Posts tagged “Voluntary Dismissals”

I have a new article on appeals from voluntary dismissals after an adverse interlocutory decision.…

Earlier this year, the Eleventh Circuit reiterated its rule that litigants cannot voluntarily dismiss individual claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1). That portion of the rule permits plaintiffs to voluntarily dismiss “an action without a court order.” So plaintiffs can dismiss only entire actions under Rule 41(a)(1), and attempts to dismiss individual claims are ineffective.…

In In re Esteva, the Eleventh Circuit dismissed an appeal after concluding that a Rule 41(a)(1)(A) voluntary dismissal was ineffective. The stipulated dismissal purported to dismiss all unresolved claims. But according to the Eleventh Circuit, that’s not allowed—Rule 41(a)(1)(A) permits the voluntary dismissal of only entire actions, not individual claims.…

I’ve written a lot on this site about the finality trap in the last few years. Now I’ve published an essay on the trap in the New York University Law Review Online. I argue that the trap is asinine. And there’s an easy fix to it: let litigants disclaim the right to refile voluntarily dismissed claims.…

Litigants sometimes try to create a final, appealable decision by voluntarily dismissing some or all of their claims. These dismissals fall under the banner of manufactured finality, and they come in several forms. A litigant who loses on some claims might voluntarily dismiss its remaining claims and then appeal the loss.…

The last year or so has seen some significant judicial activity when it comes to the finality trap. The trap can arise after a party voluntarily dismisses some of its claims without prejudice and then tries to appeal. This scenario makes some courts of appeals suspicious, as parties sometimes use these voluntary dismissals to manufacture an interlocutory appeal.…

In Frank v. Crawley Petroleum Corp., the Tenth Circuit addressed just about every appellate-jurisdiction issue that could arise when an attorney appeals to challenge conditions on refiling. The district court in Frank had granted the plaintiff’s voluntary dismissal of a purported class action. But in doing so, the court restricted the plaintiff’s attorney’s ability to refile a similar class action.…

In Corley v. Long-Lewis, Inc., the Eleventh Circuit held that a district court’s resolution of all claims was final and appealable despite the plaintiffs’ voluntarily dismissing some of those claims without prejudice. In doing so, the court had to wade through its conflicting lines of authority in this area—one holding that the resolution of all claims is final despite the voluntary dismissal, the other holding that it’s not.…

The Fifth Circuit’s finality trap has another victim. In Firefighters’ Retirement System v. Citco Group Ltd., the court held that the district court had not issued a final, appealable decision when claims against one defendant had been dismissed without prejudice. To appeal, the plaintiffs needed to obtain a certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) (and will presumably be allowed to do so).…

In Affinity Living Group, LLC v. StarStone Specialty Insurance Co., a divided Fourth Circuit held that it had appellate jurisdiction despite the parties’ stipulating to dismiss some claims without prejudice. The district court had issued a decision that necessarily—though not technically—resolved all of the claims, including the voluntarily dismissed ones.…