Sanctions against vexatious litigants — who paper the courts with suit after suit alleging the same rejected claims — commonly take the form of orders requiring that require the litigant to obtain leave of court before he or she files yet another lawsuit on the same subject matter. (See our post of May 11, 2007.) Is that an appealable order? Under Cunningham v. Hamilton County, 527 U.S. 198 (1999), an order imposing monetary sanctions is not ‛final“ and may be appealed only at the end of the case. It seems that Molski v. Evergreen Dynasty Corp., 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 20966 (9th Cir. Aug. 31, 2007), is the first court of appeals opinion to consider whether Cunningham's holding extends to a vexatious litigant order, which is non-monetary and has immediate repercussions on the litigant. The Molski Court held that such an order is not immediately appealable, even though the litigant may be barred from filing claims without leave of court for some time. The Ninth Circuit reasoned that such an order is ‛not conclusive,“ that the collateral order doctrine is inapplicable, and that ‛allowing immediate appeals of pre-filing orders would permit piecemeal appeals and result in a costly succession of appeals from the district court's rulings before entry of final judgment.“ The vexatious litigant is not an appealing character, so it is hard to feel sympathetic, but one thing the Molski Court did not consider is whether such an order is effectively a preliminary injunction and, therefore, appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). In context, however, the Ninth Circuit's ruling preserved the vexatious litigant’s appeal in Molski, because no immediate appeal had been taken, but a notice of appeal had been filed within 30 days of final judgment. (On the merits, sanction affirmed.)