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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
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. 94-455
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TYSON JOHNSON, et al., PETITIONERS v.
HOUSTON JONES
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the seventh circuit
[June 12, 1995]

  Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court.
  This case concerns government officials-entitled to
assert a qualified immunity defense in a -constitutional
tort- action-who seek an immediate appeal of a district
court order denying their motions for summary judg-
ment.  The order in question resolved a fact-related
dispute about the pretrial record, namely whether or not
the evidence in the pretrial record was sufficient to show
a genuine issue of fact for trial.  We hold that the
defendants cannot immediately appeal this kind of fact-
related district court determination.  And, we affirm the
similar holding of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh
Circuit.

                            I
  The plaintiff in this case, Houston Jones, is a diabetic.
Police officers found him on the street while he was
having an insulin seizure.  The officers thought he was
drunk, they arrested him, and they took him to the
police station.  Jones later found himself in a hospital,
with several broken ribs.  Subsequently, Jones brought
this -constitutional tort- action against five named
policemen.  Rev. Stat. 1979, as amended, 42 U. S. C.
1983.  Jones claimed that these policemen used exces-
sive force when they arrested him and that they beat
him at the station.
  Three of the officers (the petitioners here) moved for
summary judgment arguing that, whatever evidence
Jones might have about the other two officers, he could
point to no evidence that these three had beaten him or
had been present while others did so.  Jones responded
by pointing to his deposition, in which he swore that
officers (though he did not name them) had used
excessive force when arresting him and later, in the
booking room at the station house.  He also pointed to
the three officers' own depositions, in which they
admitted they were present at the arrest and in or near
the booking room when Jones was there.
  The District Court denied the officers' summary
judgment motion.  The court wrote that Seventh Circuit
precedent indicated potential liability if the three officers
-stood by and allowed others to beat the plaintiff.-  App.
to Pet. for Cert. 7a.  And, the court held that there was
-sufficient circumstantial evidence supporting [Jones's]
theory of the case,- id., at 8a.
  The three officers immediately appealed the District
Court's denial of their summary judgment motion.  They
argued, in relevant part, that the denial was wrong
because the record contained -not a scintilla of evidence
. . . that one or more- of them had -ever struck,
punched or kicked the plaintiff, or ever observed anyone
doing so.-  Brief for Appellants in No. 93-3777 (CA7),
p. 10.  But, the Seventh Circuit refused to consider this
argument-namely that the District Court had improp-
erly rejected their contention that the record lacked
sufficient evidence even to raise a -genuine- (i.e., triable)
issue of fact.  The Seventh Circuit held that it -lack[ed]
appellate jurisdiction over th[is] contention,- i.e., of the
-evidence insufficiency- contention that -we didn't do it.-
26 F. 3d 727, 728 (CA7 1994).  It consequently dis-
missed their appeal.
  Courts of Appeals hold different views about the
immediate appealability of such pretrial -evidence
insufficiency- claims made by public official defendants
who assert qualified-immunity defenses.  Compare, e.g.,
Kaminsky v. Rosenblum, 929 F. 2d 922, 926 (CA2 1991)
(saying that no appellate jurisdiction exists); Giuffre v.
Bissell, 31 F. 3d 1241, 1247 (CA3 1994) (same); Boulos
v. Wilson, 834 F. 2d 504, 509 (CA5 1987) (same); Elliott
v. Thomas, 937 F. 2d 338, 341-342 (CA7 1991) (same),
cert. denied, 502 U. S. 1074, 1121 (1992); Crawford-El
v. Britton, 951 F. 2d 1314, 1317 (CADC 1991) (same),
with Unwin v. Campbell, 863 F. 2d 124, 128 (CA1 1988)
(saying that appellate jurisdiction does exist); Turner v.
Dammon, 848 F. 2d 440, 444 (CA4 1988) (same); Kelly
v. Bender, 23 F. 3d 1328, 1330 (CA8 1994) (same);
Burgess v. Pierce County, 918 F. 2d 104, 106, and n. 3
(CA9 1990) (per curiam) (same); Austin v. Hamilton, 945
F. 2d 1155, 1157, 1162-1163 (CA10 1991) (same).  We
therefore granted certiorari.  513 U. S. ____ (1995).

                           II
                            A
  Three background principles guide our effort to decide
this issue.  First, the relevant statute grants appellate
courts jurisdiction to hear appeals only from -final
decisions- of district courts.  28 U. S. C. 1291.  Given
this statute, interlocutory appeals-appeals before the
end of district court proceedings-are the exception, not
the rule.  The statute recognizes that rules that permit
too many interlocutory appeals can cause harm.  An
interlocutory appeal can make it more difficult for trial
judges to do their basic job-supervising trial proceed-
ings.  It can threaten those proceedings with delay,
adding costs and diminishing coherence.  It also risks
additional, and unnecessary, appellate court work either
when it presents appellate courts with less developed
records or when it brings them appeals that, had the
trial simply proceeded, would have turned out to be
unnecessary.  See Richardson-Merrell Inc. v. Koller, 472
U. S. 424, 430 (1985); Flanagan v. United States, 465
U. S. 259, 263-264 (1984); Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.
v. Risjord, 449 U. S. 368, 374 (1981).
  Of course, sometimes interlocutory appellate review
has important countervailing benefits.  In certain cases,
it may avoid injustice by quickly correcting a trial
court's error.  It can simplify, or more appropriately
direct, the future course of litigation.  And, it can
thereby reduce the burdens of future proceedings,
perhaps freeing a party from those burdens entirely.
Congress consequently has authorized, through other
statutory provisions, immediate appeals (or has empow-
ered courts to authorize immediate appeals) in certain
classes of cases-classes in which these countervailing
benefits may well predominate.  None of these special
-immediate appeal- statutes, however, is applicable here.
See 28 U. S. C. 1292 (immediate appeal of, e.g., orders
granting or denying injunctions; authority to -certify-
certain important legal questions); Fed. Rule Civ. Proc.
54(b) (authorizing district courts to -direct the entry of
a final judgment as to one or more but fewer than all of
the claims or parties-); 28 U. S. C. 1292(e) (1988 ed.,
Supp. V), 2072(c) (1988 ed., Supp. V) (authorizing this
Court to promulgate rules designating certain kinds of
orders as immediately appealable); cf. 28 U. S. C. 1651
(authorizing federal courts to -issue all writs necessary
or appropriate,- including writs of mandamus).
  Second, in Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp.,
337 U. S. 541 (1949), this Court held that certain so-
called collateral orders amount to -final decisions,-
immediately appealable under the here-relevant statute,
28 U. S. C. 1291, even though the district court may
have entered those orders before (perhaps long before)
the case has ended.  These special -collateral orders-
were those that fell within
-that small class which finally determine claims of
right separable from, and collateral to, rights
asserted in the action, too important to be denied
review and too independent of the cause itself to
require that appellate consideration be deferred until
the whole case is adjudicated.-  Cohen, supra, at
546.
More recently, this Court has restated Cohen as requir-
ing that the order -`[1] conclusively determine the
disputed question, [2] resolve an important issue
completely separate from the merits of the action, and
[3] be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final
judgment.'-  Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority
v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U. S. ____, ____ (1993) (slip
op., at 5) (brackets in original) (quoting Coopers &
Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463, 468 (1978)).
  In determining which -collateral orders- amount to
-final decisions,- these requirements help qualify for
immediate appeal classes of orders in which the consid-
erations that favor immediate appeals seem compara-
tively strong and those that disfavor such appeals seem
comparatively weak.  The requirement that the issue
underlying the order be -`effectively unreviewable'- later
on, for example, means that failure to review immediate-
ly may well cause significant harm.  See 15A C. Wright,
A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure
3911, pp. 334-335 (1992) (hereinafter Wright & Miller).
The requirement that the district court's order -conclu-
sively determine- the question means that appellate
review is likely needed to avoid that harm.  Id., at 333.
The requirement that the matter be separate from the
merits of the action itself means that review now is less
likely to force the appellate court to consider approxi-
mately the same (or a very similar) matter more than
once, and also seems less likely to delay trial court
proceedings (for, if the matter is truly collateral, those
proceedings might continue while the appeal is pending).
Id., at 333-334.
  Third, in Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511 (1985),
this Court held that a district court's order denying a
defendant's motion for summary judgment was an
immediately appealable -collateral order- (i.e., a -final
decision-) under Cohen, where (1) the defendant was a
public official asserting a defense of -qualified immu-
nity,- and (2) the issue appealed concerned, not which
facts the parties might be able to prove, but, rather,
whether or not certain given facts showed a violation of
-clearly established- law.  Id., at 528; see Harlow v.
Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, 818 (1982) (holding that
public officials are entitled to a -qualified immunity-
from -liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct
does not violate clearly established . . . rights of which
a reasonable person would have known-).  Applying
Cohen's criteria, the Mitchell Court held that this kind
of summary judgment order was, in a sense, -effectively
unreviewable,- for review after trial would come too late
to vindicate one important purpose of -qualified immu-
nity--namely, protecting public officials, not simply
from liability, but also from standing trial.  Mitchell,
supra, at 525-527.  For related reasons, the Court found
that the order was conclusive, i.e., it -conclusively-
settled the question of the defendant's immunity from
suit.  472 U. S., at 527.
  The Court in Mitchell found more difficult the -separa-
bility- question, i.e., whether or not the -qualified
immunity- issue was -completely separate from the
merits of the action,- supra, at 5.  The Court concluded
that:
-it follows from the recognition that qualified immu-
nity is in part an entitlement not to be forced to
litigate the consequences of official conduct that a
claim of immunity is conceptually distinct from the
merits of the plaintiff's claim that his rights have
been violated.-  Mitchell, supra, at 527-528 (empha-
sis added).
And, the Court said that this -conceptual distinctness-
made the immediately appealable issue -separate- from
the merits of the plaintiff's claim, in part because an
-appellate court reviewing the denial of the defend-
ant's claim of immunity need not consider the
correctness of the plaintiff's version of the facts, nor
even determine whether the plaintiff's allegations
actually state a claim.  All it need determine is a
question of law: whether the legal norms allegedly
violated by the defendant were clearly established at
the time of the challenged actions or, in cases where
the district court has denied summary judgment for
the defendant on the ground that even under the
defendant's version of the facts the defendant's
conduct violated clearly established law, whether the
law clearly proscribed the actions the defendant
claims he took.-  Id., at 528 (footnote omitted).

                            B
  We now consider the appealability of a portion of a
district court's summary judgment order that, though
entered in a -qualified immunity- case, determines only
a question of -evidence sufficiency,- i.e., which facts a
party may, or may not, be able to prove at trial.  This
kind of order, we conclude, is not appealable.  That is,
the District Court's determination that the summary
judgment record in this case raised a genuine issue of
fact concerning petitioners' involvement in the alleged
beating of respondent was not a -final decision- within
the meaning of the relevant statute.  We so decide
essentially for three reasons.
  First, consider Mitchell itself, purely as precedent.
The dispute underlying the Mitchell appeal involved the
application of -clearly established- law to a given (for
appellate purposes undisputed) set of facts.  And, the
Court, in its opinion, explicitly limited its holding to
appeals challenging, not a district court's determination
about what factual issues are -genuine,- Fed. Rule Civ.
Proc. 56(c), but the purely legal issue what law was
-clearly established.-  The opinion, for example, referred
specifically to a district court's -denial of a claim of
qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an
issue of law.-  472 U. S., at 530 (emphasis added).  It
-emphasize[d] . . . that the appealable issue is a purely
legal one: whether the facts alleged (by the plaintiff, or,
in some cases, the defendant) support a claim of viola-
tion of clearly established law.-  Id., at 528, n. 9.  It
distinguished precedent not permitting interlocutory
appeals on the ground that -a qualified immunity ruling
. . . is . . . a legal issue that can be decided with
reference only to undisputed facts and in isolation from
the remaining issues of the case.-  Id., at 530, n. 10.
And, it explained its separability holding by saying that
-[a]n appellate court reviewing the denial of the defend-
ant's claim of immunity need not consider the correct-
ness of the plaintiff's version of the facts.-  Id., at 528.
Although there is some language in the opinion that
sounds as if it might imply the contrary, it does not do
so when read in context.  See, e.g., id., at 526 (referring
to defendant's entitlement to summary judgment, not to
appealability, by saying that -defendant is entitled to
summary judgment if discovery fails to uncover evidence
sufficient to create a genuine issue-).
  Second, consider, in the context of an -evidence
sufficiency- claim, Cohen's conceptual theory of appeal-
ability-the theory that brings immediate appealability
within the scope of the jurisdictional statute's -final
decision- requirement.  That theory finds a -final-
district court decision in part because the immediately
appealable decision involves issues significantly different
from those that underlie the plaintiff's basic case.  As
we have just pointed out, Mitchell rested upon the view
that -a claim of immunity is conceptually distinct from
the merits of the plaintiff's claim.-  472 U. S., at 527.
It held that this was so because, although sometimes
practically intertwined with the merits, a claim of
immunity nonetheless raises a question that is signifi-
cantly different from the questions underlying plaintiff's
claim on the merits (i.e., in the absence of qualified
immunity).  Id., at 528.
  Where, however, a defendant simply wants to appeal
a district court's determination that the evidence is
sufficient to permit a particular finding of fact after
trial, it will often prove difficult to find any such
-separate- question-one that is significantly different
from the fact-related legal issues that likely underlie the
plaintiff's claim on the merits.  See Anderson v. Liberty
Lobby, Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 248 (1986) (district court's
task, in deciding whether there is a -genuine- issue of
fact, is to determine -if the evidence is such that a
reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving
party-); see also Elliott v. Thomas, 937 F. 2d, at 341
(-whether the defendants did the deeds alleged . . . is
precisely the question for trial-) (emphasis in original),
cert. denied, 502 U. S. 1074, 1121 (1992); Wright v.
South Arkansas Regional Health Center, Inc., 800 F. 2d
199, 203 (CA8 1986) (saying that this question -is . . .
less clearly separable from the merits- than the question
in Mitchell); see also Brief for United States 18 (-[i]n
one sense, a ruling regarding the sufficiency of the
evidence is closely intertwined with the merits-).
  It has been suggested that Mitchell implicitly recog-
nized that -the need to protect officials against the
burdens of further pretrial proceedings and trial-
justifies a relaxation of the separability requirement.
15A Wright & Miller 3914.10, at 656; see id., 3911, at
344-345; id., 3911.2, at 387; see also Tr. of Oral Arg.
20 (-where the right not to be tried is at stake, [closer]
association with the merits is tolerated-) (argument of
the United States).  Assuming that to be so, and despite
a similar interest in avoiding trial in the kind of case
here at issue, we can find no separability.  To take what
petitioners call a small step beyond Mitchell, Brief for
Petitioners 18, would more than relax the separability
requirement-it would in many cases simply abandon it.
  Finally, consider the competing considerations that
underlie questions of finality.  See supra, at 3-4.  We of
course decide appealability for categories of orders rather
than individual orders.  See Digital Equipment Corp. v.
Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U. S. ___, ___ (1994) (slip op.,
at 4-5).  Thus, we do not now in each individual case
engage in ad hoc balancing to decide issues of appeal-
ability.  See generally P. Bator, D. Meltzer, P. Mishkin,
& D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler's The Federal Courts
and The Federal System 1810 (3d ed. 1988).  But, that
does not mean that, in delineating appealable categories,
we should not look to -the competing considerations
underlying all questions of finality-`the inconvenience
and costs of piecemeal review on the one hand and the
danger of denying justice by delay on the other.'-  Eisen
v. Carlisle & Jacqueline, 417 U. S. 156, 171 (1974)
(quoting Dickinson v. Petroleum Conversion Corp., 338
U. S. 507, 511 (1950)).  And, those considerations, which
we discussed above in Part II-A, argue against extend-
ing Mitchell to encompass orders of the kind before us.
  For one thing, the issue here at stake-the existence,
or non-existence of a triable issue of fact-is the kind of
issue that trial judges, not appellate judges, confront
almost daily.  Institutionally speaking, appellate judges
enjoy no comparative expertise in such matters.  Cf.
Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U. S. 552, 560-561 (1988); id.,
at 584 (White, J., concurring in part and dissenting in
part) (noting that the -special expertise and experience
of appellate courts- lies in -assessing the relative force
of . . . applications of legal norms-) (internal quotation
marks omitted).  And, to that extent, interlocutory ap-
peals are less likely to bring important error-correcting
benefits here than where purely legal matters are at
issue, as in Mitchell.  Cf. Richardson-Merrell, 472 U. S.,
at 434 (stating that the fact that -[m]ost pretrial
orders [of the kind there at issue] are ultimately
affirmed by appellate courts- militated against immedi-
ate appealability).
  For another thing, questions about whether or not a
record demonstrates a -genuine- issue of fact for trial, if
appealable, can consume inordinate amounts of appellate
time.  Many constitutional tort cases, unlike the simple
-we didn't do it- case before us, involve factual contro-
versies about, for example, intent-controversies that,
before trial, may seem nebulous.  To resolve those
controversies-to determine whether there is or is not a
triable issue of fact about such a matter-may require
reading a vast pretrial record, with numerous conflicting
affidavits, depositions and other discovery materials.
This fact means, compared with Mitchell, greater delay.
  For a third thing, the close connection between this
kind of issue and the factual matter that will likely
surface at trial means that the appellate court, in the
many instances in which it upholds a district court's
decision denying summary judgment, may well be faced
with approximately the same factual issue again, after
trial, with just enough change (brought about by the
trial testimony) to require it, once again, to canvass the
record.  That is to say, an interlocutory appeal concern-
ing this kind of issue in a sense makes unwise use of
appellate courts' time, by forcing them to decide in the
context of a less developed record, an issue very similar
to one they may well decide anyway later, on a record
that will permit a better decision.  See 15A Wright &
Miller 3914.10, at 664 (-if [immunity appeals] could be
limited to . . . issues of law . . . there would be less risk
that the court of appeals would need to waste time in
duplicating investigations of the same facts on successive
appeals-).
  The upshot is that, compared with Mitchell, consider-
ations of delay, comparative expertise of trial and
appellate courts, and wise use of appellate resources,
argue in favor of limiting interlocutory appeals of
-qualified immunity- matters to cases presenting more
abstract issues of law.  Considering these -competing
considerations,- we are persuaded that -[i]mmunity
appeals . . . interfere less with the final judgment rule
if they [are] limited to cases presenting neat abstract
issues of law.-  Ibid.; cf. Puerto Rico Aqueduct, 511
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7) (noting the argument for a
distinction between fact-based and law-based appeals,
but seeing no -basis for drawing- it with respect to the
particular kind of order at hand); 15A Wright & Miller
3914.10, at 85 (1995 pocket part).
  We recognize that, whether a district court's denial of
summary judgment amounts to (a) a determination
about pre-existing -clearly established- law, or (b) a
determination about -genuine- issues of fact for trial, it
still forces public officials to trial.  See Brief for Peti-
tioners 11-16.  And, to that extent, it threatens to
undercut the very policy (protecting public officials from
lawsuits) that (the Mitchell Court held) militates in
favor of immediate appeals.  Nonetheless, the counter-
vailing considerations that we have mentioned (prece-
dent, fidelity to statute, and underlying policies) are too
strong to permit the extension of Mitchell to encompass
appeals from orders of the sort before us.

                            C
  We mention one final point.  Petitioners argue that
our effort to separate reviewable from unreviewable
summary judgment determinations will prove unwork-
able.  First, they say that the parties can easily manipu-
late our holding.  A defendant seeking to create a
reviewable summary judgment order might do so simply
by adding a reviewable claim to a motion that otherwise
would create an unreviewable order.  -[H]ere, for
example,- they say, -petitioners could have contended
that the law was unclear on how much force may be
exerted against suspects who resist arrest.-  Brief for
Petitioners 29, n. 11.
  We do not think this is a serious problem.  We
concede that, if the district court in this case had
determined that beating respondent violated clearly
established law, petitioners could have sought review of
that determination.  But, it does not automatically follow
that the court of appeals would also have reviewed the
here more important determination that there was a
genuine issue of fact as to whether petitioners partici-
pated in (or were present at) a beating.  Even assuming,
for the sake of argument, that it may sometimes be
appropriate to exercise -pendent appellate jurisdiction-
over such a matter, but cf. Swint v. Chambers County
Comm'n, 514 U. S. ____, ____ (1995) (Slip Op. at 14-15),
it seems unlikely that Courts of Appeals would do so in
a case where the appealable issue appears simply a
means to lead the court to review the underlying factual
matter, see, e.g., Natale v. Ridgefield, 927 F. 2d 101, 104
(CA2 1991) (saying exercise of pendent appellate jurisdic-
tion is proper only in -exceptional circumstances-);
United States ex rel. Valders Stone & Marble, Inc. v. C-
Way Constr. Co., 909 F. 2d 259, 262 (CA7 1990) (saying
exercise of such jurisdiction is proper only where there
are -`compelling reasons'-).
  Second, petitioners add, if appellate courts try to
separate an appealed order's reviewable determination
(that a given set of facts violates clearly established law)
from its unreviewable determination (that an issue of
fact is -genuine-), they will have great difficulty doing
so.  District judges may simply deny summary judgment
motions without indicating their reasons for doing so.
How, in such a case, will the court of appeals know
what set of facts to assume when it answers the purely
legal question about -clearly established- law?
  This problem is more serious, but not serious enough
to lead us to a different conclusion.  When faced with an
argument that the district court mistakenly identified
clearly established law, the court of appeals can simply
take, as given, the facts that the district court assumed
when it denied summary judgment for that (purely legal)
reason.  Knowing that this is -extremely helpful to a
reviewing court,- Anderson, 477 U. S., at 250, n. 6,
district courts presumably will often state those facts.
But, if they do not, we concede that a court of appeals
may have to undertake a cumbersome review of the
record to determine what facts the district court, in the
light most favorable to the nonmoving party, likely
assumed.  Regardless, this circumstance does not make
a critical difference to our result, for a rule that occa-
sionally requires a detailed evidence-based review of the
record is still, from a practical point of view, more
manageable than the rule that petitioners urge us to
adopt.  The petitioners' approach would make that task,
not the exception, but the rule.  We note, too, that our
holding here has been the law in several circuits for
some time.  See supra, at 3.  Yet, petitioners have not
pointed to concrete examples of the unmanageability
they fear.

                           III
  For these reasons, we hold that a defendant, entitled
to invoke a qualified-immunity defense, may not appeal
a district court's summary judgment order insofar as
that order determines whether or not the pretrial record
sets forth a -genuine- issue of fact for trial.  The
judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
is therefore
                                              Affirmed.