Geo Group, Inc. v. Menocal

Summary

Because the Court’s decision in Yearsley v. W. A. Ross Constr. Co., 309 U. S. 18 (1940), provides federal contractors a potential merits defense rather than an immunity from suit, a pretrial order denying Yearsley protection is not immediately appealable.

Text

1 (Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2025 
Syllabus 
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is 
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. 
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been 
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 
Syllabus 
GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL ET AL. 
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 
THE TENTH CIRCUIT 
No. 24–758. Argued November 10, 2025—Decided February 25, 2026 
Petitioner GEO Group operates a pr ivate detention facility in Aurora,
Colorado, under a contract with U. S. Immigration and Customs En-
forcement (ICE). Respondent Alejan dro Menocal, a former detainee at 
the Aurora facility, initiated this class action, alleging GEO’s work pol-
icies for detainees violate a federal bar on forced labor and Colorado’s 
prohibition on unjust enrichment.  GEO responded that the suit must 
be dismissed under Yearsley v. W. A. Ross Constr. Co. , 309 U. S. 18, 
which held that a federal contractor cannot be held liable for conduct 
that the Government has lawfully “authorized and directed” the con-
tractor to perform.  Id., at 20–21.  GEO argued that ICE had author -
ized and directed it to carry out the challenged labor policies.  But the 
District Court did not read GEO’s contract with the Government to 
instruct GEO to adopt those policies.  The District Court thus con-
cluded that the Yearsley doctrine did not relieve GEO of legal respon-
sibility and a trial would be necessary.  GEO immediately filed an ap-
peal, which the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit dismissed for
lack of jurisdiction, holding that an order denying Yearsley protection
does not qualify for interlocutory review under Cohen v. Beneficial In-
dustrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541. 
Held: Because Yearsley provides federal contractors a potential merits
defense rather than an immunity fr om suit, a pretrial order denying 
Yearsley protection is not immediately appealable.  Pp. 3–12.
(a) The courts of appeals have juri sdiction over appeals from “final
decisions of the district courts.”  28 U. S. C. §1291. A decision gener -
ally is “final” only when it “resolves the entire case”—when it “ends the 
litigation” on the meri ts or otherwise.  Ritzen Group, Inc. v. Jackson

2 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
Syllabus 
Masonry, LLC, 589 U. S. 35, 37–38.  That final-judgment rule, by pre-
venting piecemeal appeals, “promote s the efficient administration of 
justice” and “preserves the proper balance between trial and appellate 
courts.”  Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, 582 U. S. 23, 36–37. 
Under the collateral-order doctrine, however, a “small class” of deci-
sions are treated as “final”—and thus immediately appealable—even
though they do not end a case.  Cohen, 337 U. S., at 546.  To get imme-
diate review, a prejudgment order mu st satisfy the three conditions
this Court has “distilled” from Cohen. Will v. Hallock, 546 U. S. 345, 
349. The order must “(1) conclusively determine the disputed question,
(2) resolve an important issue completely separate from the merits of 
the action, and (3) be effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final 
judgment.” Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 U. S. 517, 522. 
Whether the denial of a pretrial request to dismiss a case like the 
one here can satisfy Cohen’s third condition will generally turn on
whether the defendant has asserted a defense to liability or instead an
immunity from suit.  A party asserting a merits defense advances some 
reason why his conduct was not unlawful and he should not be found 
liable.  But a party asserting an immunity need not challenge the mer-
its of the charge against him: his claim of immunity does not turn on 
his conduct’s legality.  That difference entails another.  Because it en-
sures a defendant need not “answer for his conduct” in court at all, an 
immunity is in its “essence” an “entitlement not to stand trial.”  Mitch-
ell v. Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 525–526.  A liability defense, by contrast, 
does not allow the defendant to escape legal proceedings, because it is
through them that the asserted defe nse is addressed and liability fi-
nally determined.  And that divergence matters for Cohen’s third con-
dition, which requires that the orde r involve a right that “would be 
irretrievably lost absent an immediate appeal.”  Van Cauwenberghe, 
486 U. S., at 524.  The right not to stand trial is irretrievably lost once
trial occurs, but the right to a finding of non-liability can be effectively
vindicated after trial, through reversal of an adverse final judgment. 
So, if a defendant asserts a liability defense, Cohen is likely to block an
immediate appeal; if he asserts an immunity, Cohen will likely allow 
it. Pp. 3–7.
(b) Does Yearsley offer federal contractors a merits defense or in-
stead an immunity?  Menocal says a defense, because Yearsley gives 
contractors only a way to show th at their conduct complied with the 
law.  GEO says an immunity—more specifically, “derivative sovereign 
immunity”—where the Government’s own immunity extends to con-
tractors who meet specified conditions.  Brief for GEO 15. 
Yearsley provides a potential defense to liability, not an immunity 
from suit. In Yearsley, the Court held that a contractor that had 
flooded the Yearsleys’ property while performing work “authorized and

3 Cite as: 607 U. S. ___ (2026) 
Syllabus 
directed by the Government” was not liable to the landowner.  309 
U.S., at 20. The Court explained that a contractor acting as an agent
of the Government could be held liable for injurious conduct in only
two circumstances: when “he exceeded his authority” or when that au-
thority “was not validly conferred.” Id., at 21.  The Court found neither 
circumstance obtained in Yearsley, because the contractor received a 
lawful authorization and stayed within the bounds of the authority 
given.  That reasoning describes a defense, not an immunity:  Years-
ley’s protection runs out when the contractor may have violated the 
law—when the contractor either ac ted under an illegal authorization 
or exceeded the scope of a legal one.  Yearsley thus ensures that it will 
never shield unlawful conduct, in the way that all immunities do.   
GEO’s contrary view—that it en joys “derivative sovereign immun-
ity”—would put Yearsley in conflict with the general rule that sover-
eign immunity is not transferrable to government agents.  The Court 
has repeatedly held that the Government’s immunity from suit “does
not extend to those that act[ ] in its name,” Sloan Shipyards Corp. v. 
United States Shipping Bd. Emergency Fleet Corporation, 258 U. S. 
549, 568, or do its work, Keifer & Keifer v. Reconstruction Finance Cor-
poration, 306 U. S. 381, 388, including by “reason of a contract” with 
the Government, Brady v. Roosevelt S. S. Co., 317 U. S. 575, 583; see 
also Hopkins v. Clemson, 221 U. S. 636, 642–643.  The whole thrust of 
those decisions is to deny that government agents can assert—whether 
always or sometimes—a “derived” form of sovereign immunity. In-
stead, sovereign immunity belongs alone to the Government.  Pp. 7–
11.
 (c) Once Yearsley is properly understood as a merits defense, the 
question before the Court almost an swers itself.  Like the denial of 
other defenses, a district court’s denial of Yearsley protection is not im-
mediately appealable under §1291.  Such a ruling is not, as Cohen’s 
third condition demands, “effectivel y unreviewable on appeal from a 
final judgment.”  Van Cauwenberghe, 486 U. S., at 522.  The right that 
a merits defense affords is to a finding of non-liability. And that 
right—unlike the right not to stand trial—is fully vindicable on appeal
from a final judgment.  Accordingly, the finality rule of §1291 precludes
interlocutory review of a Yearsley denial.  Pp. 11–12. 
Affirmed and remanded. 
K
AGAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which R OBERTS, C. J., 
and S OTOMAYOR, G ORSUCH, K AVANAUGH, B ARRETT, and J ACKSON, JJ., 
joined, and in which THOMAS, J., joined as to Parts I and III. THOMAS, J., 
filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. 
ALITO, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.

_________________ 
_________________ 
1  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
Opinion of the Court 
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the 
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of 
Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, 
[email protected], of any typographical or other formal errors. 
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 
No. 24–758 
THE GEO GROUP, INC., PETITIONER v. ALEJANDRO 
MENOCAL, ET AL. 
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 
[February 25, 2026]
 JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. 
In Yearsley v. W. A. Ross Constr. Co. , 309 U. S. 18, 20 
(1940), this Court held that a federal contractor cannot be
held liable for conduct that the Government has lawfully 
“authorized and directed” the contractor to perform.  Ra-
ther, liability may attach only if the authorization was un-
lawful or if the contractor acted outside its scope.  See id., 
at 20–21. 
The question here is whether a contractor may take an
immediate appeal of a district court’s pretrial order denying 
Yearsley protection. The answer is no. Because Yearsley
provides a defense to liability, not an immunity from suit, 
an order denying its protection can be effectively reviewed 
after a final judgment.  So a ppellate review of such an or -
der, as of most pretrial rulings, must await completion of 
the district court’s proceedings. 
I 
Petitioner GEO Group operates a private detention facil-
ity in Aurora, Colorado, under a contract with U. S. Immi-
gration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The facility holds
individuals whose immigration proceedings are pending.

2 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
Opinion of the Court 
Respondent Alejandro Menocal was detained there in 2014. 
Soon afterward, he initiated this class action on behalf of 
the Aurora facility’s detainees.
The suit challenges two policies GEO used to put the de-
tainees to work, thereby reducing its own labor costs.  First, 
the so-called Sanitation Policy required detainees to clean, 
without any pay, all the facility’s common areas.  A de-
tainee’s failure to perform his assigned tasks led to escalat-
ing sanctions, up to 72 hours in solitary confinement.  Sec-
ond, the so-called Voluntary Work Program offered $1 per 
day to detainees for other kind s of needed work, such as 
preparing food and doing laundry.  Menocal’s complaint al-
leged that the former policy violated a federal bar on forced 
labor and that the latter breached Colorado’s prohibition on 
unjust enrichment.
Following discovery, the District Court addressed GEO’s
contention that Yearsley required the suit’s dismissal. That 
was so, the argument ran, because ICE had by contract “au-
thorized and directed” GEO to carry out the two challenged 
policies.  Defendant’s Cross-Motion for Summary Judgt. in
No. 14–2887 (D Colo., June 25, 2020), ECF Doc. 284, p. 17. 
But the District Court did not read the government contract
that way. Nothing in its terms, the court found, instructed
GEO to adopt the work rules at issue.  Rather, in “inde-
pendently develop[ing] and implement[ing]” those rules, 
GEO “far exceeded its contractual obligations.”  635 
F. Supp. 3d 1151, 1173 (Colo. 2022).  So the Yearsley doc-
trine, the District Court concluded, did not relieve GEO of 
legal responsibility. Instead, a trial would be necessary to
address whether GEO’s policie s violated the referenced 
bans on forced labor or unjust enrichment. 
GEO immediately filed an appeal, but the Court of Ap-
peals for the Tenth Circuit dismissed it for lack of jurisdic-
tion. See 2024 WL 4544184 (Oct. 22, 2024).  Appellate ju-
risdiction, the court explained, seldom extends to an order
that does not terminate the litigation at issue. Such an

3  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
Opinion of the Court 
order qualifies for interlocutory review only if it satisfies 
three conditions deriving from this Court’s decision in Co-
hen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 
(1949). And an order denying Yearsley protection, the
Tenth Circuit held, does not do so. The court saw no need 
to address the first or third Cohen conditions because it con-
cluded that a Yearsley denial flunked the second: Such a 
ruling is not (as Cohen demands) “completely separate from
the merits” of the suit. 2024 WL 4544184, *7.  That is be-
cause, the court reasoned, an inquiry into what the Govern-
ment instructed the contractor to do is relevant to both 
Yearsley’s application and the “lawfulness of the contrac-
tor’s challenged actions.” Id., at *8. 
We granted certiorari, 605 U. S. 968 (2025), to resolve 
whether a pretrial order denying Yearsley protection to a 
government contractor is immediately appealable.  Like the 
Tenth Circuit, we hold that it is not.  But unlike the Tenth 
Circuit, we focus on the third Cohen condition, which re-
quires an order to be effective ly unreviewable on appeal 
from a final judgment. 
II 
“Finality as a condition of review is an historic character-
istic of federal appellate procedure.”  Cobbledick v. United 
States, 309 U. S. 323, 324 (1940).  Originating in the First
Judiciary Act of 1789, the finality requirement is now codi-
fied in 28 U. S. C. §1291.  The courts of appeals, that section 
provides, have jurisdiction over appeals from “final deci-
sions of the district courts.”  And a decision generally is “fi-
nal” under §1291 only when it “resolves the entire case”—
when it “ends the litigation” (on the merits or otherwise)
and “leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judg-
ment.” Ritzen Group, Inc.  v. Jackson Masonry, LLC , 589 
U. S. 35, 37–38 (2020).  That final-judgment rule, by pre-
venting piecemeal appeals, “promotes the efficient admin-
istration of justice” and “preserves the proper balance

4 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
Opinion of the Court 
between trial and appellate courts.”  Microsoft Corp. v. 
Baker, 582 U. S. 23, 36–37 (2017). 
For a “small class” of decisions, however, the finality rule 
gives ground and allows interlocutory appeals.  Cohen, 337 
U. S., at 546.  Section 1291, we have often explained, re-
quires a “practical rather than a technical construction,” 
and thus may treat as “final” certain decisions that do not 
end a case. Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U. S. 
100, 106 (2009) (quoting Cohen, 337 U. S., at 546).  We iden-
tify those decisions by cate gory, not case-specific circum -
stances. See Mohawk, 558 U. S., at 107.  And we erect a 
high bar. A non-terminal order may be appealed, Cohen 
held, only if it “finally determine[s] claims of right separa-
ble from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too
important to be denied review and too independent of the
cause itself to require that appellate consideration be de -
ferred.” 337 U. S., at 546.  That so-called collateral-order 
doctrine, we have since underscored, is “narrow,” “strin-
gent,” and of “modest scope.”  Digital Equipment Corp.  v. 
Desktop Direct, Inc., 511 U. S. 863, 868 (1994); Will v. Hal-
lock, 546 U. S. 345, 350 (2006).
To keep it that way, this Court has “distilled” the Cohen 
ruling into three non-negotiable conditions. Will, 546 U. S., 
at 349. A pre-judgment order, to get immediate review,
must “(1) conclusively determine the disputed question, (2) 
resolve an important issue completely separate from the
merits of the action, and (3) be effectively unreviewable on 
appeal from a final judgment.”  Van Cauwenberghe  v. 
Biard, 486 U. S. 517, 522 (1988).  Failure on any component 
of that three-part test is fatal. 
When, as here, an order denies a pretrial request to dis-
miss, appealability under Cohen will generally turn on
whether the defendant has asserted a defense to liability or 
instead an immunity from suit. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 
U. S. 511, 526–527 (1985).  If a defense, Cohen is likely to 
block an immediate appeal; if an immunity, Cohen will

5  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
Opinion of the Court 
likely allow it.  To show why, we describe below the differ -
ence between a merits defense and an immunity; what that 
difference entails for the right to avoid trial; and how that 
right matters in applying the third Cohen condition. Once 
that is done, it becomes clear why, as later described, the
parties here mainly contest whether Yearsley offers an im-
munity or just a merits defense. See infra, at 7–8.
1 
To start, a party asserting a merits defense in a lawsuit
makes a fundamentally different kind of argument than a 
party asserting an immunity. The former advances some 
reason why his conduct was not unlawful—or said other-
wise, why under the law he did nothing wrong.  And so, that 
defendant says, he should not be found liable: Because he
obeyed the law, he should not, for example, have to pay
damages. By contrast, a party asserting an immunity
“makes no challenge” to “the merits of the charge against
him.” Abney v. United States , 431 U. S. 651, 659 (1977).
That defendant need never say he followed the law, because 
his claim of immunity does no t turn on his conduct’s legal-
ity. “[A]n immunity frees one who enjoys it from a lawsuit
whether or not he acted wrongly.”  Richardson v. McKnight, 
521 U. S. 399, 403 (1997).  A classic example is sovereign 
immunity: It shields the Government from suit (absent a 
waiver) regardless whether the Government violated the 
law. See, e.g., FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U. S. 471, 475 (1994).
2 
—————— 
1 Note that one category of cases ex ists outside this dichotomy: a non-
merits-based defense that also is not an immunity.  On occasion, this 
Court has decided that a defense, alth ough barring suit irrespective of 
the merits, still fails to qualify as an immunity because it does not serve 
sufficiently “weighty public objective[s].”  Will v. Hallock, 546 U. S. 345, 
353 (2006) (so holding with respect to the Federal Tort Claims Act’s judg-
ment bar).  That “public interest” wr inkle, however, never arises if the 
defense is on the merits—which, as we will explain, is the case here. 
2 Qualified immunity is, in the respec t relevant here, the same.  That 
doctrine shields a defendant even when the claim against him “in fact 
has merit”—or otherwise said, even wh en he violated the law—so long 
as the law at that time was not “clearly established.”  Camreta v. Greene,

6 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
Opinion of the Court 
That difference between a merits defense and an immun-
ity entails another: The latter, but not the former, is in its 
“essence” an “entitlement not to stand trial.” Mitchell, 472 
U. S., at 525.  Because an immunity applies irrespective of
the merits, the protection it offers is not a simple finding of 
non-liability. Rather, the immunity ensures that the de -
fendant need not “answer for his conduct” in court at all— 
that he avoids, in addition to liability, all the usual “bur-
dens of litigation,” including a trial. Id., at 525–526. And 
so we typically describe the protection in just that way: as
an immunity “from suit.” Id., at 526 (emphasis in original); 
see, e.g., Thacker v. TVA, 587 U. S. 218, 221 (2019); Jam v. 
International Finance Corp. , 586 U. S. 199, 202 (2019).  A 
“mere defense” to liability, as we have noted, offers some -
thing different, and of lesser value.  Mitchell, 472 U. S., at 
526. Because it establishes that the defendant acted law-
fully, a valid defense leads to a judgment of non-liability. 
But it does not allow the defendant to escape the varied ri-
gors and costs of legal proceedings.  Indeed, it is in and 
through those proceedings that the asserted defense is ad-
dressed and liability finally determined. 
And that divergence—in whether the defendant pos-
sesses a right not to stand trial—matters for the third Co-
hen condition.  Again, that condition states that a non-ter-
minal order may be appealed when issued only if it is 
“effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.” 
Van Cauwenberghe, 486 U. S., at 522; see supra, at 4. For 
that to be true, we have explained, the order must involve 
a right that “would be irretrievably lost absent an immedi-
ate appeal.” Van Cauwenberghe , 486 U. S., at 524.  The 
right to avoid trial fits that de scription.  It is irretrievably 
lost once trial occurs, even supposing the defendant were to 
—————— 
563 U. S. 692, 705 (2011).  “Like other forms of immunity,” then, quali-
fied immunity offers protection “even when [the defendant] acts unlaw-
fully.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 23.

7  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
Opinion of the Court 
prevail on the merits. And so, in the ordinary case, the de-
nial of an immunity is im mediately appealable.  See ibid. ; 
Abney, 431 U. S., at 659–660.  But the right to a finding of 
non-liability stands on a different footing: It can be effec -
tively vindicated after a trial has occurred, through the re-
versal of an adverse final judgment.  And so the denial of a 
merits defense is generally appealable only once trial-court 
proceedings have ended.  See Van Cauwenberghe, 486 U. S., 
at 524; Mitchell, 472 U. S., at 526. 
In short, then, distinguishing between a merits defense 
and an immunity from suit, in the way described above, of-
fers a ready way of determining whether the denial of a re-
quest to dismiss a case can satisfy Cohen’s third condition 
for interlocutory review.
3 
III 
For just that reason, the parties here mainly dispute
whether our Yearsley decision offers federal contractors a 
—————— 
3 By the same token, that distinction is likely to determine whether the 
other two Cohen conditions are met, though we need not here address 
the reasons in any detail. See Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority 
v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U. S. 139, 144 (1993) (“Once it is established 
that” a State is “immune from suit in  federal court, it follows that the 
elements of the Cohen collateral order doctrine are satisfied”).  Recall 
that Cohen’s second condition, on which the Court of Appeals relied, de-
mands that the order “resolve an important issue completely separate 
from the merits of the action.”  Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 U. S. 
517, 522 (1988); see supra, at 4. A decision on a defense, addressing the 
legality of the defendant’s conduct, g oes directly to the suit’s merits— 
whereas a decision on an immunity, applying regardless of that conduct’s 
legality, does not.  Similarly for the first condition, which is that the or-
der “conclusively determine the disputed question.”  Van Cauwenberghe, 
486 U. S., at 522.  When a defense turns on contested facts, as is often 
true, a pretrial order denying it functions only to defer its resolution until 
trial.  By contrast, we have held, a pretrial denial of an immunity always
acts as a “fully consummated decision” because nothing can then happen
to avert “the trial the defend ant maintains is barred.”  Mitchell v. For-
syth, 472 U. S. 511, 527 (1985) (quoting Abney v. United States, 431 U. S. 
651, 659 (1977)).

8 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
Opinion of the Court 
merits defense or instead an immunity.  Menocal (sup-
ported by the United States as amicus curiae ) says a de-
fense, because Yearsley gives contractors only a way to show
that their conduct complied with the law.  GEO says an im-
munity—more specifically, “derivative sovereign immun-
ity.” Brief for GEO 15. Under Yearsley, GEO contends, the 
Government’s own immunity extends to contractors who 
meet specified conditions, thereby giving them the “right 
not to stand trial.” Brief for GEO 15.  So which is it—a de-
fense or an immunity? 
Yearsley involved a suit by landowners against a federal 
contractor for flooding their property.  The Government had 
hired the contractor to redirect the Missouri River in order 
to improve its navigation.  The construction company, as
specified in the contract, built dikes in a part of the river
near where the Yearsleys owned a farm. The result, as ex-
pected, was to wash away almost 100 acres of their land.
The Yearsleys did not dispute that the contractor’s work
was “all authorized and directed by the Government.”  309 
U. S., at 20.  Nonetheless, they sued the contractor for 
money damages.
This Court held that there was “no liability on the part of 
the contractor.”  Id., at 21. Drawing from multiple prece-
dents involving agency law, the Court explained that a con-
tractor acting as an agent of the Government could be held 
liable for injurious conduct in only two circumstances: when
“he exceeded his authority” or when that authority “was not 
validly conferred.”  Ibid. Here, neither circumstance ob-
tained. As to the second, the Court explained that the Gov-
ernment had “validly” authorized the company to flood the
Yearsleys’ land, because the Government itself possessed 
that legal right and had properly delegated it by contract. 
Id., at 21–22. And as to the first, the Court concluded that 
all the company’s work had stayed within the bounds of the
authority given: The Government had provided instruc-
tions, and the contractor had merely “execut[ed] its will.”

9  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
Opinion of the Court 
Id., at 20–21. Given both those facts—the Government’s 
lawful authorization and the contractor’s compliance with 
it—the Court could see “no ground for holding [the contrac-
tor] liable.” Id., at 22. 
That reasoning describes a defense, not an immunity. 
Yearsley provides protection to a contractor when it has re-
ceived a lawful authorization and acted according to its
terms—meaning, when the contractor has acted within le-
gal bounds. So in invoking Yearsley, the contractor is mak-
ing the argument of a merits defense—that it is not liable
because it has complied with the law.  See supra, at 5. Con -
versely, Yearsley’s protection runs out when the contractor
may have violated the law—when the contractor either
acted under an illegal authorization or exceeded the scope
of a legal one.  By drawing the line there, Yearsley ensures 
that it will never shield unlawful conduct, in the way that 
all immunities do.  See supra, at 5. In short, because Years-
ley protects a contractor only when—and only because—it 
has acted lawfully, Yearsley operates as a defense to liabil-
ity on the merits. And that  is consistent with all Yearsley’s 
language. The decision never refers to an “immunity,” or 
otherwise suggests that the defendant receives a pass from
legal proceedings; it asks only whether the contractor may
be found “liable.” 309 U. S., at 21–22. 
Still more, GEO’s cont rary view would put Yearsley in 
conflict with the general rule that sovereign immunity is 
not transferrable to agents, including contractors, of a gov-
ernment. As Justice Holmes once explained, the Federal 
Government’s immunity from a suit (absent a statute
providing otherwise) “does not extend to those that act[ ] in
its name.” Sloan Shipyards Corp.  v. United States Ship -
ping Bd. Emergency Fleet Corporation , 258 U. S. 549, 568 
(1922). The Court repeated that precept in the Term just 
before Yearsley: “[T]he government does not become the 
conduit of its immunity in suits against its agents” just be-
cause “they do [the government’s] work.”  Keifer & Keifer v.

10 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
Opinion of the Court 
Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 306 U. S. 381, 388 
(1939). Rather, the “exceptional freedom from legal respon-
sibility” that sovereign immunity offers is “confined” to the 
sovereign entity itself. Ibid.  Or again, a few Terms after 
Yearsley: A private contractor cannot obtain “[i]mmunity
from suit” by “reason of a co ntract” it made with the Gov-
ernment. Brady v. Roosevelt S. S. Co. , 317 U. S. 575, 583 
(1943). GEO tries to bypass those holdings by arguing that
they preclude a contractor from asserting only “uncondi-
tional” sovereign immunity, not the (supposed) “derivative 
sovereign immunity” Yearsley offers, which is conditioned 
on compliance with the Government’s lawful directives.  Re-
ply Brief 6–7. But the proposed distinction is strained. The 
whole thrust of the decisions is to deny that government
agents can assert—whether always or sometimes—a “de-
rived” form of sovereign immunity.  Rather, the Court in -
sisted, sovereign immunity belongs alone to the Govern-
ment. 
And another, pre- Yearsley decision proves the point, by 
relegating a state agent that had asserted sovereign im-
munity to a merits defense, whose contours anticipated
what Yearsley would offer. See Hopkins v. Clemson, 221 
U. S. 636 (1911). Oddly enough, the suit challenged the
same kind of conduct involved in Yearsley: The government
agent had flooded a person’s land.  The State itself, the 
Court noted, would have had “immunity from [a] suit” 
based on such conduct.  221 U. S., at 642.  But an agent
working on the State’s behalf could not “avail itself ” of that
special “exemption” from “judicial process.”  Id., at 642, 645. 
“[I]mmunity from suit,” the Court explained, “is a high at-
tribute of sovereignty—a prer ogative of the State itself ”—
which cannot be invoked by the State’s agents.  Id., at 642– 
643. Yet all was not lost: The agent got something.  Alt-
hough the agent was “not exempt from suit,” it could “suc-
cessfully defend” against the charges by showing the “law-
ful authority under which [it] acted.” Id., at 643.  Those

11  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
Opinion of the Court 
terms evoke the ones Yearsley used later.  See 309 U. S., at 
22 (precluding liability for a contractor “acting under” “val-
idly conferred” authority); supra, at 8. And they function
not, as GEO posits, to condit ion the transfer of sovereign
immunity, but to describe something different—as the 
Court made explicit, a merits “defen[se].” Hopkins, 221 
U. S., at 643.4
 Once Yearsley is understood in that way—as a merits de-
fense—the question before us almost answers itself: No, a
district court’s denial of Yearsley protection is not immedi-
ately appealable under §1291.  Like the denial of other de-
fenses, such a ruling is not, as Cohen’s third condition de-
mands, “effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final 
judgment.” Van Cauwenberghe , 486 U. S., at 522.  The 
right that a merits defense affords is to a finding of non-
liability. And that right—unlike the right not to stand
trial—is fully vindicable on appeal from a final judgment.
See Swint v. Chambers County Comm’n , 514 U. S. 35, 43 
(1995); supra, at 6.  All an appellate court need do at that 
—————— 
4 GEO counters that two of our decisions refer to Yearsley as offering
“immunity,” see Brief for GEO 17, 23, but that argument makes far too 
much of one piece of loose la nguage.  The first cited case, Brady v. Roo-
sevelt S. S. Co., 317 U. S. 575 (1943), mainly cuts against GEO.  As noted 
above, the Court there rejected the view that a government contractor 
obtains “[i]mmunity from suit” by virtue of its contractual relation. Id., 
at 583; see supra, at 10. The Court then turned to Yearsley, finding it
not to apply because the suit alleged negligent conduct, outside what the 
Government had authorized.  In that  half-paragraph, the decision once 
refers to Yearsley as providing a “certain immunity.”  317 U. S., at 583. 
But it apparently used that term in a colloquial sense, as something of a 
synonym for “protection.”  The Court’s fuller description of Yearsley ex-
plains that it relieves the contract or of “liability,” without suggesting
that it also offers a pass from litigation. 317 U. S., at 583.  And the sec -
ond cited case, Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U. S. 153 (2016), gives 
GEO even less to work with.  That decision merely quotes the imprecise 
phrase in Brady on the way to rejecting another contractor’s claim (even
more expansive than GEO’s) to share in the Government’s sovereign im-
munity.  577 U. S., at 166.

12 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
Opinion of the Court 
point is reverse the erroneous liability finding.  So the final-
ity rule of §1291 precludes interlocutory review of a Years-
ley denial.5 
For those reasons, we hold that the Court of Appeals
lacked jurisdiction over GEO’s appeal. If eventually found 
liable, GEO may of course appeal the District Court’s rejec-
tion of its asserted Yearsley defense.  But GEO must wait 
until then. A Yearsley denial is not appealable before the 
trial court’s proceedings have ended. 
We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals 
and remand the case for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion. 
It is so ordered. 
—————— 
5 This holding still allows review of a given Yearsley denial by means 
of §1292(b)’s separate appeal-certification process.  Under that provision,
a district court may find that the special difficulty and importance of an
otherwise unappealable order counsels in favor of immediate review, and
an appellate court may accept that determination.  Here, though, the 
District Court saw no reason to act under §1292(b).

_________________ 
_________________ 
1  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
Opinion of THOMAS, J. 
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 
No. 24–758 
THE GEO GROUP, INC., PETITIONER v. ALEJANDRO 
MENOCAL, ET AL. 
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 
[February 25, 2026]
 JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring in part and concurring in 
the judgment. 
I concur in Parts I and III of the Court’s opinion and in 
its judgment.  I agree with the Court that Yearsley v. W. A. 
Ross Constr. Co., 309 U. S. 18 (1940), and similar decisions 
establish a defense from liability and not an immunity from 
suit. See ante, at 8–9.  Orders rejecting Yearsley defenses 
are therefore unlike the orders denying immunities that 
this Court has already held to  be immediately appealable. 
Because no other statute or rule authorized an interlocu-
tory appeal here, the Court correctly affirms the Tenth Cir-
cuit’s dismissal. I do not join Part II because “[w]e need not,
and in my view should not, further justify our holding by 
applying” the collateral-order doctrine established by Co-
hen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 
(1949). Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U. S. 
100, 115 (2009) (T
HOMAS, J., concurring in part and concur-
ring in judgment).  I remain of the view that we should not 
expand the Cohen collateral order doctrine beyond orders 
that our precedents have alre ady held to be immediately 
appealable.
The Cohen collateral-order doctrine, which allows federal 
courts to exercise appellate ju risdiction over certain inter -
locutory orders, conflicts with Congress’s authority over 
federal appellate jurisdiction. U. S. Const., Art. I, §8, cl. 9;

2 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
Opinion of THOMAS, J. 
Art. III, §1.  By statute, parties generally cannot appeal be-
fore final judgment.  See 28 U. S. C. §1291; ante, at 3–4. 
Congress has established certain exceptions to that final-
judgment rule that allow parti es to appeal some interlocu-
tory orders immediately.  E.g., §1292(a)(1).  It has also au-
thorized this Court to create further exceptions through
rulemaking. §1292(e). Cohen’s collateral-order doctrine al-
lows judges to create additional exceptions by judicial opin-
ion, which bypasses “ ‘Congress’s designation of the rule-
making process as the way to define or refine when a 
district court ruling is “final” and when an interlocutory or-
der is appealable.’ ”  Mohawk Industries, 558 U. S., at 114– 
115 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (quoting Swint v. Chambers 
County Comm’n, 514 U. S. 35, 48 (1995)).  For that reason, 
if an interlocutory order “is not on all fours with orders we 
previously have held to be appealable under the collateral 
order doctrine,” it should not be immediately appealable. 
Mohawk Industries, 558 U. S., at 115 (opinion of T HOMAS, 
J.).

_________________ 
_________________ 
1  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 
No. 24–758 
THE GEO GROUP, INC., PETITIONER v. ALEJANDRO 
MENOCAL, ET AL. 
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 
[February 25, 2026]
 JUSTICE ALITO, concurring in the judgment. 
I agree with the Court that the defense conferred by 
Yearsley v. W. A. Ross Constr. Co., 309 U. S. 18 (1940), is 
not an “immunity from suit.”  I therefore agree that an or-
der denying a Yearsley defense is not a “collateral order” 
subject to immediate appeal. But I would not rest these 
conclusions solely on the fact that Yearsley’s applicability 
“turn[s] on [the defendant’s] conduct’s legality.”  Ante, at 5. 
Under the collateral-order doctrine, defendants may some-
times appeal the denial of a defense immediately when do -
ing so is necessary to vindicate important constitutional or 
public-policy interests. And this rule holds true even if the 
defense at issue turns on the legality of the defendant’s con-
duct. Thus, I cannot join the opinion of the Court, but I 
concur in the judgment because deferring appellate review 
of Yearsley rulings until final judgment does not imperil im-
portant constitutional or public-policy interests. 
I 
Since 1789, Congress has generally limited the universe 
of appealable orders to “final  decrees and judgments.”  Act 
of Sept. 24, 1789, 1 Stat. 84.  Today, this “final-judgment 
rule” limits the jurisdiction of federal courts of appeals.  See 
28 U. S. C. §1291.  The Court has long given this limit a
“practical rather than a technical construction.”  Cohen v.

2 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541, 546 (1949). 
Consistent with that approach, our decision in Cohen held 
that certain interlocutory orders—now known as collateral 
orders—are sufficiently “final ” that a party may appeal 
them before litigation reaches final judgment. Id., at 546– 
547. 
Our collateral-order doctrine establishes three criteria 
that an order must satisfy to qualify for immediate appeal. 
The order must (1) “conclusively determine [a] disputed 
question,” (2) resolve an issue “separate from the merits of
the action,” and (3) be “effectively unreviewable on appeal
from a final judgment.” Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 
U. S. 463, 468 (1978).  Whether a given order satisfies these 
criteria does not turn on the “facts of a particular case.” 
Carroll v. United States, 354 U. S. 394, 405 (1957).  Rather, 
the criteria must be satisfied for the “entire category” of or-
ders. Digital Equipment Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc. , 511 
U. S. 863, 868 (1994). 
A 
Initially, this Court applied the “effectively unreviewa-
ble” requirement to capture orders that would become moot 
by the time of final judgment.  See Cohen, 337 U. S., at 546. 
For those orders, a strict application of the final-judgment 
rule “would practically defeat the right to any review at all.” 
Cobbledick v. United States, 309 U. S. 323, 324–325 (1940).
We first applied this reasoning in Cohen, which involved a 
district-court order that excused the plaintiffs from a litiga-
tion-bond requirement.  337 U. S., at 544–547.  Applicable
state law required the plaintiffs to post such a bond to se -
cure their obligation to pay the defendant’s litigation ex-
penses and attorney’s fees if their claims failed.  Cohen held 
that the order excusing the plaintiffs from posting that
bond was immediately appealable because it would “not be 
merged in final judgment.”  Id., at 546.  Regardless of who 
prevailed at final judgment, the question whether the

3  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
plaintiffs had to post a bond would be moot.  If the defend-
ant prevailed, an appeal would not relieve it from the plain-
tiffs’ failure to post a bond.  And if the plaintiffs prevailed,
the defendant would not be en titled to recover its legal 
costs. Thus, if orders deny ing requests for litigation bonds 
were not subject to immediat e appeal, those orders would 
never receive appellate review.
This conception of the collateral-order doctrine’s “effec-
tively unreviewable” requirement informed our decision in 
Swift & Co. Packers v. Compania Colombiana Del Caribe, 
S. A., 339 U. S. 684 (1950).  There, we held that the Fifth 
Circuit had appellate jurisdiction over a lower court’s order
vacating the attachment of a foreign vessel. Id., at 685– 
689. That vessel, which the libelants attached while it 
passed through U. S.-controlled waters, served as security
for their claims against the fo reign defendant.  In this re-
spect, the vessel resembled the bond in Cohen. As was the 
case with the bond order, an immediate appeal was the only 
means for appellate review of the order vacating the attach-
ment of the vessel. If the libelants in Swift did not prevail 
at final judgment, the court’s vacatur of the attachment or-
der would become moot.  And if the libelants did prevail, 
any appellate review of the attachment issue would be an
“empty rite,” as the vessel would have likely departed U. S. 
jurisdiction. 339 U. S., at 689. 
The same reasoning explains our jurisdictional holding in 
Stack v. Boyle, 342 U. S. 1 (1951), which extended Cohen to 
an order denying a criminal defendant’s motion to modify
his pretrial bail-bond amount.  342 U. S., at 3.  Once a court 
renders final judgment in a criminal case, the conditions 
governing the defendant’s pretrial release become moot.  By
that juncture, the defendant has either been released from 
custody or begun a sentence of incarceration.  Thus, if there 
were to be any appellate review of bail, it would need to oc-
cur before final judgment.

4 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
In sum, our early collateral-order cases applied the “ef-
fectively unreviewable” requirement narrowly. It captured
those orders that would be unreviewable on appeal from a 
final judgment on account of mootness. 
B 
Over the ensuing decades, the Court expanded its appli-
cation of the “effectively unrev iewable” requirement to in -
clude orders that undoubtedly would not become moot by
final judgment. For example, in Abney v. United States, 431 
U. S. 651 (1977), and Helstoski v. Meanor, 442 U. S. 500 
(1979), the Court held that denials of defenses under the
Double Jeopardy Clause and Speech or Debate Clause sat-
isfied Cohen even though these protections could be “vindi-
cated on an appeal following final judgment.” Abney, 431 
U. S., at 660. Like most criminal-law defenses, double-jeop-
ardy and speech-or-debate issues merge into the final judg-
ment, and a reviewing court can grant meaningful relief on 
these grounds by reversing a defendant’s conviction.  Abney
and Helstoski nevertheless held that denials of relief under 
these two Clauses were collateral orders. 
Our holdings in these cases relied on the premise that
those two protections were not merely shields from criminal 
liability. They were instead “guarantee[s] against being . . . 
put to trial” at all. Abney, 431 U. S., at 661; accord, Hel-
stoski, 442 U. S., at 508 (“[T]he Speech or Debate Clause
was designed to protect Congressmen . . . from the burden 
of defending themselves” (internal quotation marks omit -
ted)). Thus, although a cou rt could review these defenses
on appeal from a final judgment, a court could not fully vin-
dicate their protections at that time.  By the time of final 
judgment, the defendant would have already been exposed 
to trial, thereby suffering the very harm that these defenses
exist to prevent. This line of reasoning sufficed to render
the orders in Abney and Helstoski “effectively

5  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
unreviewable” on appeal from a final judgment. See Abney, 
431 U. S., at 662. 
This doctrinal development had important implications
for our collateral-order jurisprudence.  Under Abney  and 
Helstoski’s logic, once a court designates a defense as an
“immunity from suit,” that defense satisfies the third col -
lateral-order criterion. Digital Equipment , 511 U. S., at 
870. We have likewise recognized that an order denying an
immunity from suit will also satisfy the other two collat -
eral-order requirements.  See ante, at 7, n. 1. The denial of 
an immunity satisfies the first criterion because it “conclu-
sively determine[s]” that a defendant may go to trial.  Coop-
ers & Lybrand, 437 U. S., at 468.  See Helstoski, 442 U. S., 
at 507 (“Once a motion to dismiss is denied, there is nothing 
the Member can do under the [Speech or Debate] Clause . . . 
to prevent the trial”).  And a “claim of immunity is concep-
tually distinct from the merits,” so an order denying an im-
munity claim satisfies the second requirement.  Mitchell v. 
Forsyth, 472 U. S. 511, 527 (1985).  For these reasons, fed-
eral courts have consistently held that denials of an immun-
ity are collateral orders subject to immediate appeal. See, 
e.g., Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731, 742 (1982) (Presi-
dential civil immunity); Mitchell, 472 U. S., at 530 (quali-
fied immunity); Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority 
v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U. S. 139, 143 (1993) (state and 
territorial sovereign immunity); Kilburn v. Socialist Peo-
ple’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 376 F. 3d 1123, 1126 (CADC 
2004) (foreign sovereign immunity).
Given that the designation of a defense as an immunity 
is dispositive under the collateral-order doctrine, our Court
has stringently guarded the designation.  See Midland As-
phalt Corp. v. United States, 489 U. S. 794, 801 (1989).  Af-
ter all, “virtually every right that could be enforced appro-
priately by pretrial dismissal” could be loosely described as
an immunity from suit. Digital Equipment, 511 U. S., at 
873. But treating every such right as an immunity would

6 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
permit the “narrow” collatera l-order doctrine to “swallow” 
the final judgment rule in “virtually every case.” Id., at 868, 
873 (internal quotation marks omitted).  Our Court has 
therefore recognized the need to distinguish “between a 
right not to be tried and a right whose remedy requires the 
dismissal of charges.” United States  v. Hollywood Motor 
Car Co., 458 U. S. 263, 269 (1982) ( per curiam). And we 
have explained that determining whether a defense consti-
tutes an immunity requires an evaluation of “the value of 
the interests” that an immediate appeal would advance. 
Digital Equipment, 511 U. S., at 878–879.  Specifically, we
explained in Will v. Hallock , 546 U. S. 345 (2006), that a 
defense “should be treated as an immunity demanding the 
protection of a collateral order appeal” only if wrongly al-
lowing a suit to proceed would “imperil a substantial public 
interest.” Id., at 353; see also Lauro Lines s.r.l. v. Chasser, 
490 U. S. 495, 502 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring) (“The rea-
son” that a right fails the third requirement of the collat-
eral-order doctrine “is, quite simply, that the law does not 
deem the right important enough”).
Our collateral-order decisions reflect this approach.  We 
have applied the immunity label to defenses when allowing
an immediate appeal was necessary to preserve “some par-
ticular value of a high order,” such as “honoring the separa-
tion of powers, preserving the efficiency of government and
the initiative of its officials, respecting a State’s dignitary
interests, and mitigating the government’s advantage” over 
individual defendants in high-stakes matters. Will, 546 
U. S., at 352–353; see, e.g., Nixon, 457 U. S., at 742–743, 
749, 758 (citing separation-of-powers concerns when allow-
ing an appeal of an order denying Presidential immunity); 
Mitchell, 472 U. S., at 526 (explaining that the avoidance of 
distraction, overdeterrence, and timidity in Government 
service justified immediate appeals of orders denying qual-
ified immunity);  Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Author -
ity, 506 U. S., at 146 (allowing an appeal of an order

7  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
denying sovereign immunity to “ ‘prevent the indignity of
subjecting a State to the coercive process of judicial tribu-
nals’”).  In contrast, we have declined to designate defenses
as immunities when postponing appellate review to final 
judgment would not imperil important interests.  See, e.g., 
Will, 546 U. S., at 353 (holding that the interest in shorten-
ing troublesome litigation is insufficient to treat a defense
as an immunity); Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 
U. S. 100, 108–113 (2009) (acknowledging that the attor-
ney-client privilege serves important public interests but 
declining to designate it as an immunity because deferring
appeals would not meaningfully harm those interests). 
As these decisions illustrate, we have been cautious in re-
cent years about expanding the collateral-order doctrine, 
but we have not closed the book on Cohen. Just two Terms 
ago, we designated another defense as an immunity and 
evaluated it in an interl ocutory posture.  See Trump v. 
United States, 603 U. S. 593, 635 (2024) (citing Mitchell, 
472 U. S., at 524–530); 603 U. S., at 654–655 (B
ARRETT, J., 
concurring in part).  The test for determining whether a de-
fense constitutes an immunity therefore remains keyed to
the interests that an immediate appeal would vindicate. If 
postponing review of a wrongly denied defense would un -
dermine important constitutional or policy interests, that
defense constitutes an immunity. 
II 
Under this framework, the Yearsley doctrine is not an im-
munity from suit.  Permitting immediate appeals of orders 
denying Yearsley defenses is not necessary to vindicate any
sufficiently important constitutional or public-policy inter-
ests. 
A 
As the majority correctly explains, Yearsley shields de-
fendants from damages actions for conduct that federal law

8 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
authorized. See Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez , 577 U. S. 
153, 166–167 (2016).  Although this protection is important
for a range of Government operations, it does not meet the
threshold to be designated an immunity. 
First, postponing appellate review of Yearsley’s applica-
bility until final judgment would not create significant sep-
aration-of-powers problems. To be sure, the possibility that 
courts might impose liability for conduct that Congress au-
thorized presents some conflict between those two branches
of Government. Likewise, in correct contractor-liability ad-
judications can interfere with Executive Branch operations.
But these risks of error arise anytime a court misapplies a 
federal statute or entertains an action involving a Govern-
ment contractor.  Moreover, these risks pale in comparison
to the separation-of-powers concerns that motivated the ap-
plication of the collateral-order doctrine in other immunity 
contexts. See, e.g., Helstoski, 442 U. S., at 502 (concerning 
a Congressman who was exposed to criminal liability based 
on his decision to introduce a bill in the House of Represent-
atives). 
Yearsley does not implicate sovere ign-dignity interests, 
either. Although GEO Group describes Yearsley as confer-
ring “derivative sovereign immunity” on contractors, Brief 
for Petitioner 10, this label is a poor fit.  Sovereign immun-
ity protects governments from the indignity of being sub -
jected to a court’s jurisdiction.  Puerto Rico Aqueduct and 
Sewer Authority , 506 U. S., at 146. We have never de-
scribed the Yearsley doctrine in those terms, nor have we 
suggested that it limits courts’ jurisdiction over contractors.
Cf. Yearsley, 309 U. S., at 19 (noting without disagreement 
that the lower court exercised jurisdiction over the case); 
Campbell-Ewald Co., 577 U. S., at 165–166 (concluding 
that the lower court had jurisdic tion over a case before de -
termining whether Yearsley applied).  Rather,  Yearsley
merely shields contractors from exposure for conduct that
federal law authorized. I therefore agree with the majority

9  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
that the Yearsley doctrine “derives” from the Government’s 
lawmaking authority, not its sovereign immunity.  See 
ante, at 9–10; cf. Campbell-Ewald Co., 577 U. S., at 166– 
167; Sloan Shipyards Corp. v. United States Shipping Bd. 
Emergency Fleet Corporation , 258 U. S. 549, 566–567 
(1922).
Last, unlike with qualified immunity, allowing immedi-
ate appeals of Yearsley denials is not necessary to prevent 
overdeterrence, timidity, and distraction in Government 
service. That is not to say that these concerns are entirely
absent when plaintiffs bring damages actions against Gov-
ernment contractors. As th is Court recognized in Filarsky 
v. Delia, 566 U. S. 377 (2012), the public has an interest in
preventing overdeterrence, timidity, and distraction in
Government functions no matter the “nature of [the defend-
ant’s] particular relationship with the government.”  Id., at 
389–392. But our doctrine already accommodates these
concerns by allowing contractors to invoke qualified im-
munity. Ibid.; Campbell-Ewald Co., 577 U. S., at 167. In-
deed, qualified immunity provides a greater protection to 
contractors than Yearsley does. Whereas Yearsley shields 
only those contractors who act within the bounds of their 
legal authorization, qualified immunity protects “all but the 
plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the 
law.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U. S. 335, 341 (1986).  And as 
the defense’s name indicates, contractors may immediately
appeal denials of qualified immunity.  Mitchell, 472 U. S., 
at 530. Because qualified immunity already vindicates the 
public interest in avoiding overdeterrence, timidity, and 
distraction among contractors, there is no overriding inter-
est in also allowing immediate appeals of orders denying 
Yearsley’s more modest protections.* Cf. Mohawk 
—————— 
*Although Government contractors may generally assert qualified im-
munity, this Court has held that “private prison guards” may not in Rev.

10 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
Industries, Inc., 558 U. S., at 109–112 (declining to treat the
attorney-client privilege as an immunity because other “es-
tablished mechanisms for appell ate review” were availa-
ble).
In sum, allowing immediate appeals of orders denying 
Yearsley defenses is not necessary to vindicate any im -
portant constitutional or pub lic-policy interests.  Accord -
ingly, the Yearsley doctrine is not an immunity from suit. 
And because Yearsley issues can be reviewed on an appeal
from a final judgment, these orders do not otherwise satisfy
the third collateral-order requirement. 
B 
Rather than conducting the public-interest inquiry that
our immunity case law employs, the majority trains most of 
its analysis on a single question: Whether the Yearsley doc-
trine “turn[s] on [the defendant’s] conduct’s legality.”  Ante, 
at 5. Because the Yearsley doctrine does, the majority con-
cludes that it fails to satisfy the third collateral-order re -
quirement. That analysis is oversimplified.
Of course, whether a defense turns on the legality of a
defendant’s conduct can be relevant to the collateral-order 
analysis. For example, the degree of overlap between a 
—————— 
Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983 cases.  See Richardson v. McKnight, 521 
U. S. 399, 412 (1997). Separately, this Court has not decided whether
corporate-contractor defendants like GEO Group may invoke qualified 
immunity.  But see United Pet Supply, Inc.  v. Chattanooga , 768 F. 3d 
464, 484, n. 3 (CA6 2014) (noting that the Sixth Circuit has entertained 
corporate defendants’ assertions of qualified immunity).  Perhaps the
public interest would be well-served by allowing appeals of orders deny-
ing Yearsley defenses to those defendants who cannot invoke qualified 
immunity.  Even so, our doctrine requires us to decide whether Yearsley 
denials are collateral orders as a category, not “as applied” to particular 
defendants.  If, however, most defendants who invoke Yearsley could not 
invoke qualified immunity, the collateral-order analysis might be differ-
ent.  For example, if corporate contractors could never invoke qualified 
immunity, then there would be a stronger argument that denials of 
Yearsley defenses should be immediately appealable.

11  Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
defense and a defendant’s conduct can bear on whether an 
order is “ ‘separate from the merits of the action.’ ”  Ante, at 
7, n. 1; but see Mitchell, 472 U. S., at 527. It is also true 
that certain “immunities from suit” are jurisdictional bars 
that shield a defendant from judicial process regardless of 
whether it acted lawfully. See, e.g., 28 U. S. C. § 1604 (cod-
ifying foreign sovereign immunity as a jurisdictional bar); 
Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 72–73 (1996) 
(treating state sovereign immunity as a jurisdictional
limit).
Nonetheless, the majority’s rule cannot fully explain our
collateral-order case law. Fo r instance, qualified immunity 
is an immunity from suit, yet its applicability can and often
does turn on whether a defendant violated the law. See 
District of Columbia  v. Wesby, 583 U. S. 48, 62–63 (2018). 
Indeed, before this Court decided Pearson v. Callahan, 555 
U. S. 223 (2009), a court evaluating a qualified-immunity
defense had to resolve the legality of the defendant’s alleged 
conduct. Id., at 232; see, e.g., Scott v. Harris, 550 U. S. 372, 
377 (2007). We nevertheless treated (and continue to treat) 
denials of qualified immunity as collateral orders. 
On the other side of the ledger, we have held that several
defenses are not immunities even though they do not turn 
on the legality of the defendant’s conduct.  For instance, this 
Court has held that neither the Federal Tort Claims Act’s 
judgment bar nor a criminal defendant’s right against vin-
dictive prosecution qualifies as an immunity from suit, even
though neither defense concer ns a defendant’s challenged
conduct. See Will, 546 U. S., at 353–355; Hollywood Motor 
Car Co., 458 U. S., at 267–270; see also Digital Equipment 
Corp., 511 U. S., at 884 (holding that a lower court’s refusal 
to enforce a settlement agreement against a plaintiff ’s 
claims was not a collateral order).
In short, although the majority’s focus—whether a de-
fense turns on the legality of the defendant’s conduct—can

12 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL 
ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 
be relevant in the collateral-order analysis, it is not dispos-
itive of whether a defense constitutes an immunity. 
* * * 
Because postponing appellate review of Yearsley issues 
until final judgment would not imperil important constitu -
tional or public-policy interests, I concur in the judgment of 
the Court.

Retrieval chunks

• #1

  1 (Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2025 Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the…

• #2

  Masonry, LLC, 589 U. S. 35, 37–38. That final-judgment rule, by pre- venting piecemeal appeals, “promote s the efficient administration of justice” and “preserves the proper balance between trial and appellate courts.” Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, 582 U. S. 23, 36–37. Under the collateral-order doctrine, however, a…

• #3

  (b) Does Yearsley offer federal contractors a merits defense or in- stead an immunity? Menocal says a defense, because Yearsley gives contractors only a way to show th at their conduct complied with the law. GEO says an immunity—more specifically, “derivative sovereign immunity”—where the Government’s own immuni…

• #4

  question before the Court almost an swers itself. Like the denial of other defenses, a district court’s denial of Yearsley protection is not im- mediately appealable under §1291. Such a ruling is not, as Cohen’s third condition demands, “effectivel y unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.” Van Cauwenberg…

• #5

  Petitioner GEO Group operates a private detention facil- ity in Aurora, Colorado, under a contract with U. S. Immi- gration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The facility holds individuals whose immigration proceedings are pending. 2 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL Opinion of the Court Respondent Alejandro Menocal was d…

• #6

  three conditions deriving from this Court’s decision in Co- hen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 (1949). And an order denying Yearsley protection, the Tenth Circuit held, does not do so. The court saw no need to address the first or third Cohen conditions because it con- cluded that a Yearsley d…

• #7

  100, 106 (2009) (quoting Cohen, 337 U. S., at 546). We iden- tify those decisions by cate gory, not case-specific circum - stances. See Mohawk, 558 U. S., at 107. And we erect a high bar. A non-terminal order may be appealed, Cohen held, only if it “finally determine[s] claims of right separa- ble from, and col…

• #8

  obeyed the law, he should not, for example, have to pay damages. By contrast, a party asserting an immunity “makes no challenge” to “the merits of the charge against him.” Abney v. United States , 431 U. S. 651, 659 (1977). That defendant need never say he followed the law, because his claim of immunity does no t…

• #9

  “mere defense” to liability, as we have noted, offers some - thing different, and of lesser value. Mitchell, 472 U. S., at 526. Because it establishes that the defendant acted law- fully, a valid defense leads to a judgment of non-liability. But it does not allow the defendant to escape the varied ri- gors and c…

• #10

  the reasons in any detail. See Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U. S. 139, 144 (1993) (“Once it is established that” a State is “immune from suit in federal court, it follows that the elements of the Cohen collateral order doctrine are satisfied”). Recall that Cohen’s second …

• #11

  U. S., at 20. Nonetheless, they sued the contractor for money damages. This Court held that there was “no liability on the part of the contractor.” Id., at 21. Drawing from multiple prece- dents involving agency law, the Court explained that a con- tractor acting as an agent of the Government could be held lia…

• #12

  conflict with the general rule that sovereign immunity is not transferrable to agents, including contractors, of a gov- ernment. As Justice Holmes once explained, the Federal Government’s immunity from a suit (absent a statute providing otherwise) “does not extend to those that act[ ] in its name.” Sloan Shipyard…

• #13

  which cannot be invoked by the State’s agents. Id., at 642– 643. Yet all was not lost: The agent got something. Alt- hough the agent was “not exempt from suit,” it could “suc- cessfully defend” against the charges by showing the “law- ful authority under which [it] acted.” Id., at 643. Those 11 Cite as: 607 U…

• #14

  ond cited case, Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U. S. 153 (2016), gives GEO even less to work with. That decision merely quotes the imprecise phrase in Brady on the way to rejecting another contractor’s claim (even more expansive than GEO’s) to share in the Government’s sovereign im- munity. 577 U. S., at 166. …

• #15

  applying” the collateral-order doctrine established by Co- hen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541 (1949). Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter, 558 U. S. 100, 115 (2009) (T HOMAS, J., concurring in part and concur- ring in judgment). I remain of the view that we should not expand the Cohen colla…

• #16

  conclusions solely on the fact that Yearsley’s applicability “turn[s] on [the defendant’s] conduct’s legality.” Ante, at 5. Under the collateral-order doctrine, defendants may some- times appeal the denial of a defense immediately when do - ing so is necessary to vindicate important constitutional or public-poli…

• #17

  We first applied this reasoning in Cohen, which involved a district-court order that excused the plaintiffs from a litiga- tion-bond requirement. 337 U. S., at 544–547. Applicable state law required the plaintiffs to post such a bond to se - cure their obligation to pay the defendant’s litigation ex- penses and…

• #18

  that juncture, the defendant has either been released from custody or begun a sentence of incarceration. Thus, if there were to be any appellate review of bail, it would need to oc- cur before final judgment. 4 GEO GROUP, INC. v. MENOCAL ALITO, J., concurring in judgment In sum, our early collateral-order cases…

• #19

  Helstoski’s logic, once a court designates a defense as an “immunity from suit,” that defense satisfies the third col - lateral-order criterion. Digital Equipment , 511 U. S., at 870. We have likewise recognized that an order denying an immunity from suit will also satisfy the other two collat - eral-order requir…

• #20

  tutes an immunity requires an evaluation of “the value of the interests” that an immediate appeal would advance. Digital Equipment, 511 U. S., at 878–879. Specifically, we explained in Will v. Hallock , 546 U. S. 345 (2006), that a defense “should be treated as an immunity demanding the protection of a collatera…

• #21

  As these decisions illustrate, we have been cautious in re- cent years about expanding the collateral-order doctrine, but we have not closed the book on Cohen. Just two Terms ago, we designated another defense as an immunity and evaluated it in an interl ocutory posture. See Trump v. United States, 603 U. S. 593…

• #22

  ring “derivative sovereign immunity” on contractors, Brief for Petitioner 10, this label is a poor fit. Sovereign immun- ity protects governments from the indignity of being sub - jected to a court’s jurisdiction. Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority , 506 U. S., at 146. We have never de- scribed the Yearsl…

• #23

  at 530. Because qualified immunity already vindicates the public interest in avoiding overdeterrence, timidity, and distraction among contractors, there is no overriding inter- est in also allowing immediate appeals of orders denying Yearsley’s more modest protections.* Cf. Mohawk —————— *Although Government con…

• #24

  invoke qualified immunity, the collateral-order analysis might be differ- ent. For example, if corporate contractors could never invoke qualified immunity, then there would be a stronger argument that denials of Yearsley defenses should be immediately appealable. 11 Cite as: 607 U. S. ____ (2026) ALITO, J., con…

• #25

  be relevant in the collateral-order analysis, it is not dispos- itive of whether a defense constitutes an immunity. * * * Because postponing appellate review of Yearsley issues until final judgment would not imperil important constitu - tional or public-policy interests, I concur in the judgment of the Court.