The Federal Circuit held that a voluntary dismissal is not an appealable final decision. But it also held that this lack of a final decision means the case must go on, despite the plaintiff’s voluntary dismissal.
May 9, 2019
Last year, I wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision in Microsoft Corp. v. Baker appeared to hold that the district court proceedings in a case never ended:
The plaintiffs in Baker voluntarily dismissed all of their claims with prejudice, and the district court had nothing else to do. But according to the [Supreme] Court, the voluntary dismissal in Baker was not a “final decision” and thus could not be appealed. A final decision is normally defined as one that marks the end of district court proceedings, leaving nothing else for the district court to do but enforce the judgment. That standard definition suggests that the decision in Baker was final. The Supreme Court said, however, that it wasn’t. So it would seem that the district court proceedings in Baker were interminable.
This was an intentionally silly interpretation of Baker, used to illustrate the problems that stem from building most of the law of federal appellate jurisdiction atop judicial interpretations of the term “final decision.” But now it seems that a court has made Baker’s potential silliness a reality.