Town of North Bonneville, Washington v. United States District Court, Western District of Washington, the United States of America, Real Party

The petitioner (Town) seeks a writ of mandamus directing the District Court to recover jurisdiction of four related causes which the District Court has ordered transferred to the U.S. Claims Court (formerly the U.S. Court of Claims) pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1631 (1982).

JURISDICTION

We note jurisdiction to consider the petition for a writ of mandamus pursuant to the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651 (a) (1982), as explained by the deci sion in Will v. United States, 389 U.S. 90, 95 , 88 S.Ct. 269, 273 , 19 L.Ed.2d 305 (1967), and grant the petition.

ISSUE

Whether the extraordinary remedy of mandamus is a permissible method to review the District Court order transferring the four causes to the Claims Court.

PENDING APPEALS

The Town timely filed a notice of appeal from the adverse effect of the transfer order in each of the four transferred causes, and those appeals are now pending in this court. Since the issues in each of the appeals and in these proceedings for mandamus are identical, we stayed all future proceedings in each of the appeals. The purpose of the stay is to minimize expense to the parties and to avoid the duplication of work and time expended by…