Jackson, J., dissenting
One key to this discretionary-stay tradition is its “suppleness of adaptation to varying conditions.” Id., at 256. A stay “is not a matter of right” and cannot be imposed “reflexively.” Nken, 556 U. S., at 427 (internal quotation marks omitted).
That has long been the default rule. A court’s discretion “to grant a stay pending review” is “firmly imbedded in our judicial system, consonant with the historic procedures of federal appellate courts.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). It is “a power as old as the judicial system of the nation.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted); see 28 U. S. C. §1651(a) (All Writs Act, originally enacted in 1789, 1 Stat. 81–82).
Significantly for present purposes, discretionary stays are the default for interlocutory appeals in particular—and this dates back to the first federal interlocutory-appeal statute in 1891. Judiciary Act of 1891, §7, 26 Stat. 828; see 15A C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §3906, p. 346 (3d ed. 2022). There, Congress established that “proceedings … in the court below shall not be stayed unless otherwise ordered by that court during the pendency of such appeal.” §7, 26 Stat. 828 (emphasis added).
That statute cemented a background discretionary-stay rule that governed even where Congress was silent—as this Court has repeatedly recognized. Shortly after the 1891 Act, a case arose under conditions in which the Act was silent about whether a stay should issue. In re Haberman Mfg. Co., 147 U. S. 525, 530 (1893) (finding “no express provision” on point). This Court applied the background rule: “[T]he Circuit Court had a discretion to grant or refuse” a stay. Ibid. Another case of statutory silence arose a few years later. In re McKenzie, 180 U. S. 536, 550–551 (1901). Again, this Court reiterated federal courts’ “inherent power … to stay or supersede proceedings on appeal” from an interlocutory order. Id., at 551. As this Court summarized in
