Conrad v. Phone Directories Co., Inc.

585 F.3d 1376, 29 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1638, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 24727, 92 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 43,726, 2009 WL 3739389
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedNovember 10, 2009
Docket07-6276
StatusPublished
Cited by65 cases

This text of 585 F.3d 1376 (Conrad v. Phone Directories Co., Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Conrad v. Phone Directories Co., Inc., 585 F.3d 1376, 29 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1638, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 24727, 92 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 43,726, 2009 WL 3739389 (10th Cir. 2009).

Opinion

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal we are asked to decide, for the first time in this circuit, whether we have jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal of the denial of a motion to dismiss premised on the existence of an arbitration agreement, notwithstanding the fact that the defendants did not explicitly move to stay the litigation or compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). We hold that we do not. Based on the plain text of the FAA, our canons of construction of jurisdictional statutes, and the Supreme Court’s recently-expressed categorical approach to the FAA’s appellate jurisdiction provision, we hold that in order to properly invoke appellate jurisdiction under the Act, the movant must either explicitly move to stay litigation and/or compel arbitration pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act, or it must be unmistakably clear from the four corners of the motion that the movant seeks relief provided for in the FAA. We thus dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction and remand the case to the district court.

I. Background

Plaintiff Sean Conrad sued his former employer, Phone Directories Co., and its chief executive and financial officers (defendants Marc and Mike Bingham, respectively; all three defendants will be collectively referred to as “PDC”) on state-law tort and breach-of-contract claims. Subject-matter jurisdiction in the district court was premised on diversity of citizenship; Conrad is a citizen of Oklahoma and defendants are domiciled in Utah, and Conrad sought more than $75,000 in damages. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). The gravamen of Conrad’s suit, in essence, is that PDC violated an agreement to employ him, as well as to provide him with five percent of the profits when the company was sold in 2007.

PDC argues, however, that Conrad signed a later employment agreement that included a clause requiring all disputes between PDC and Conrad to be submitted to arbitration. In response to Conrad’s complaint, PDC filed a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12. PDC asserted three bases for dismissal: first, that the second employment agreement required Conrad to bring his claims in Utah, rather than Oklahoma, and thus that the suit should be dismissed for improper venue under Rule 12(b)(3); second, that the dispute resolution provisions of the second employment agreement required Conrad to arbitrate his claims, and thus that the court should dismiss those claims; and third, that Conrad’s state-law claims were legally deficient for various reasons and should thus be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

While the arbitration agreement was an important part of PDC’s motion to dismiss, the motion did not ask the court to enforce the agreement under the FAA. The portion of PDC’s motion that addressed the agreement asserted only that “Plaintiffs Complaint should be dismissed ... because Plaintiff agreed to arbitrate all claims relating to his employment with [PDC.]” (App. at 33.) Only once in its memorandum in support of the motion, at the outset of its arbitration argument, did PDC mention the possibility of any outcome other than outright dismissal. (Id. at 49 (“If the Court does not dismiss this matter for improper venue, the Court should issue an order compelling arbitration and dismissing Plaintiffs claims.”).) PDC’s motion did not, however, explicitly ask the district court to stay the proceeding pending arbitration or to compel arbitration under either § 3 or § 4 of the *1380 FAA. See 9 U.S.C. § 3 (empowering district courts to stay litigation where an issue therein is subject to arbitration under a written agreement); 9 U.S.C. § 4 (authorizing district courts to compel arbitration under a valid agreement to arbitrate). The only mention of either provision of the FAA came in a quotation in a parenthetical appended to the citation of a Third Circuit case at the end of PDC’s arbitration agreement argument.

The district court granted PDC’s motion with respect to some of Conrad’s state-law tort claims, but denied the motion to dismiss the complaint in full under the arbitration agreement. In the district court’s view, “[a]t a minimum, genuine issues of material fact exist as to the applicability of [the second employment agreement] to the parties’ relationship and [Conrad’s] claims herein and as to the enforceability of [the second agreement,] assuming any applicability.” (App. at 142.) PDC filed an immediate appeal of this denial, asserting that its appeal was “taken pursuant to 9 U.S.C. § 16(a),” the appellate jurisdiction provision of the FAA.

II. Appellate Jurisdiction

Before addressing the merits of PDC’s arguments, we must first assure ourselves that we possess jurisdiction over this appeal. Though neither party initially briefed the question of our appellate jurisdiction, we ordered supplemental briefing on the issue of whether FAA § 16(a) grants us jurisdiction to review the district court’s order. See Kennedy v. Lubar, 273 F.3d 1293, 1301 (10th Cir.2001) (recognizing this court’s ability to raise questions of appellate jurisdiction sua sponte).

Title 28, section 1291 of the United States Code grants Courts of Appeals jurisdiction over “all final decisions of the district courts of the United States.” A final decision “is a decision by the district court that ‘ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.’ ” Utah ex rel. Utah State Dept. of Health v. Kennecott Corp., 14 F.3d 1489, 1492 (10th Cir.1994) (quoting Catlin v. United States, 324 U.S. 229, 233, 65 S.Ct. 631, 89 L.Ed. 911 (1945)). By its very nature, the decision to deny a motion to dismiss is not final; rather than ending the litigation, it is a decision that it will continue. See Hatten-Gonzales v. Hyde, 579 F.3d 1159, 1166 (10th Cir.2009). Under normal circumstances, therefore, we would have no power to review the district court’s decision to deny PDC’s motion.

The FAA, however, contains a statutory exception to the final decision rule for certain categories of ordinarily non-final orders. Under the statute,

(a) An appeal may be taken from—
(1) an order—
(A) refusing a stay of any action under section 3 of this title,
(B) denying a petition under section 4 of this title to order arbitration to proceed,
(C) denying an application under section 206 of this title to compel arbitration,

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585 F.3d 1376, 29 I.E.R. Cas. (BNA) 1638, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 24727, 92 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) 43,726, 2009 WL 3739389, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/conrad-v-phone-directories-co-inc-ca10-2009.