On August 4, 2014, in a case of first impression for the court in In re Atlas IT Exp. Corp., the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit rejected the majority view among the circuits that an order denying relief from an automatic stay of litigation in a bankruptcy case is a final order and therefore appealable as of right (No. 13-9003, (1st Cir. Aug. 4, 2014)).

The present action arises from a contract dispute between the appellant, Pinpoint IT Services, LLC (Pinpoint) and the appellee, Atlas IT Export Corp. (Atlas). Pinpoint first brought an action in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia alleging breach of contract. Atlas moved to change venue, but before the judge could rule, Atlas sued Pinpoint in the US District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. After answering and counterclaiming in the Virginia action, Atlas filed for bankruptcy and a trustee was appointed. Atlas's bankruptcy filing automatically stayed the Virginia and Puerto Rico actions.

The bankruptcy court granted the request by Atlas and the trustee to modify the stay so that the Puerto Rico action could go forward. The bankruptcy court denied Pinpoint's motion to lift the automatic stay of the Virginia action, finding that allowing the Virginia action to go forward would disserve efficiency concerns. Pinpoint appealed to the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the First Circuit. The Panel concluded that the order did not amount to a "final" decision from which Pinpoint could appeal as a matter of right, and dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Pinpoint appealed the Panel's decision.

The First Circuit agreed with the Panel and dismissed Pinpoint's appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The court held that the bankruptcy court's order denying the stay relief was not a final order.

With this decision, the First Circuit rejected the majority view among the circuits with respect to the appealability of orders denying relief from an automatic stay of litigation as a result of a bankruptcy filing. The First Circuit recognized that most circuits adhere to the blanket rule that orders denying relief from the automatic stay are "final" orders and therefore appealable as of right. Instead, the court adopted a case-by-case approach, where the finality of the order depends on the circumstances of the case. In the court’s view, an order denying relief from a stay is final if it "decided a discrete, fully-developed issue that is not reviewable somewhere else."