An earlier Supreme Court case establishing that mandamus is not a routine tool for challenging discovery rulings.

Will v. United States addressed whether mandamus could be used to challenge a district court's pretrial discovery order in a criminal case, and the Supreme Court's answer reinforced the narrow scope of the remedy.

The underlying discovery dispute

The government sought mandamus to prevent a district court from enforcing a discovery order the government believed exceeded the scope of what the applicable rules permitted.

The Court's cautious approach

The Supreme Court's opinion emphasized that mandamus should not be used as a vehicle for interlocutory (mid-case) appeals of ordinary discovery disputes, even significant ones, reinforcing that mandamus is meant for genuinely extraordinary situations rather than routine litigation disagreements.

Balancing government interests against mandamus's narrow scope

Notably, the Court still recognized that mandamus could, in a sufficiently compelling case, be an appropriate vehicle for the government to challenge a discovery order — illustrating that while the bar is high, it is not absolute, and case-specific circumstances matter.

Why Will continues to matter

Will is frequently cited alongside Kerr and later cases as part of the well-established line of Supreme Court precedent cautioning lower appellate courts against using mandamus too readily to review interlocutory rulings, particularly discovery orders that are common in ordinary litigation.

The throughline connecting these cases

Read together, Will, Kerr, and Cheney form a consistent doctrinal thread: mandamus against a trial court remains available, but only where the error is clear, the harm from waiting for appeal would be serious, and no adequate alternative exists — the same three considerations that recur throughout modern mandamus practice.