AGUON-SCHULTE v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF GUAM
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today released an opinion in AGUON-SCHULTE v. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF GUAM, No. 05-16067, a federal appeal. The panel consisted of Betty B. Fletcher, Harry Pregerson, and William C. Canby, Jr., Circuit Judges.
PREGERSON, Circuit Judge:
This case involves an appeal from a district court’s order denying a request to strike outside counsel and remanding the case to the Guam Superior Court for failure to join all defendants in the removal action. Generally, a district court’s order denying a motion to disqualify counsel is not appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 prior to final judgment in the underlying litigation. Further, remand orders issued under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) and invoking the grounds specified therein that removal was improvident and without jurisdiction are usually immune from review under § 1447(d). Accordingly, we must determine whether we have jurisdiction to review this case. We have provisional jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and we have jurisdiction to determine whether we have jurisdiction to hear the case. See United States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622, 628 (2002). For the reasons set forth below, we find that we lack jurisdiction to review this case. I. Factual Background The events surrounding this action began twenty months ago with a general election scheduled for November 2, 2004. Included on the ballot was Proposal A, an initiative to legalize gambling on Guam. Guam election law required that the ballot pamphlets mailed to registered voters contain, among other things, a complete copy of any measure to be submitted to the voters. See Guam Code Ann. tit. 3 § 17509. Because the full text of Proposal A contained eighty pages of information, the pamphlet distributed by the Guam Election Commission (”GEC”) included only the title of Proposal A and a summary; it did not include the full text. Plaintiffs Lourdes P. Aguon-Schulte and Jay Merrill filed separate complaints, on October 18, 2004, and October 25, . . .