Doe v. Helen Hayes Hospital

Background

Jane Doe filed a notice of interlocutory appeal on February 4, 2022. The same day, she filed a letter-motion seeking a conference concerning her request to stay discovery while the appeal was pending under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 8(a). The defendants opposed the request. The court exercised its discretion to treat Doe’s letter-motion as the motion for a stay.

The appeal concerned an earlier order that denied Doe’s partial motion for judgment on the pleadings and motion to strike certain affirmative defenses. Doe had sought judgment on three of her twelve claims for relief and asked to strike seven of fourteen affirmative defenses, one of which the defendants withdrew. The court noted that, even if those motions had been granted, discovery would still have been required concerning Doe’s other nine claims and the defendants’ seven remaining affirmative defenses.

Legal standard

The court considered four factors for a stay pending an interlocutory appeal: whether the applicant was likely to succeed on the merits, whether the applicant would suffer irreparable harm without a stay, whether a stay would substantially injure other interested parties, and where the public interest lay.

Court’s analysis

The court rejected Doe’s argument that discovery costs would cause irreparable harm. It explained that injuries involving money, time, and energy spent during litigation generally do not establish irreparable harm. The court also found that Doe had not shown how many witnesses would not need to be deposed or how many documents would not need to be reviewed and exchanged if her partial motions ultimately succeeded.

The court determined that a stay could injure the other parties because the case had been pending for almost two years, fact discovery was scheduled to end in approximately three months, and Doe’s allegations against multiple health care professionals were serious. The court also stated that stays are disfavored when they would hinder the speedy resolution of constitutional claims.

Because the other three factors strongly opposed a stay, the court required a particularly strong showing that Doe was likely to succeed on appeal. It found that showing lacking, stating that it did not appear that the collateral-order doctrine applied to the order being appealed. That doctrine permits certain interlocutory appeals only when an order conclusively decides the disputed issue, resolves an important question separate from the case’s merits, and would effectively be unreviewable after final judgment. The court characterized the earlier order as simply denying Doe’s partial judgment-on-the-pleadings and affirmative-defense motions.

Disposition

Judge Philip M. Halpern denied Doe’s motion for a stay pending appeal. The clerk was directed to terminate the letter-motion at Doc. 93.