Syllabus
The common practice of staying district court proceedings during the pendency of an interlocutory appeal taken under §16(a) reflects common sense. If the district court could move forward with pre-trial and trial proceedings while the appeal on arbitrability was ongoing, then many of the asserted benefits of arbitration (efficiency, less expense, less intrusive discovery, and the like) would be irretrievably lost—even if the court of appeals later concluded that the case actually had belonged in arbitration all along. Absent a stay, parties also could be forced to settle to avoid the district court proceedings (including discovery and trial) that they contracted to avoid through arbitration. The Griggs rule avoids these detrimental results.
Congress’s longstanding practice reflects the Griggs rule. Given Griggs, when Congress wants to authorize an interlocutory appeal and to automatically stay the district court proceedings during that appeal, Congress ordinarily need not say anything about a stay. By contrast, when Congress wants to authorize an interlocutory appeal, but not to automatically stay district court proceedings pending that appeal, Congress typically says so. Since the creation of the modern courts of appeals system in 1891, Congress has enacted multiple statutory “non-stay” provisions. Pp. 2–7.
(b) Bielski’s arguments to overcome the Griggs principle are unpersuasive. First, the courts of appeals possess robust tools to prevent unwarranted delay and deter frivolous interlocutory appeals that an automatic stay might otherwise encourage. Second, Congress included explicit stay requirements in two other statutory provisions for reasons particular to those statutes, not because Congress thought that an interlocutory appeal did not ordinarily stay district court proceedings. Third, the result here does not create a special, arbitration-preferring procedural rule, but simply subjects arbitrability appeals to the same stay principles that courts apply in other analogous contexts where an interlocutory appeal is authorized. Fourth, experience shows that ordinary discretionary stay factors would not adequately protect parties’ rights to an interlocutory appellate determination of arbitrability. In any event, the background Griggs rule applies regardless of how often courts might otherwise grant stays under the ordinary discretionary stay factors. Fifth, while the Court has recognized that questions of arbitrability are severable from merits questions, the sole issue here is whether the district court’s authority to consider a case is “involved in the appeal” when an appellate court considers the threshold question of arbitrability, Griggs, 459 U. S., at 58. The answer is yes. Pp. 7–10.
Reversed and remanded.
