Trish Sifka—Senior Attorney

          It should be no surprise that a federal appellate court generally does not have jurisdiction to review immediate appeals of denials of motions for summary judgment. See Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S. Ct. 1221, 93 L. Ed. 1528 (1949); Iko v. Shreve, 535 F.3d 225, 234 (4th Cir. 2008) (noting this exception to the rule that "interlocutory appeals are generally disallowed"). “But, under the collateral order doctrine, appellate jurisdiction extends to ‘a narrow class of decisions that do not terminate the litigation,' but are sufficiently important and collateral to the merits that they should 'nonetheless be treated as final.'" United States ex rel. Citynet, LLC v. Gianato, 962 F.3d 154, 158 (4th Cir. 2020) (“Gianato”) (citing Will v. Hallock, 546 U.S. 345, 347, 126 S. Ct. 952, 163 L. Ed. 2d 836 (2006) (quoting Digital Equip. Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U.S. 863, 867, 114 S. Ct. 1992, 128 L. Ed. 2d 842 (1994))).