## Facts

- Federal Customs Service agents investigated a child-pornography website and executed a warrant at Susan and Richard Hallock’s home-based software business.
- Agents seized computer equipment, software, and disk drives; no criminal charges were filed against the Hallocks.
- The equipment was returned allegedly damaged, with data lost, causing Susan Hallock to close her business.
- Hallock sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), alleging negligent handling of the seized property.
- The district court dismissed the FTCA suit, concluding the claim fell within the FTCA’s detention-of-goods exception, 28 U.S.C. § 2680(c), leaving sovereign immunity intact.
- While the FTCA suit was pending, Hallock also sued the individual agents under Bivens, alleging a Fifth Amendment due process deprivation of property.
- The agents sought dismissal of the Bivens action under the FTCA judgment bar, 28 U.S.C. § 2676; the district court denied the motion.
- The Second Circuit accepted an interlocutory appeal under the collateral order doctrine and affirmed the denial of the judgment-bar defense.

## Issues

1. Whether a district court’s refusal to apply the FTCA judgment bar, 28 U.S.C. § 2676, is immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court held that an order denying application of the FTCA judgment bar is not immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine.
- The Court concluded the Second Circuit lacked collateral-order jurisdiction to hear the interlocutory appeal.
- The Court vacated the Second Circuit’s judgment and remanded for further proceedings.
- The Court did not decide whether the earlier FTCA dismissal triggered the § 2676 judgment bar.

## Legal Principles

- Collateral-order appeal is limited to a “small” class of orders meeting three conditions: conclusiveness, separateness from merits, and effective unreviewability after final judgment.
- The FTCA judgment bar functions like a preclusion defense (akin to collateral estoppel), not like an immunity conferring a right not to stand trial.
- Ordinary burdens of litigation do not make an order “effectively unreviewable” after final judgment; denial of the judgment bar can be reviewed on appeal after final disposition of the case.

## Conclusion

The Court enforced a narrow view of collateral-order jurisdiction, holding that denial of the FTCA judgment-bar defense must be reviewed, if at all, through the normal post-final-judgment appellate process rather than by interlocutory appeal.


Will v. Hallock, 546 U.S. 345 (2006)