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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
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notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 93-405
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DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION, PETI-
TIONER v. DESKTOP DIRECT, INC.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the tenth circuit
[June 6, 1994]

 Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court.
 Section 1291 of the Judicial Code confines appeals as
of right to those from -final decisions of the district
courts.-  28 U. S. C. 1291.  This case raises the
question whether an order vacating a dismissal predi-
cated on the parties' settlement agreement is final as a
collateral order even without a district court's resolution
of the underlying cause of action.  See Cohen v. Benefi-
cial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541, 546 (1949).  We hold
that an order denying effect to a settlement agreement
does not come within the narrow ambit of collateral
orders.


                      I
 Respondent, Desktop Direct, Inc. (Desktop) sells
computers and like equipment under the trade name
-Desktop Direct.-  Petitioner, Digital Equipment Corpo-
ration is engaged in a similar business and in late 1991
began using that trade name to market a new service it
called -Desktop Direct from Digital.-  In response,
Desktop filed this action in the United States District
Court for the District of Utah, charging Digital with
unlawful use of the Desktop Direct name.  Desktop sent
Digital a copy of the complaint, and negotiations
between officers of the two corporations ensued.  Under
a confidential settlement reached on March 25, 1992,
Digital agreed to pay Desktop a sum of money for the
right to use the -Desktop Direct- trade name and
corresponding trademark, and for waiver of all damages
and dismissal of the suit.  That same day, Desktop filed
a notice of dismissal in the District Court.
 Several months later, Desktop moved to vacate the
dismissal and rescind the settlement agreement, alleging
misrepresentation of material facts during settlement
negotiations.  The District Court granted the motion,
concluding -that a fact finder could determine that
[Digital] failed to disclose material facts to [Desktop]
during settlement negotiations which would have
resulted in rejection of the settlement offer.-  App. to
Pet. for Cert. 13a.  After the District Court declined to
reconsider that ruling or stay its order vacating dismiss-
al, Digital appealed.
 The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit dismissed
the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, holding that the
District Court order was not appealable under 1291,
because it neither -end[ed] the litigation on the merits-
nor -[fell] within the long-recognized `collateral order'
exception to the final judgment requirement.-  993 F. 2d
755, 757 (1993).  Applying the three-pronged test for
determining when -collateral order- appeal is allowed,
see Cohen, supra; Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437
U. S. 463 (1978), the Court of Appeals concluded that
any benefits claimed under the settlement agreement
were insufficiently -important- to warrant the immediate
appeal as of right.  Although Digital claimed what it
styled a -right not to go to trial,- the court reasoned
that any such privately negotiated right as Digital
sought to vindicate was different in kind from an
immunity rooted in an explicit constitutional or statutory
provision or -compelling public policy rationale,- the
denial of which has been held to be immediately appeal-
able.  993 F. 2d at 758-760.
 The Tenth Circuit recognized that it was thus deviat-
ing from the rule followed in some other Courts of
Appeals, see Forbus v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 958 F. 2d
1036 (CA11); Grillet v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 927 F. 2d
217 (CA5 1991); Janneh v. GAF Corp., 887 F. 2d 432
(CA2 1989); but see Transtech Industries., Inc. v. A & Z
Septic Clean, 5 F. 3d 51 (CA3 1993), cert. pending No.
93-960.  We granted certiorari, 510 U. S. __ (1993), to
resolve this conflict and now affirm.


                     II
                      A
 The collateral order doctrine is best understood not as
an exception to the -final decision- rule laid down by
Congress in 1291, but as a -practical construction- of it,
Cohen, supra, at 546; see, e.g., Coopers & Lybrand,
supra, at 468.  We have repeatedly held that the statute
entitles a party to appeal not only from a district court
decision that -ends the litigation on the merits and
leaves nothing more for the court to do but execute the
judgment,- Catlin v. United States, 324 U. S. 229, 233
(1945), but also from a narrow class of decisions that do
not terminate the litigation, but must, in the interest of
-achieving a healthy legal system,- cf. Cobbledick v.
United States, 309 U. S. 323, 326 (1940) nonetheless be
treated as -final.-  The latter category comprises only
those district court decisions that are conclusive, that
resolve important questions completely separate from the
merits, and that would render such important questions
effectively unreviewable on appeal from final judgment
in the underlying action.  See generally Coopers &
Lybrand, supra.  Immediate appeals from such orders,
we have explained, do not go against the grain of 1291,
with its object of efficient administration of justice in
the federal courts, see generally Richardson-Merrell Inc.
v. Koller, 472 U. S. 424 (1985).
 But we have also repeatedly stressed that the -nar-
row- exception should stay that way and never be
allowed to swallow the general rule, id., at 436, that a
party is entitled to a single appeal, to be deferred until
final judgment has been entered, in which claims of
district court error at any stage of the litigation may be
ventilated, see United States v. Hollywood Motor Car
Co., 458 U. S. 263, 270 (1982).  We have accordingly
described the conditions for collateral order appeal as
stringent, see, e.g., Midland Asphalt Corp. v. United
States, 489 U. S. 794, 799 (1989), and have warned that
the issue of appealability under 1291 is to be deter-
mined for the entire category to which a claim belongs,
without regard to the chance that the litigation at hand
might be speeded, or a -particular injustic[e]- averted,
Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 U. S. 517, 529 (1988),
by a prompt appellate court decision.  See also Richard-
son-Merrell, supra, at 439 (this Court -has expressly
rejected efforts to reduce the finality requirement of
1291 to a case-by-case [appealability] determination-);
Carroll v. United States, 354 U. S. 394, 405 (1957).

                      B
 Here, the Court of Appeals accepted Digital's claim
that the order vacating dismissal (and so rescinding the
settlement agreement) was the -final word on the subject
addressed,- 993 F. 2d, at 757 (citation omitted) and held
the second Cohen condition, separability, to be satisfied,
as well.  Neither conclusion is beyond question, but
each is best left untouched here, both because Desktop
has made no serious effort to defend the Court of
Appeals judgment on those points and because the
failure to meet the third condition of the Cohen test,
that the decision on an -important- question be -effec-
tively unreviewable- upon final judgment, would in itself
suffice to foreclose immediate appeal under 1291.
Turning to these dispositive factors, we conclude, despite
Digital's position that it holds a -right not to stand
trial- requiring protection by way of immediate appeal,
that rights under private settlement agreements can be
adequately vindicated on appeal from final judgement.

                      C
  The roots of Digital's argument that the settlement
with Desktop gave it a -right not to stand trial alto-
gether- (and that such a right per se satisfies the third
Cohen requirement) are readily traced to Abney v.
United States, 431 U. S. 651 (1977), where we held that
1291 entitles a criminal defendant to appeal an adverse
ruling on a double jeopardy claim, without waiting for
the conclusion of his trial.  After holding the second
Cohen requirement satisfied by the distinction between
the former jeopardy claim and the question of guilt to be
resolved at trial, we emphasized that the Fifth Amend-
ment not only secures the right to be free from multiple
punishments, but by its very terms embodies the broader
principle, -`deeply ingrained . . . in the Anglo-American
system of jurisprudence,'- that it is intolerable for -`the
State, with all its resources . . . [to] make repeated
attempts to convict an individual [defendant], thereby
subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal
and compelling him to live in a continuing state of
anxiety and insecurity.'-  431 U. S., at 661-662 (quoting
Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, 187-188 (1957)).
We found that immediate appeal was the only way to
give -full protection- to this constitutional right -not to
face trial at all.-  431 U. S. at 662, and n. 7; see also
Helstoski v. Meanor, 442 U. S. 500 (1979) (decision
denying immunity under the Speech and Debate Clause
would be appealable under 1291).
 Abney's rationale was applied in Nixon v. Fitzgerald,
457 U. S. 731, 742 (1982), where we held to be similarly
appealable an order denying the petitioner absolute
immunity from suit for civil damages arising from
actions taken while petitioner was President of the
United States.  Seeing this immunity as a -functionally
mandated incident of the President's unique office,
rooted in the . . . separation of powers and supported by
our history,- id., at 749, we stressed that it served
-compelling public ends,- id., at 758, and would be
irretrievably lost if the former President were not
allowed an immediate appeal to vindicate this right to
be free from the rigors of trial, see id., at 752, n. 32.
 Next, in Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511 (1985), we
held that similar considerations supported appeal under
1291 from decisions denying government officials
qualified immunity from damages suits.  An -essential
attribute,- id. at 525, of this freedom from suit for past
conduct not violative of clearly established law, we
explained, is the -entitlement not to stand trial or face
the other burdens of litigation,- id., at 526, one which
would be -effectively lost if a case [were] erroneously
permitted to go to trial.-  Ibid.  Echoing the reasoning
of Nixon v. Fitzgerald, supra (and Harlow v. Fitzgerald,
457 U. S. 800 (1982)), we explained that requiring an
official with a colorable immunity claim to defend a suit
for damages would be -peculiarly disruptive of effective
government,- and would work the very -distraction . . .
from . . . dut[y], inhibition of discretionary action, and
deterrence of able people from public service- that
qualified immunity was meant to avoid.  See 472 U. S.,
at 526 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also
Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Authority v. Metcalf &
Eddy, Inc., 506 U. S. ___ (State's Eleventh Amendment
immunity from suit in federal court may be vindicated
by immediate appeal under 1291).

                      D
 Digital puts this case on all fours with Mitchell.  It
maintains that it obtained dual rights under the settle-
ment agreement with Desktop, not only a broad defense
to liability but the -right not to stand trial,- the latter
being just like the qualified immunity held immediately
appealable in Mitchell.  As in Mitchell, that right must
be enforceable on collateral order appeal, Digital asserts,
or an adverse trial ruling will destroy it forever.
 While Digital's argument may exert some pull on a
narrow analysis, it does not hold up under the broad
scrutiny to which all claims of immediate appealability
under 1291 must be subjected.  To be sure, Abney and
Mitchell are fairly cited for the proposition that orders
denying certain immunities are strong candidates for
prompt appeal under 1291.  But Digital's larger
contention, that a party's ability to characterize a
district court's decision as denying an irreparable -right
not to stand trial- altogether is sufficient as well as
necessary for a collateral order appeal, is neither an
accurate distillation of our case law nor an appealing
prospect for adding to it.
 Even as they have recognized the need for immediate
appeals under 1291 to vindicate rights that would be
-irretrievably lost,- Richardson-Merrell, 472 U. S., at
431, if review were confined to final judgments only, our
cases have been at least as emphatic in recognizing that
the jurisdiction of the courts of appeals should not, and
cannot, depend on a party's agility in so characterizing
the right asserted.  This must be so because the strong
bias of 1291 against piecemeal appeals almost never
operates without some cost.  A fully litigated case can
no more be untried than the law's proverbial bell can be
unrung, and almost every pretrial or trial order might
be called -effectively unreviewable- in the sense that
relief from error can never extend to rewriting history.
Thus, erroneous evidentiary rulings, grants or denials of
attorney disqualification, see, e.g., Richardson-Merrell,
supra, and restrictions on the rights of intervening
parties, see Stringfellow v. Concerned Neighbors in
Action, 480 U. S. 370 (1987), may burden litigants in
ways that are only imperfectly reparable by appellate
reversal of a final district court judgment, cf. Carroll,
354 U. S., at 406; Parr  v. United States, 351 U. S. 513,
519-520 (1956); and other errors, real enough, will not
seem serious enough to warrant reversal at all, when
reviewed after a long trial on the merits, see String-
fellow, supra.  In still other cases, see Coopers &
Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463 (1978), an erroneous
district court decision will, as a practical matter, sound
the -death knell- for many plaintiffs' claims that might
have gone forward if prompt error correction had been
an option.  But if immediate appellate review were
available every such time, Congress's final decision rule
would end up a pretty puny one, and so the mere
identification of some interest that would be -irretriev-
ably lost- has never sufficed to meet the third Cohen
requirement.  See generally Lauro Lines, s.r.l. v.
Chasser, 490 U. S. 495, 499 (1989) (-It is always true,
however, that `there is value . . . in triumphing before
trial, rather than after it'-) (quoting United States v.
MacDonald, 435 U. S., 850, 860, n. 7 (1978)); Richard-
son-Merrell, supra, at 436.
 Nor does limiting the focus to whether the interest
asserted may be called a -right not to stand trial- offer
much protection against the urge to push the 1291
limits.  We have, after all, acknowledged that virtually
every right that could be enforced appropriately by
pretrial dismissal might loosely be described as confer-
ring a -right not to stand trial,- see, e.g., Midland
Asphalt, 489 U. S., at 501; Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard,
486 U. S. 517, 524 (1988).  Allowing immediate appeals
to vindicate every such right would move 1291 aside for
claims that the district court lacks personal jurisdiction,
see Van Cauwenberghe, that the statute of limitations
has run, see 15B C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper,
Federal Practice and Procedure 3918.5, and n. 65, p.
521 (1992), that the movant has been denied his Sixth
Amendment right to speedy trial, see MacDonald, supra,
that an action is barred on claim preclusion principles,
that no material fact is in dispute and the moving party
is entitled to judgment as a matter of law, or merely
that the complaint fails to state a claim.  Such motions
can be made in virtually every case, see generally
MacDonald, supra, at 862; United States v. Hollywood
Motor Car Co., 458 U. S., at  270, and it would be no
consolation that a party's meritless summary judgment
motion or res judicata claim was rejected on immediate
appeal; the damage to the efficient and congressionally
mandated allocation of judicial responsibility would be
done, and any improper purpose the appellant might
have had in saddling its opponent with cost and delay
would be accomplished.  Cf. Richardson-Merrell, 472
U. S., at 434 (appeals from -entirely proper- decisions
impose the same costs as do appeals from -injudicious-
ones).  Thus, precisely because candor forces us to
acknowledge that there is no single, -obviously correct
way to characterize- an asserted right, Lauro Lines, 490
U. S., at 500, we have held that 1291 requires courts
of appeals to view claims of a -right not to be tried-
with skepticism, if not a jaundiced eye.  Cf. Van Cau-
wenberghe, supra, at 524-525.
 In Midland Asphalt, for example, we had no trouble
in dispatching a defendant's claim of entitlement to an
immediate appeal from an order denying dismissal for
alleged violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure
6(e), forbidding disclosure of secret grand jury informa-
tion.  Noting -`a crucial distinction between a right not
to be tried and a right whose remedy requires the
dismissal of charges,'- 489 U. S. at 801, quoting Holly-
wood Motor Car, 458 U. S., at 269, we observed that
Rule 6(e) -contains no hint,- 489 U. S., at 802, of an
immunity from trial, and we contrasted that Rule with
the Fifth Amendment's express provision that -[n]o
person shall to held to answer- for a serious crime
absent grand jury indictment.  Only such an -explicit
statutory or constitutional guarantee that trial will not
occur,- we suggested, id., at 801, could be grounds for
an immediate appeal of right under 1291.
 The characterization issue surfaced again (and more
ominously for Digital, see infra, at 17-18) in Lauro
Lines s.r.l. v. Chasser, supra, where a defendant sought
to appeal under 1291 from an order denying effect to
a contractual provision that a Neapolitan court would be
the forum for trying all disputes arising from the
parties' cruise-ship agreement. While we realized of
course that the value of the forum-selection clause would
be diminished if the defendant could be tried before
appealing, we saw the contractual right to limit trial to
an Italian forum as -different in kind- from the entitle-
ment to -avoid suit altogether- that Abney and Mitchell
held could be -adequately vindica[ted]- only on immedi-
ate appeal.  490 U. S., at 501.

                      E
 As Digital reads the cases, the only things standing in
the way of an appeal to perfect its claimed rights under
the settlement agreement are the lone statement in
Midland Asphalt, to the effect that only explicit statu-
tory and constitutional immunities may be appealed
immediately under 1291, and language (said to be
stray) repeated in many of our collateral order decisions,
suggesting that the -importance- of the right asserted is
an independent condition of appealability.  See Brief for
Petitioner 28-34.  The first, Digital explains, cannot be
reconciled with Mitchell's holding, that denial of quali-
fied immunity (which we would be hard-pressed to call
-explicitly . . . guarantee[d]- by a particular constitu-
tional or statutory provision) is a collateral order under
1291; as between Mitchell and the Midland Asphalt
dictum, Digital says, the dictum must give way.  As for
the second obstacle, Digital adamantly maintains that
-importance- has no place in a doctrine justified as
supplying a gloss on Congress's -final decision- language.


                      1
 These arguments miss the mark.  First, even if
Mitchell could not be squared fully with the literal
words of the Midland Asphalt sentence, (but cf. Lauro
Lines, 490 U. S., at 499, noting that Midland Asphalt
was a criminal case and Mitchell was not), that would
be only because the qualified immunity right is inex-
plicit, not because it lacks a good pedigree in public law.
Indeed, the insight that explicitness may not be needed
for jurisdiction consistent with 1291 only leaves Digital
with the unenviable task of explaining why other rights
that might fairly be said to include an (implicit) -right
to avoid trial- aspect are less in need of protection by
immediate review, or more readily vindicated on appeal
from final judgment, than the (claimed) privately
negotiated right to be free from suit.  It is far from
clear, for example, why 1291 should bless a party who
bargained for the right to avoid trial, but not a party
who -purchased- the right by having once prevailed at
trial and now pleads res judicata, see In re Corrugated
Container Antitrust Litigation v. Willamette Industries,
Inc., 694 F. 2d 1041 (CA5 1983); or a party who seeks
shelter under the statute of limitations, see, e.g., United
States, v. Weiss, 7 F. 3d 1088 (CA2 1993), which is
usually understood to secure the same sort of -repose-
that Digital seeks to vindicate here, see Brief for
Petitioner 25; or a party not even subject to a claim on
which relief could be granted.  See also Cobbledick, 309
U. S., at 325 (-Bearing the discomfiture and cost of a
prosecution for crime even by an innocent person is one
of the painful obligations of citizenship-); Firestone Tire
& Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U. S. 368, 378 (1981)
(-[P]otential harm- should be compared to -the harm
resulting from other interlocutory orders that may be
erroneous . . .-) (citation omitted).
 Digital answers that the status under 1291 of these
other (seemingly analogous) rights should not give us
pause, because the text and structure of this particular
settlement with Desktop confer what no res judicata
claimant could ever have, an express right not to stand
trial.  But we cannot attach much significance one way
or another to the supposed clarity of the agreement's
terms in this case.  To ground a ruling here on whether
this settlement agreement in terms confers the prized
-right not to stand trial- (a point Desktop by no means
concedes) would flout our own frequent admonitions, see,
e.g., Van Cauwenberghe, 486 U. S., at 529, that avail-
ability of collateral order appeal must be determined at
a higher level of generality. Indeed, just because it
would be the rare settlement agreement that could not
be construed to include (at least an implicit) freedom-
from-trial -aspect,- we decide this case on the assump-
tion that if Digital prevailed here, any district court
order denying effect to a settlement agreement could be
appealed immediately.  (And even if form were held to
matter, settlement agreements would all include -immu-
nity from suit- language a good deal plainer than what
Digital relies on here, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 44).  See also
Van Cauwenberghe, supra, at 524 (-For purposes of
determining appealability, . . . we will assume, but not
decide, that petitioner has presented a substantial claim-
on the merits).


                      2
 The more fundamental response, however, to the claim
that an agreement's provision for immunity from trial
can distinguish it from other arguable rights to be trial-
free is simply that such a right by agreement does not
rise to the level of importance needed for recognition
under 1291.  This, indeed, is the bone of the fiercest
contention in the case.  In disparaging any distinction
between an order denying a claim grounded on an
explicit constitutional guarantee of immunity from trial
and an order at odds with an equally explicit right by
private agreement of the parties, Digital stresses that
the relative -importance- of these rights, heavily relied
upon by the Court of Appeals, is a rogue factor.  No
decision of this Court, Digital maintains, has held an

order unappealable as -unimportant- when it has
otherwise met the three Cohen requirements, and
whether a decided issue is thought -important,- it says,
should have no bearing on whether it is -final- under
1291.
 If -finality- were as narrow a concept as Digital main-
tains, however, the Court would have had little reason
to go beyond the first factor in Cohen, see also United
States v. 243.22 Acres of Land in Babylon, Suffolk Cty.,
129 F. 2d 678, 680 (CA2 1942) (Frank, J.) (-`Final' is
not a clear one-purpose word-).  And if -importance-
were truly aberrational, we would not find it featured so
prominently in the Cohen opinion itself, which describes
the -small class- of immediately appealable prejudgment
decisions in terms of rights that are -too important to be
denied review- right away, see 337 U. S., at 546. To be
sure, Digital may validly question whether -importance-
is a factor -beyond- the three Cohen conditions or
whether it is best considered, as we have sometimes
suggested it should be, in connection with the second,
-separability,- requirement, see, e.g.,  Coopers & Ly-
brand, 437 U. S., at 468; Lauro Lines, 490 U. S., at 498,
but neither enquiry could lead to the conclusion that
-importance- is itself unimportant.  To the contrary, the
third Cohen question, whether a right is -adequately
vindicable- or -effectively reviewable,- simply cannot be
answered without a judgment about the value of the
interests that would be lost through rigorous application
of a final judgment requirement.  See generally Van
Cauwenberghe, supra, at 524 (-`[T]he substance of the
rights entailed, rather than the advantage to a litigant
in winning his claim sooner'- is dispositive), quoting
MacDonald, 435 U. S., at 860, n. 7; Lauro Lines, supra,
at 502-503 (Scalia, J., concurring).
 While there is no need to decide here that a privately
conferred right could never supply the basis of a
collateral order appeal, but cf. n. 7, infra (discussing 9
U. S. C. 16), there are surely sound reasons for
treating such rights differently from those originating in
the Constitution or statutes.  When a policy is embodied
in a constitutional or statutory provision entitling a
party to immunity from suit (a rare form of protection),
there is little room for the judiciary to gainsay its
-importance.-  Including a provision in a private con-
tract, by contrast, is barely a prima facie indication that
the right secured is -important- to the benefitted party
(contracts being replete with boilerplate), let alone that
its value exceeds that of other rights not embodied in
agreements (e.g., the right to be free from a second suit
based on a claim that has already been litigated), or
that it qualifies as -important- in Cohen's sense, as
being weightier than the societal interests advanced by
the ordinary operation of final judgment principles.
Where statutory and constitutional rights are concerned,
-irretrievabl[e] los[s]- can hardly be trivial, and the
collateral order doctrine might therefore be understood
as reflecting the familiar principle of statutory construc-
tion that, when possible, courts should construe statutes
(here 1291) to foster harmony with other statutory and
constitutional law, see, e.g., Ruckleshaus v. Monsanto
Co., 467 U. S. 986, 1018 (1984); United States ex rel.
Milwaukee Social Democratic Publishing Co. v. Burleson,
255 U. S. 407, 437-438 (1921) (Holmes, J., dissenting).
But it is one thing to say that the policy of 1291 to
avoid piecemeal litigation should be reconciled with
policies embodied in other statutes or the Constitution,
and quite another to suggest that this public policy may
be trumped routinely by the expectations or clever
drafting of private parties.
 Indeed, we do not take issue with the Tenth Circuit's
observation that this case shares more in common with
Lauro Lines than with Mitchell.  It is hard to see how,
for purposes of 1291, the supposedly explicit -right not
to be tried- element of the settlement agreement in this
case differs from the unarguably explicit, privately
negotiated -right not to be tried in any forum other than
Naples, Italy,- in that one.  There, no less than here (if
Digital reads the settlement agreement correctly), one
private party secured from another a promise not to
bring suit for reasons that presumably included avoiding
the burden, expense, and perhaps embarrassment of a
certain class of trials (all but Neapolitan ones or, here,
all prompted by Desktop).  Cf. Lauro Lines, 490 U. S.
501 (asserted right was -surely as effectively vindicable-
on final judgment appeal as was the right in Van
Cauwenberghe)  The losing argument in Lauro Lines
should be a losing argument here.
 Nor are we swayed by Digital's last-ditch effort to
come within Cohen's sense of -importance- by trying to
show that settlement-agreement -immunities- merit first-
class treatment for purposes of collateral order appeal,
because they advance the public policy favoring volun-
tary resolution of disputes.  It defies common sense to
maintain that parties' readiness to settle will be signifi-
cantly dampened (or the corresponding public interest
impaired) by a rule that a district court's decision to let
allegedly barred litigation go forward may be challenged
as a matter of right only on appeal from a judgment for
the plaintiff's favor.

                     III
                      A
 Even, finally, if the term -importance- were to be
exorcised from the Cohen analysis altogether, Digital's
rights would remain -adequately vindicable- or -effec-
tively reviewable- on final judgment to an extent that
other immunities, like the right to be free from a second
trial on a criminal charge, are not.  As noted already,
experience suggests that freedom from trial is rarely the
sine qua non (or -the essence,- see Van Cauwenberghe,
486 U. S., at 525) of a negotiated settlement agreement.
Avoiding the burden of a trial is no doubt a welcome
incident of out-of-court dispute resolution (just as it is
for parties who prevail on pretrial motions), but in the
run of the mill cases this boon will rarely compare with
the -`embarrassment'- and -`anxiety'- averted by a
successful double jeopardy claimant, see Abney, 431
U. S., at 661-662, or the -`distraction from . . .
dut[y],'- Mitchell, 472 U. S., at 526, avoided by qualified
immunity.  Judged within the four corners of the
settlement agreement, avoiding trial probably pales in
comparison with the benefit of limiting exposure to
liability (an interest that is fully vindicable on appeal
from final judgment).  In the rare case where a party
had a special reason, apart from the generic desire to
triumph early, for having bargained for an immunity
from trial, e.g., an unusual interest in preventing
disclosure of particular information, it may seek protec-
tion from the district court.
 The case for adequate vindication without immediate
appeal is strengthened, moreover, by recognizing that a
settling party has a source of recompense unknown to
trial immunity claimants dependent on public law alone.
The essence of Digital's claim here is that Desktop, for
valuable consideration, promised not to sue, and we have
been given no reason to doubt that Utah law provides
for the enforcement of that promise in the same way
that other rights arising from private agreements are
enforced, through an action for breach of contract.  See,
e.g., VanDyke v. Mountain Coin Machine Distributors,
Inc., 758 P. 2d 962 (Utah App. 1988) (upholding compen-
satory and punitive damages award against party
pursuing suit in the face of settlement agreement); see
generally 5A A. Corbin, Corbin on Contracts 1251
(1964); cf. Yockey v. Horn, 880 F. 2d 945, 947 (CA7
1989) (awarding damages for breach of settlement
agreement promise not to -participate in any litigation-
against plaintiff); see also Richardson-Merrell, 472 U. S.
at 435, and n. 2 (existence of alternative fora for
vindicating asserted rights is relevant to appealability
under 1291). And as for Digital's suggestion, see Brief
for Petitioner 25, that Desktop is using this proceeding
not to remedy a fraud but merely to renege on a
promise because it now thinks it should have negotiated
a better deal, when a party claims fraud or otherwise
seeks recision of a settlement for such improper pur-
poses, its opponent need not rely on a court of appeals
for protection.  See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 11 (opponent
may move for sanction when litigation is motivated by
an -improper purpose, such as . . . unnecessary delay or
needless increase in the cost of litigation-).

                      B
 In preserving the strict limitations on review as of
right under 1291, our holding should cause no dismay,
for the law is not without its safety valve to deal with
cases where the contest over a settlement's enforceability
raises serious legal questions taking the case out of the
ordinary run.  While Digital's insistence that the District
Court applied a fundamentally wrong legal standard in
vacating the dismissal order here may not be considered
in deciding appealability under 1291, see  n. 6, supra,
it plainly is relevant to the availability of the discretion-
ary interlocutory appeal from particular district court
orders -involv[ing] a controlling question of law as to
which there is substantial ground for difference of
opinion,- provided for in 1292(b) of Title 28.  Indeed,
because we suppose that a defendant's claimed entitle-
ment to a privately negotiated -immunity from suit-
could in some instances raise -a controlling question of
law . . . [which] . . . may materially advance the
ultimate termination of the litigation,- the discretionary
appeal provision (allowing courts to consider the merits
of individual claims) would seem a better vehicle for
vindicating serious contractual interpretation claims than
the blunt, categorical instrument of 1291 collateral
order appeal.  See Van Cauwenberghe, 486 U. S., at
529-530; Coopers & Lybrand, 437 U. S., at 474-475.

                     IV
 The words of 1291 have long been construed to
recognize that certain categories of pre-judgment deci-
sions exist for which it is both justifiable and necessary
to depart from the general rule, that -the whole case
and every matter in controversy in it [must be] decided
in a single appeal.-  McLish v. Roff, 141 U. S. 661,
665-666 (1891).  But denying effect to the sort of
(asserted) contractual right at issue here is far removed
from those immediately appealable decisions involving
rights more deeply rooted in public policy, and the rights
Digital asserts may, in the main, be vindicated through
means less disruptive to the orderly administration of
justice than immediate, mandatory appeal.  We accord-
ingly hold that a refusal to enforce a settlement agree-
ment claimed to shelter a party from suit altogether
does not supply the basis for immediate appeal under
1291.  The judgment of the Court of Appeals is there-
fore
                                  Affirmed.