Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, PROCEDURE —11th Cir.: District court’s order denying motion to compel arbitration not appealable under collateral order doctrine, (Nov 18, 2025)

By Tulay Turan, J.D.

To invoke the doctrine, an order must be unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.

Dismissing a union’s appeal of a district court’s order denying a motion to compel arbitration, the Eleventh Circuit ruled it lacked jurisdiction because there was no basis for interlocutory review where a damages action against the union was pending. Neither the FAA nor the LMRA provided jurisdiction, and the district court’s order did not clear the stringent criteria for review under the collateral order doctrine (APM Terminals v. International Longshoremen’s Association, No. 24-11100 (11th Cir. Nov. 17, 2025)).

Local 1410, a union of longshoremen, move cargo for APM Terminals. A collective bargaining agreement governs the union’s work. Article 4 of the agreement provides that APM will not lock out union members and that union members will not strike. It also permits the parties to seek equitable relief or institute a judicial or administrative action for damages upon the satisfaction of certain conditions precedent. Article 5 separately includes an arbitration process.

Temporary restraining order. Following a disruption in operations, APM filed an action in state court alleging that union members had commenced a strike and moved for a temporary restraining order. The court entered a restraining order the next day, and the strike ended two days later. After the union removed the action to district court, APM filed an amended complaint seeking damages for the strike.

Motion for arbitration. The union moved to compel arbitration. The district court denied the motion after concluding that Article 4 permitted APM to seek “monetary damages... in court.” With APM’s damages action still pending, the union filed an interlocutory appeal of the order denying arbitration. APM moved to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

Federal Arbitration Act. Granting APM’s motion to dismiss, the appeals court found it lacked jurisdiction because there was no basis for interlocutory review. The court rejected APM’s argument that jurisdiction existed under the Federal Arbitration Act. Section 16(a)(1) of the FAA permits interlocutory appeals from certain orders. However, Section 1’s interstate commerce exclusion applied to the longshoremen here. Thus, the provision for interlocutory appeal in Section 16 did not apply.

LMRA. The court also found it lacked jurisdiction under the LMRA. The union pointed to Section 301 of the LMRA, but the court noted that section does not address interlocutory appeals, and the union failed “to identify any authority holding that section 301 alters longstanding principles of finality for appellate jurisdiction.”

Collateral order doctrine. Addressing the union’s final argument, the court found it also lacked jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine. To invoke the doctrine, an appealed order must: (1) conclusively determine the disputed question; (2) resolve an issue that is completely separate from the merits; and (3) be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.

Here, the court found that interlocutory orders declining to compel arbitration do not clear this bar. The court cited its holding in Administrative Management Services v. Royal Am. Managers, Inc., 854 F.2d 1272 (11th Cir. 1988), in which it found that an erroneous denial of arbitration may be reversed on appeal from the final judgment of the underlying claim.

In addition, shortly after the Eleventh Circuit issued that decision, the Supreme Court held the doctrine is unavailable when a district court declines to enforce a forum selection clause. Arbitration clauses, the court said, are a subset of forum selection clauses.

The court also rejected the union’s argument that Congress “superseded’ the court’s holding in Administrative Management Services when it enacted FAA Section 16. However, Congress declined to extend that section to the arbitration agreement at issue. In addition, the court said it failed to see how a statute that does not govern this appeal permitted it to exercise jurisdiction under the “stringent” criteria for collateral orders. Nothing in Section 16 disturbed the court’s holding that erroneous denials of arbitration can receive meaningful review at the conclusion of the case.

Because there was no basis for interlocutory review, the court found it lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal. It expressed no opinion on the merits and granted the motion to dismiss the appeal.

The case is No. 24-11100.

Judge: Pryor, W.

Attorneys: John Barksdale Holmes, III (Maynard Nexsen) and Anne Laurie McClurkin (QSL Management) for APM Terminals Mobile, LLC. George Nicholas Davies (Quinn Connor Weaver Davies & Rouco) for International Longshoremen's Association, AFL-CIO, Local Union 1410.

Companies: APM Terminals Mobile, LLC; International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO, Local Union 1410

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