United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 01-2201
CARLOS MORALES FELICIANO ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellees,
v.
JOHN RULLAN, SECRETARY OF THE PUERTO RICO
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, ETC.,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Juan M. Pérez-Giménez, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Boudin, Chief Judge,
Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Selya, Circuit Judge.
Carlos Del Valle, with whom Anabelle Rodriguez, Attorney
General, Eileen Landrón Guardiola, and Eduardo A. Vera Ramírez were
on brief, for appellant.
Alejandra Bird Lopez, with whom Carlos V. García Gutiérrez,
Manuel Rodríguez Banchs, Rafael E. Rodrígues Rivera, and Civil
Action and Education Corporation were on brief, for appellees.
July 15, 2002
SELYA, Circuit Judge. This interlocutory appeal requires
us to revisit a marathon class-action suit brought to remedy
unconstitutional conditions of confinement in the Puerto Rico
prison system. On this occasion, the Secretary of the Puerto Rico
Department of Health (the Secretary) alleges that the district
court's assignment of certain duties to the so-called chief health
care coordinator (the CHCC) constitutes an unwarranted modification
of a prior injunction and, in the bargain, violates the Prisoner
Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PLRA), Pub. L. No. 104-134, 110
Stat. 1321 (1996) (codified as amended in scattered sections of 18
U.S.C., 28 U.S.C., & 42 U.S.C.). The plaintiff class (composed of
prison inmates) responds that this court lacks jurisdiction to
consider the appeal on an interlocutory basis, and that, in all
events, the challenged order is a proper exercise of the district
court's authority. We agree with the first of the plaintiffs'
assertions: the challenged order merely clarifies the court's
prior decrees and imposes no serious consequences on the Secretary.
Moreover, the order, in the last analysis, is a procedural measure
that constitutes an exercise of the district court's housekeeping
powers. For these reasons, immediate appellate review is not
available to the Secretary as of right. Consequently, we dismiss
the appeal without addressing the remaining issues briefed and
argued by the parties.
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I. BACKGROUND
Although the lore of this case is Byzantine, we confine
our introductory remarks to those events that are directly
pertinent to this appeal. We refer readers who hunger for more
exegetic detail to the district court's myriad opinions. E.g.,
Morales Feliciano v. Roselló González, 13 F. Supp. 2d 151 (D.P.R.
1998) (Morales II); Morales Feliciano v. Romero Barcelo, 497 F.
Supp. 14 (D.P.R. 1979) (Morales I).
In early 1979, representatives of the plaintiff class
commenced this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. They named several
public officials as defendants, including, pertinently, the
Secretary. The suit alleged dire shortcomings in virtually every
aspect of prisoner confinement. The district court found that the
plaintiffs were likely to succeed on some of their claims and
issued a preliminary injunction ordering the defendants to address
the most pressing of the identified concerns. See Morales I, 497
F. Supp. at 38-41. The court gave very high priority to inadequate
medical and mental health care. See id. at 37-38.
Over time, the district court grew frustrated with the
defendants' desultory responses to the preliminary injunction. To
expedite compliance, the court appointed a monitor in March of
1986. The court charged the monitor with studying the relevant
elements of the corrections program and recommending remedial
action. With the monitor in place, the court became actively
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involved in certain aspects of the management of the prison system.
Not surprisingly, the court found inertia to be a persistent
problem and, to overcome it, issued temporary restraining orders
and contempt citations against the defendants when and as required.
The court also began to impose fines for the defendants' most
egregious failures to comply with its decrees (particularly those
failures relating to overcrowding). Those fines escalated as the
foot-dragging continued and the court's level of exasperation
mounted. To date, the court has levied aggregate fines totaling
nearly $135,000,000.
In October of 1990, the court ordered the implementation
of medical and mental health care plans (the Plans) recommended by
the monitor. By their terms, the Plans contemplated that overall
responsibility for inmate health care would pass from the
Administration of Corrections to the Department of Health. The
Plans also required the Secretary to employ, for at least three
years, a designated official — the CHCC — who would be responsible
for easing the transition and coordinating compliance with the
Plans.1 In April of 1993, the Secretary nominated Dr. Aida Guzmán
Font to assume the position. The district court approved financial
support (from the fine fund) for her endeavors. When her term
1
The designated official initially was called the "chief
medical coordinator." The title was changed in December of 1992.
-4-
expired three years later, the parties jointly requested that the
court approve her reappointment. The court obliged.
In January of 1996, the district court entered what it
termed a "partial final judgment." In this decree, the court
settled several disputed issues and urged the parties to focus
their energies on "consensus-based compliance efforts, and the
resolution of yet unresolved areas of the case." In the same
document, the court enumerated certain prior orders that it now
considered final (including the order approving the Plans and the
orders containing the job description for the CHCC position).
The passage of time revealed that the remedial framework
was not functioning smoothly. In April of 1997, a court-appointed
expert found that the extant correctional health program was a
bureaucratic morass incapable of meeting constitutional standards.
To rectify this situation, the expert suggested the appointment of
a receiver for the ailing program. The parties closed ranks to
oppose this recommendation, proposing instead the creation of a
private non-profit corporation (the Corporation), which would
eventually assume total responsibility for providing medical and
mental health services to the inmate population.
On September 26, 1997, the parties filed a stipulation
designed to flesh out this joint proposal. Under its terms, the
Corporation would provide health care services, consistent with the
Plans, to all persons held in institutions operated by the
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Administration of Corrections. The stipulation promised "full
coordination among all parties concerned" and required the
defendants (including the Secretary) to take a series of
preparatory steps to lay the groundwork for an effective transition
from the existing correctional health program to the new model.
The stipulation also memorialized the parties' agreement to engage
in further discussions "concerning the role and authority of the
CHCC with respect to monitoring the Corporation." Finally, the
process of privatization — that is, the transition from the
existing remedial framework to the stipulated alternative — was
made subject to the district court's supervision. The court would
be kept informed by, inter alia, the submission of regular progress
reports from the CHCC.
In an ensuing opinion, the district court elaborated on
the constitutional deficiencies of the existing health care
programs, but declined to rule on the receivership recommendation.
Morales II, 13 F. Supp. 2d at 213. Instead, the court issued a
series of orders designed to "build on the remedial structure . .
. already in place." Id. In so doing, the court reaffirmed its
earlier support for the Plans and expressed a willingness to listen
should the parties or the CHCC "request modifications of the
[Plans] to keep abreast of health care developments or to enhance
administrative and fiscal efficiency." Id. at 158.
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The court also acknowledged the recommendation for the
creation of a private non-profit corporation as a vehicle for the
delivery of inmate health care services. See id. at 203 (citing
the testimony of an expert in correctional health care to the
effect that "[t]he objective of an adequate budget process and a
sense of relative permanency can be accomplished through a private
not-for-profit health care corporation whose primary mission is
correctional health care"). But the court expressed skepticism
about the parties' abilities to establish such an entity and
ordered class counsel to report within ten days on the progress
made in organizing the Corporation. Id. at 214. Within the
allotted period, class counsel outlined the steps that were being
taken to create the Corporation.
Although Morales II provides, at best, a tentative
endorsement of the parties' suggested remedy, the court's
subsequent statements and actions indicate full support for the
nascent Corporation. That support has been unwavering: despite
slower-than-expected progress on the path to privatization, the
court has regularly reviewed and approved annual budgets for the
Corporation and has authorized the disbursement of substantial
monies from the fine fund to cover the Corporation's operating
expenses. To date, these disbursements total around $20,000,000.
On March 31, 2000, Dr. Guzmán resigned. The district
court believed that recruiting a new CHCC would be inopportune
-7-
given the Corporation's "advanced stage of development" and the
court's expectation that the Corporation would take over the
delivery of correctional health care services within the next
eighteen months. Still, the vacancy left a void. To bridge the
gap temporarily, the court entered an order transferring some of
the CHCC's duties to the executive director of the correctional
health program (Dr. Ernesto Torres Arroyo).
A new administration came to power in Puerto Rico
following the November 2000 general elections. The following
February, the Secretary — an appointee of the newly-elected
governor — sought to terminate Dr. Torres' employment as executive
director of the correctional health program. In response to the
plaintiffs' objection, the district court restrained the Secretary
from cashiering Dr. Torres until such time as the court chose to
relieve him of the duties assigned to him after Dr. Guzmán's
resignation.
The Secretary did not appeal from this order, but,
rather, notified the court that he was reappointing Dr. Guzmán to
the vacant CHCC position. In the same motion, he asked the court
to approve the appointment. The court ordered the parties to
confer and submit a joint proposal designed to harmonize the CHCC's
job description with the court's prior orders. The parties were
unable to reach agreement. The principal bone of contention
centered on the extent to which the Secretary (and, to some degree,
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the CHCC) would be in control of decisions regarding the
privatization process.
The district court resolved the matter by issuing the
order underlying the instant appeal. That ukase, entered on May
23, 2001, noted that the court had "ordered, as a solution to the
myriad of problems affecting delivery of mental and medical health
services to the plaintiff class in this case, the creation and
organization of a private, not-for-profit corporation, to replace
the present Correctional Health Program." This made it "imperative
that the [CHCC] cooperate[] fully with the [Corporation] during the
transition period." To achieve this goal, the court directed the
CHCC to (1) provide the Corporation with information reasonably
necessary for the performance of its obligations; (2) ensure
attendance of correctional health program workers at training
seminars organized by the Corporation; (3) appoint coordinators to
assist in the development of the training seminars, the
reorganization of work areas, and the installation of electronic
and telephonic equipment in the medical areas of correctional
institutions; (4) guard against the improper use of installed
equipment; (5) require the presence of Corporation personnel during
consultations with higher officials anent matters related to the
provision of correctional health services; (6) inform the
Corporation's chief executive officer (CEO) of the times and
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locations of certain meetings; and (7) attend relevant meetings
called by the Corporation's board or its CEO.
The Secretary chafed at this directive and asked the
district court to reconsider it. He argued, inter alia, that the
order was superfluous because the CHCC, of her own volition, was
cooperating fully with the Corporation. The plaintiff class
opposed reconsideration, claiming that there was ample reason to
believe that the Secretary and the CHCC were refusing to cede
control over the provision of inmate health services while
simultaneously conspiring to appropriate the Corporation's
resources. When the district court denied reconsideration, the
Secretary appealed.
On appeal, the Secretary asseverates that the assignment
of new duties to the CHCC contravenes the district court's January
1996 partial judgment, which purported to make final several
earlier orders (including the orders that collectively contained
the CHCC's job description). Building on that foundation, the
Secretary posits that the district court lacked jurisdiction to
modify the January 1996 judgment and, alternatively, that the May
23 order fails to comport with the requirements of the PLRA. The
plaintiffs counter that this interlocutory appeal must be dismissed
for lack of jurisdiction; and that, in all events, the May 23 order
is unimpugnable.
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II. APPELLATE JURISDICTION
It is black-letter law that "[f]ederal courts are courts
of limited jurisdiction, and thus must take pains to act only
within the margins of that jurisdiction." Cumberland Farms, Inc.
v. Me. Tax Assessor, 116 F.3d 943, 945 (1st Cir. 1997). Hence, the
preferred — and often the obligatory — practice is that a court,
when confronted with a colorable challenge to its subject-matter
jurisdiction, should resolve that question before weighing the
merits of a pending action. See Berner v. Delahanty, 129 F.3d 20,
23 (1st Cir. 1997); see also Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better
Environment, 523 U.S. 83, 94 (1998). This principle holds true
when an appellate court's right to exercise appellate jurisdiction
is called into question. In re Cusumano, 162 F.3d 708, 712 (1st
Cir. 1998); Director, OWCP v. Bath Iron Works Corp., 853 F.2d 11,
12-13 (1st Cir. 1988). Thus, we turn first to the question of our
own jurisdiction. We start this inquiry by elucidating the general
tenets that govern the existence of appellate jurisdiction and then
proceed to apply those tenets to the case at hand.
A. The Legal Landscape.
There is a well-established legislative policy
disfavoring inchmeal appellate review. See Anderson v. City of
Boston, 244 F.3d 236, 238 (1st Cir. 2001). This policy makes very
good sense. "Multiple appeals in a single litigation are
necessarily disruptive and, if freely allowed, subject to abuse."
-11-
Sierra Club v. Marsh, 907 F.2d 210, 214 (1st Cir. 1990). Thus, a
federal court of appeals, as a general rule, will review decisions
made by a district court only after that court enters a final
judgment. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
This rule, like virtually every general rule, admits of
certain exceptions. One exception to the rule against
interlocutory appeals is embedded in 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). That
statute authorizes immediate review of district court orders
"granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving
injunctions, or refusing to dissolve or modify injunctions." Id.
This exception must be strictly construed. Sierra Club, 907 F.2d
at 214. Strict construction prevents the statute from being used
as a means of evading the final judgment rule.
To determine whether a particular trial court order is
appealable under section 1292(a)(1), a reviewing court must look to
the practical effect of the order rather than its verbiage. See
Carson v. American Brands, Inc., 450 U.S. 79, 84 (1981). The
Carson Court also made plain that a party seeking the benefit of
section 1292(a)(1) must establish that the contested order imposes
"serious, perhaps irreparable, consequence[s]" and that it may be
challenged effectively only by immediate appeal. Id.
Another line of cases has relevance here. Although
orders that modify injunctions may be appealable under section
1292(a)(1), orders that merely clarify previously entered
-12-
injunctions are not. See, e.g., Birmingham Fire Fighters Ass'n 117
v. Jefferson County, 280 F.3d 1289, 1292-93 (11th Cir. 2002);
United States Fire Ins. Co. v. Asbestospray, Inc., 182 F.3d 201,
207 (7th Cir. 1999); Mikel v. Gourley, 951 F.2d 166, 168 (8th Cir.
1991). To ascertain whether an order modifies an injunction, we
must determine whether the underlying decree is of an injunctive
character, and if so, whether the ruling complained of can be said
to have altered the underlying decree in a jurisdictionally
significant way. Sierra Club, 907 F.2d at 212. A change is
jurisdictionally significant if it substantially readjusts the
legal relations of the parties, see Cunningham v. David Special
Commitment Ctr., 158 F.3d 1035, 1037 (9th Cir. 1998), and does not
relate simply to the conduct or progress of litigation, see
Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. v. Mayacamas Corp., 485 U.S. 271, 279
(1988). Doubts as to the applicability of section 1292(a)(1) are
to be resolved against immediate appealability.
B. The Case at Hand.
Here, the Secretary appeals from the district court's
order of May 23, 2001, claiming that it modifies a previously
issued injunction. He maintains that the underlying injunctive
decree — the decree modified by the order appealed from — is the
January 1996 partial final judgment. This designation strikes us
as arbitrary. The district court created the CHCC position in an
order dated October 22, 1990; broadened its purview somewhat by
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order dated December 18, 1992; and continued the office in effect
without any appreciable change in the 1996 partial final judgment.
By the same token, the court issued several orders affecting the
CHCC position in the period between January of 1996 and May of
2001.2 Last — but far from least — the district court did not
refer at all to the 1996 partial final judgment in crafting the
order of May 23, 2001. Given this history, the Secretary's
designation of the 1996 partial final judgment as the underlying
injunction seems odd. The most that can be said is that the
combination of orders composing the status quo as of May 23, 2001
amounted to an injunction.
Leaving to one side this obvious weakness in the
Secretary's case, the question remains whether the May 23 order
represented a jurisdictionally significant change in the status
quo. See Sierra Club, 907 F.2d at 212-13. Answering this question
requires us to focus on the practical effect of the order. See id.
at 213.
As a practical matter, the May 23 order did not break new
ground. The stipulation entered into by and between the parties on
September 26, 1997 heralded the dawning of a new era, paving the
way for a phase-out of the preexisting correctional health program
2
These include an order of May 16, 1997 (directing the CHCC to
take contractual steps to maintain continuity of health services)
and an order of April 19, 2000 (declining to name a new CHCC
because the position would become obsolete within "a brief period
of time").
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and the creation of the Corporation as a new and different way to
provide health services to inmates. That stipulation itself
imposed obligations on the CHCC to report on the progress, and
otherwise monitor the activities, of the new Corporation. While
these changes constituted a dramatic modification of the status quo
ante, the Secretary certainly cannot complain about them; they were
introduced with the consent and active cooperation of his
predecessor in office and, thus, bind the Secretary now. See
Cornelius v. Hogan, 663 F.2d 330, 334-35 (1st Cir. 1981) (finding,
in an official-capacity suit, that a successor in office was bound
by his predecessor's consent decree); see also Fed. R. Civ. P.
25(d)(1). A party's stipulations are binding on that party and may
not be contradicted by him at trial or on appeal. Keller v. United
States, 58 F.3d 1194, 1199 n.8 (7th Cir. 1995). It follows from
these two propositions that a government official, sued in his
representative capacity, cannot freely repudiate stipulations
entered into by his predecessor in office during an earlier stage
of the same litigation.
The Secretary tries to wiggle off this hook by arguing
that we should disregard the stipulation because it was not
explicitly entered by the district court. This argument borders on
the jejune. The parties docketed the stipulation and, although the
district court did not instantly embrace it, the court's subsequent
actions — particularly the entry of orders designed to facilitate
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the establishment of the new remedial framework and the release of
funds to finance those activities — made manifest the court's
adoption of the concept. In all events, the court certainly
believed that it had approved the stipulation and its serial orders
put the Secretary on clear notice of its belief. See, e.g., Order
of July 2, 1998 (reminding the parties that "[c]orrectional health
services w[ould] soon begin to undergo the transition to a private
non-profit corporation"); Order of April 19, 2000 (stating that the
court previously had "accepted and ordered the implementation of
the parties' stipulations and proposals to create a not-for-profit
Correctional Health Services Corporation"). If the Secretary
wished to hold the district court to a particular punctilio in the
entry of the stipulation, the Secretary had an obligation to assert
that position in a timely manner. See Putnam Resources v. Pateman,
958 F.2d 448, 456-57 (1st Cir. 1992) (explaining that an aggrieved
party must act expeditiously to cure perceived error); see
generally United States v. Taylor, 54 F.3d 967, 972 (1st Cir. 1995)
(stating that "a litigant who deems himself aggrieved" by a ruling
of the trial judge "ordinarily must object then and there, or
forfeit any right to complain at a latter time"). His failure to
do so constitutes a waiver.
Against this backdrop, it is surpassingly difficult to
see how the May 23 order worked a jurisdictionally significant
change in the status quo. In some respects, this case is
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reminiscent of Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority, 178 F.3d 951
(7th Cir. 1999). There, the Seventh Circuit held that an order
directing a housing authority to involve a receiver in any
settlement negotiations with tenants of a particular housing
project was merely a reiteration of an earlier receivership decree
that required "full cooperation" with the receiver. Id. at 953.
On that basis, the court deemed the order unappealable under
section 1292(a)(1). Id. at 958.
This case is similarly configured. The stipulation
obligated the parties, in effect, to cooperate fully in the
privatization process. The assignment of specific duties to the
CHCC — the part of the May 23 order that rankles the Secretary — is
simply another way of expressing what is reasonably to be expected
from the stipulated promise of full cooperation. In short, the May
23 order is a logical corollary to the Secretary's stipulated
commitment to assist in the privatization of the delivery of
correctional health services.3
The particulars of the May 23 order do not alter this
analysis. The specific dictates contained in that order — for
instance, those requiring consultation with Corporation personnel
3
This conclusion is fortified by the fact that the CHCC
position was created for the express purpose of implementing the
Plans. The parties (through the stipulation) and the district
court have now determined that privatization is the best route to
achieve that goal. From that standpoint, a failure on the part of
the CHCC to assist in executing the privatization process would
violate her longstanding duty to implement the Plans.
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and support of training programs — do no more than identify
particular areas in which cooperation is required. Thus, the
enumerated duties, taken as a whole, do not modify the status quo
in any meaningful way. Confirming this conclusion is the fact that
the Secretary initially objected to the May 23 order on the ground
that it added nothing new to what the CHCC already was doing. His
belated attempt to press the opposite view in this venue is
untenable. Cf. Lydon v. Boston Sand & Gravel Co., 175 F.3d 6, 12
(1st Cir. 1999) (warning that "if parties feel free to select
contradictory positions before different tribunals to suit their
ends, the integrity and efficacy of the courts will suffer")
(quoting Patriot Cinemas, Inc. v. Gen. Cinema Corp., 834 F.2d 208,
214 (1st Cir. 1987)).
For much the same reasons, we do not accept the
Secretary's plaint that the May 23 order has serious consequences.
The order is disruptive, he tells us, because it undermines his
authority to control the actions of a subordinate and,
concomitantly, forces that subordinate — the CHCC — to preside over
the dismantling of the correctional health program. This tale is
unconvincing — and mischaracterizes the record to boot.
In the first place, it was the Secretary — not the
district court — who insisted on filling the CHCC position. He
nominated Dr. Guzmán for the post knowing full well that a court-
ordered privatization of health care services was in full swing.
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He cannot seriously contend that his unilateral decision to fill
this vacancy somehow wipes the slate clean, allowing him to throw
a monkey wrench into the privatization process and scuttle the
reforms to which his predecessor had stipulated.
In the second place, the consequences that the Secretary
cites are the natural sequelae of the earlier agreement to transfer
correctional health services to the Corporation. Those woes are
not fairly attributable to the May 23 order. By first consenting
to the privatization plan and then seeking to fill the CHCC
position while the transition to privatization was underway, the
Secretary became the author of his own misfortune.
If more were needed on this point — and we doubt that it
is — the Secretary's argument misstates the nature of the CHCC
position. That position has never been exclusively under the
Secretary's hegemony. From the very beginning, the CHCC has been
subject to dual oversight, reporting both to the Secretary and the
district court.4 This dual reporting relationship dovetails with
the remedial framework that the court erected when it created the
CHCC position to address constitutional shortcomings in inmate
health services. Given the hybrid nature of the position, fine-
tuning the CHCC's role to accommodate the stipulated changeover to
4
The process by which the Secretary aspired to reappoint Dr.
Guzmán as the CHCC illustrates this dichotomy. Although the
Secretary selected her for the position, he submitted the
nomination to the district court for the court's approval.
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privatization does little to alter the legal relations of the
parties as they existed on May 23, 2001. The alteration, as we
have said, dates back to the execution of the stipulation.
There is yet another basis for our conclusion that the
May 23 order does not significantly modify the status quo. The
parties, through the stipulation, explicitly agreed that "[t]he
privatization process must be subject to Court supervision." This
language gave the court substantial latitude in procedural matters
relating to how best to achieve privatization. Given that
fostering compliance with the district court's remedial framework
is the CHCC's raison être, the order that the Secretary challenges
here can be viewed as procedural in nature (akin, say, to the
appointment of a monitor).
The Ninth Circuit dealt with an analogous procedural
order in Thompson v. Enomoto, 815 F.2d 1323 (9th Cir. 1987), a
prisoner class action. There, the court had to decide whether the
appointment of a special master to supervise compliance with a
consent decree constituted a modification of the decree.
Emphasizing the interim nature of the position, the court found no
"serious or irreparable harm" stemming from the appointment. Id.
at 1327. We think that here, as in Thompson, the order appealed
from was within the lower court's reserved power to establish
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procedures for compliance with the court's earlier decrees.5 Id.
So viewed, the May 23 order was simply "a step in controlling the
litigation before the court," Baltimore Contractors, Inc. v.
Bodinger, 348 U.S. 176, 185 (1955). Orders of that stripe are not
immediately appealable. See, e.g., Van Orman v. Am. Ins. Co., 680
F.2d 301, 314 (3d Cir. 1982) (dismissing interlocutory appeal when
the order appealed from was merely a "judicial housekeeping measure
designed to assist the court in framing ultimate relief in the
case").
III. CONCLUSION
To recapitulate, the May 23 order is not a modification
of a previous injunction, but, rather, a clarification of the
CHCC's role in light of other developments in the case. At any
rate, the order does not have serious or irreparable consequences
for the Secretary because any infringement on his autonomy is a
function of previously ordered relief. Finally, the nature of the
obligations imposed on the CHCC places the May 23 order in the
category of procedural orders that are not immediately appealable.
5
As was true of the court-appointed special master in
Thompson, the CHCC position was never meant to exist in perpetuity.
To the contrary, the Plans contemplate that the CHCC will serve a
three-year term, and the court has made it abundantly clear that
the position will become obsolete once the transition to
privatization has been completed. Thus, the May 23 order is
temporary in the sense that it applies only to the transition
period.
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We need go no further. For the reasons discussed above,
we dismiss the appeal for want of appellate jurisdiction.
Appeal dismissed.
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Morales-Feliciano v. Rullan
Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
Date filed: 2002-07-15
Citations: 303 F.3d 1
Copy CitationsCombined Opinion