandamus would be available to review a district court’s disclosure order adverse to a claim of privilege in a civil action. The court held that it lacked jurisdiction over an appeal from the disclosure orders in question, but further concluded that a writ of mandamus was warranted under the particular facts of each case because “no other adequate means” were available to challenge the disclosure orders, a writ was “appropriate under the circumstances” because the issues involved were novel and significant and their resolution would aid the administration of justice, and the petitioners had a “clear and indisputable” right to the writ because the disclosure orders were a clear abuse of discretion.
Sources of Jurisdiction
In most instances only “final decisions of the district courts of the United States” are appealable to federal courts of appeals as a matter of right (28 U.S.C. §1292[a]). A final decision typically “ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the [district] court to do but execute the judgment.”3
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