May litigants wait until the end of postjudgment proceedings to appeal, with the scope of appeal including all related postjudgment decisions, or is the right to appeal postjudgment orders subject to case-by-case balancing?

QUESTION PRESENTED Under the final-judgment and merger rules, a final, appealable decision under 28 U.S.C. §1291 normally comes at the end of district court proceedings, at which point all interlocutory decisions that are not moot merge into the final judgment and are within the scope of appellate review. A majority of the courts of appeals do not distinguish between prejudgment and _ postjudgment proceedings in determining finality. Instead, they apply the rule that a postjudgment order “is deemed final if it disposes of all the issues raised in the motion that initially sparked the postjudgment proceedings” and is “apparently the last order to be entered in the action.” Mayer v. Wall St. Equity Grp., Inc., 672 F.3d 1222, 1224 (11th Cir. 2012). However, the Second Circuit and two other circuits treat the resolution of matters within postjudgment proceedings “differently.” App. 15a. They apply a socalled “pragmatic finality’ approach which can require that postjudgment orders be treated as final and immediately appealed using standards that Wright & Miller (§3913) describes as “case-by-case” and “elastic.” The Question Presented is: May litigants wait until the end of postjudgment proceedings to appeal, with the scope of appeal including all related postjudgment decisions, or is the right to appeal postjudgment orders subject to caseby-case balancing?