Richard Abernathy v. Southern California Edison

For over fifty years, the lower federal courts have been required to apply the interlocutory appeal doctrine known as the Eneloui-Ettelson rule to orders denying or granting stays pending arbitration and orders compelling arbitration. Although the courts of every circuit have displayed open hostility to the rule, we have faithfully, if unhappily, applied the dictates of the Supreme Court and allowed parties dissatisfied with a district court’s interlocutory order to appeal. One of the consequences of this rule has been that arbitrations, favored because of their efficiency in resolving disputed claims, frequently hung in limbo while the parties drearily slogged through the appellate process. Fortunately, in light of the Court’s decision in Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. v. Mayacamas Corp., 485 U.S. 271 , 108 S.Ct. 1133 , 99 L.Ed.2d 296 (1988), we now have the opportunity to revisit the question of the appeal-ability of stays pending arbitration and orders compelling arbitration. We now hold that, in the ordinary case, we have no jurisdiction to entertain appeals from such stays or orders.

I. Background

In September, 1984, Southern California Edison (Edison) conducted a search of…