Opinion · Supreme Court of the United States

Dickinson v. Petroleum Conversion Corp.

338 U.S. 507

Type
Opinion
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Jurisdiction
Federal
Date
1950-01-16
Topic
general

How later courts describe this case

  • recognizing “the inconvenience and costs of piecemeal review” as one of the most important considerations when determining whether an order can be appealed
  • noting that these two “most important” “considerations . . . always compete in the question of appealability”
  • recognizing the “increased . . . danger of hardship and denial of justice through delay if each issue must await the determination of all issues as to all parties before a final judgment can be had”
  • lamenting the “struggle of the courts[] sometimes to devise a formula that will encompass all situations and at other times to take hardship cases out from under the rigidity of previous declarations”
  • “[A]n order denying intervention to a person having an absolute right to intervene is final and appealable.”
  • "We have held that an order denying intervention to a person having an absolute right to intervene is final and appealable."
  • “[T]he lawsuit is all over so far as the [excluded] inter-venor is concerned.”
  • order prior to judgment that rejected potential intervenor’s claims considered “final” for purposes of appeal where order “was not tentative, informal nor incomplete as to [the potential intervenor]”

Citator

UpLaw has not yet analyzed Dickinson v. Petroleum Conversion Corp.. The absence of a flag is not a finding that it is good law.

Cited by
319 opinions

Headnotes

  1. Civil Procedure — Appellate Jurisdiction A decree that fully disposes of all claims of an intervenor is final and appealable as to that intervenor even though the court reserves jurisdiction over matters that concern only other parties and cannot affect the intervenor's rights; the reservation of essentially supervisory jurisdiction over the distribution of a recovery among other claimants does not render the decree non-final as to the intervenor whose claims have been conclusively determined. 338 U.S. 507, 512-515
  2. Civil Procedure — Waiver A party who fails to appeal from a final and appealable decree forfeits its right of review, and its attempt to obtain review of that earlier decree by appealing from a later decree that does not change or affect its rights is ineffective and must be dismissed. 338 U.S. 507, 514-516
  3. Civil Procedure — Appellate Jurisdiction An order denying intervention to a person having an absolute right to intervene is final and appealable; because the would-be intervenor is foreclosed from further action in the case and neither its proceedings can affect him nor he them, a judgment dismissing an intervenor's claims is equally final, whether the exclusion rests on the pleadings or on the evidence. 338 U.S. 507, 513
  4. Civil Procedure — Finality of Judgments The competing considerations in determining the finality of a decree for purposes of appeal are the inconvenience and costs of piecemeal review on the one hand and the danger of denying justice by delay on the other; the liberalization of practice permitting joinder of more issues and parties and expanded intervention has increased the danger of hardship and denial of justice through delay if each issue must await determination of all issues as to all parties before a final judgment can be had. 338 U.S. 507, 511