COLEMAN v. BROWN (2018)

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Ralph COLEMAN; et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Edmund G. BROWN, Jr., Governor of the State of California; et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 17-16080

Decided: November 28, 2018

Before: SCHROEDER and WATFORD, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN,* District Judge.

Michael William Bien, Esquire, Attorney, Lisa Ells, Jessica Winter, San Francisco, CA, Claudia Center, Esquire, Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Immigrants' Rights Project, San Francisco, CA, Edward Patrick Sangster, K & L Gates LLP, San Francisco, CA, Donald Specter, Esquire, Prison Law Office, Berkeley, CA, for Plaintiffs-Appellees Elise Owens Thorn, Deputy Attorney General, Misha Igra, Esquire, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, AGCA-Office of the California Attorney General, Sacramento, CA, Kevin Allen Voth, Deputy Attorney General, California Department of Justice, San Francisco, CA, for Defendants-Appellants

MEMORANDUM **

State officials appeal from the district court's order of April 2017, requiring them to come into compliance with the Program Guide timelines for transfer of class members to inpatient care or face civil contempt and monetary sanctions. Because the order is not appealable, we dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

1. The district court's order did not grant or modify an injunction so as to give us jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). Appellants were first ordered to comply with the Program Guide timelines in 2006. The April 2017 order required nothing more. Because it did not “change[ ] the terms and force of the injunction as it stood immediately prior,” Gon v. First State Insurance Co., 871 F.2d 863, 866 (9th Cir. 1989), it cannot be appealed.

2. Nor was the order “final” within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291. It was instead “an interim step toward further proceedings.” Plata v. Schwarzenegger, 560 F.3d 976, 980 (9th Cir. 2009). “A civil contempt order is ordinarily not appealable until the district court has adjudicated the contempt motion and applied sanctions.” Id. We see no reason to depart from that settled rule.

We DENY appellees’ fourth request for judicial notice (Docket No. 65).

DISMISSED.

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