MYRA CORLEY, CHARLES CORLEY, Plаintiffs-Appellants, versus LONG-LEWIS, INC., individually and as successor to Burrell Corp., f.k.a. Lewis Hardware Co.; BIRMINGHAM RUBBER AND GASKET CO., et al., Defendants-Appellees.
No. 18-10474
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
(July 16, 2020)
[PUBLISH]
D.C. Docket No. 2:09-cv-01812-VEH
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, JILL PRYOR and LUCK, Circuit Judges.
WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge:
This appeal requires us to resolve three difficult questions of appellate jurisdiction before deciding a single issue on the merits. The jurisdictional issues are (1) whether an order granting a voluntary dismissal without prejudice,
I. BACKGROUND
Charles and Myra Corley sued dozens of companies that allegedly supplied asbestos-laden products that Charles used when he served in the United States Navy and later when he was a self-employed mechanic and repairman. The Corleys alleged that these products caused Charles‘s malignant mesothelioma and sought damages under state law. After Charles‘s death, his son, Oscar Corley, joined the suit as the executor of Charles‘s estate. Oscar and Myra amended their complaint to add a claim under the Alabama Wrongful Death Act. The Corleys originally filed their complaint in an Alabama court, and the companies removed the suit to the Northern District of Alabama.
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred this action to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where several of the companies filed motions for summary judgment. As relevant to this appeal, the Pennsylvania district court granted summary judgment in favor of 17 companies that supplied products that Charles used when he was in the Navy—a group we will call the “Navy suppliers.” The district сourt determined that the statute of limitations had expired on the claims against these companies. The Corleys filed a motion to reconsider, which asked for “leave to elect the application of maritime law and, in so doing, the [extended] statute of limitations recognized under maritime law.” After explaining that the Corleys had not previously argued that maritime law applied, the district court denied the motion on the ground that a motion for reconsideration was far too late in the litigation for the Corleys to change their theory of liability.
Over the next year, the Pennsylvania district court whittled the suit down to what it thought were the final two companies in the suit—Honeywell International, Inc., and Ford Motor Company. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation then remanded the suit to the Northern District of Alabama. The Alabama district court later dismissed Honeywell and Ford from the suit with prejudice.
The Corleys filed an appeal to this Court that challenged the Pennsylvania order denying their motion to reconsider the summary judgment in favor of the Navy suppliers. Two defendants, Fairbanks Morse Pump Corporation and Garlock Sealing Technologies, LLC, filed suggestions of bankruptcy in this Court. After investigation, we discovered that the Corley‘s claims against Fairbanks and Garlock were still pending in the district court and dismissed the Corleys’ appeal.
On remand to the district court, the Corleys reported that Fairbanks and Garlock had filed petitions for relief in a bankruptcy court in 2010, which had stayed proceedings against them in this suit. Three months later, the bankruptcy court confirmed a reorganization plan that prevented the Corleys from litigating their claims against Fairbanks and Garlock in this suit. Because their claims against the two companies had “already been eliminated as a matter of law” in the bankruptcy court, the Corleys asked the district court to voluntarily dismiss those claims without prejudice. See
II. JURISDICTION
We have a threshold obligation to ensure that we have jurisdiction to hear an appeal, for “[w]ithout jurisdiction [we] cannot proceed at all in any cause.” Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 506, 514 (1869); accord Univ. of S. Ala. v. Am. Tobacco Co., 168 F.3d 405, 410 (11th Cir. 1999). Because we are a court of limited jurisdiction, adjudicating an appeal without jurisdiction would “offend[] fundamental principles of separation of powers.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env‘t, 523 U.S. 83, 94 (1998). In practical terms, our jurisdiction “must be both (1) authorized by statute and (2) within constitutional limits.” OFS Fitel, LLC v. Epstein, Becker & Green, P.C., 549 F.3d 1344, 1355 (11th Cir. 2008).
To say that the odd procedural history of this appeal tests the boundaries of our jurisdiction wоuld be an understatement. The Corleys challenge an interlocutory order from a district court in another circuit, and they do so by appealing from an order granting their motion for a voluntary dismissal without prejudice. But even so, we conclude that we have jurisdiction to address the merits.
We divide our discussion of the jurisdictional issues into three parts. First, we address whether an order granting a motion to voluntarily dismiss an action without prejudice is a “final decision[].”
A. The Corleys Appealed a Final Decision.
The Corleys invoke our subject-matter jurisdiction over “appeals from all final decisions of the district courts of the United States.”
Under
But we do not write on a blank slate. Indeed, “the canvas looks like one that Jackson Pollock got to first.” Gunn v. Minton, 568 U.S. 251, 258 (2013). Our precedent splinters in multiple directions on whether voluntary dismissals without prejudice are final. Compare, e.g., McGregor v. Bd. of Comm‘rs, 956 F.2d 1017, 1020 (11th Cir. 1992) (“An order granting a plaintiff‘s motion for voluntary dismissal pursuant to
Our divergent decisions can be traced to two opinions of the former Fifth Circuit: LeCompte v. Mr. Chip, Inc., 528 F.2d 601 (5th Cir. 1976), and Ryan v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 577 F.2d 298 (5th Cir. 1978). To “determine which of our precedents binds us,” CSX Transp., Inc. v. Gen. Mills, Inc., 846 F.3d 1333, 1337 (11th Cir. 2017), we must begin with them.
LeCompte involved a plaintiff‘s appeal from an order granting his motion under
Ryan v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 577 F.2d 298, came two years later. After the district court in Ryan had dismissed all but one of the plaintiff‘s claims, the plaintiff moved to voluntarily dismiss the paragraph of his complaint that contained his remaining substantive allegation. Id. at 300. Although the district court granted the plaintiff‘s narrow motion, it “did not purport to dismiss the jurisdictional allegations of [the] complaint . . . and it specifically noted that the dismissal was without prejudice to [the plaintiff‘s] right to file again.” Id. When the plaintiff tried to appeal, the former Fifth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction. Id. It concluded that no final judgment existed because “the torso of the plaintiff‘s complaint—including the identification of the parties and the jurisdictional allegations—remain[ed] before the district court.” Id. at 301. Ryan later explained that the “chief problem” with finality in the appeal was that the plaintiff‘s dismissal motion was “more appropriately considered to be an amendment to the complaint under
LeCompte and Ryan are not in conflict. We can read LeCompte to establish that a voluntary dismissal under
Perhaps because no conflict existed, bоth the former Fifth Circuit and, at least initially, this Court held that voluntary dismissals without prejudice were final in a variety of circumstances. Shortly after Ryan, our predecessor court explained that LeCompte “stated the usual rule governing the appealability of orders granting motions for voluntary dismissal” and reiterated that voluntary dismissals under
The conflict came in Mesa v. United States, which also involved an order granting a motion to voluntarily dismiss a suit without prejudice. See 61 F.3d 20, 21 (11th Cir. 1995). Mesa held that the order of dismissal before it was not final. See id. It interpreted Ryan to hold that “the voluntary dismissal of [a] plaintiff‘s remaining claim could not be considered final because a voluntary dismissal is without prejudice
We first spotted the tension in our precedent in State Treasurer v. Barry, 168 F.3d 8. After the district court in State Treasurer granted a partial summary judgment in favor of the defendants, the parties filed a joint stipulation to dismiss the remaining claim in the suit. Id. at 9–10; see also
This appeal picks up where State Treasurer left off. To be sure, we have revisited whether stipulated or noticed dismissals under
Two principles govern our approach to resolving conflicts in our precedent. First, we are “obligated, if at all possible, to distill from apparently conflicting prior panel decisions a basis of reconciliation and to apply that reconciled rule.” United States v. Hogan, 986 F.2d 1364, 1369 (11th Cir. 1993). And second, if we cannot reconcile our precedent, we must follow the oldest decision that governs the issue. See Gen. Mills, 846 F.3d at 1338; accord Bryan A. Garner et al., The Law of Judicial Precedent § 36, at 303–04 (2016).
We see no way to give force to Mesa in the light of our earlier precedents. Even if State Treasurer is correct that we can limit LeCompte to situations in which the district court attached “stringent conditions” to the voluntary-dismissal order, 168 F.3d at 15, we must still reconcile Mesa with our other earlier decisions, at least one of which is materially identical to it. In both McGregor and Mesa, the plaintiff suffered
Because we cannot harmonize our decisions, the earliest-precedent rule applies. See Gen. Mills, 846 F.3d at 1340. And under that rule, we must follow McGregor, which both predates Mesa and is consistent with оur earlier decisions. So we hold that an order granting a motion to voluntarily dismiss the remainder of a complaint under
B. We Have Territorial Jurisdiction to Hear This Appeal.
The next issue concerns our territorial jurisdiction under
The parties’ disagreement tracks a circuit split over the application of
We agree with the majority interpretation and hold that the phrase “reviewable decisions” in
The rest of
The Navy suppliers argue that our decision in Roofing and Sheet Metal Services, Inc. v. La Quinta Motor Inns, Inc., 689 F.2d 982, 986 (11th Cir. 1982), requires a different interpretation of
We disagree. The holding of Roofing does not extend beyond transfer orders. Roofing reached its decision in the shadow of what it called the “well established” rule that “a transferee court cannot directly review the transfer order itself.” 689 F.2d at 986 (quoting Starnes v. McGuire, 512 F.2d 918, 924 (D.C. Cir. 1974) (en banc)); see also id. at 987 (“[W]e know of no case in which [any] circuit . . . has in fact reviewed a transfer order issued by a district court in another circuit.“). When Roofing held that it could not review the transfer order before it, it joined the uniform consensus of our sister circuits that an out-of-circuit transfer order is not reviewable on appeal in the transferee circuit. See Posnanski v. Gibney, 421 F.3d 977, 980 (9th Cir. 2005); United States v. Copley, 25 F.3d 660, 662 (8th Cir. 1994); Lewelling v. Farmers Ins. of Columbus, Inc., 879 F.2d 212, 218 (6th Cir. 1989); McGeorge, 871 F.2d at 953–54; Reyes v. Supervisor of the Drug Enf‘t Admin., 834 F.2d 1093, 1095 (1st Cir. 1987); Linnell v. Sloan, 636 F.2d 65, 67 (4th Cir. 1980); Starnes, 512 F.2d at 924; Purex Corp. v. St. Louis Nat‘l Stockyards Co., 374 F.2d 998, 1000 (7th Cir. 1967); see also Songbyrd, Inc. v. Estate of Grossman, 206 F.3d 172, 178 (2d Cir. 2000)
In sum, we have territorial jurisdiction. The term “reviewable decisions” in
C. The Corleys Have Standing to Appeal.
The final jurisdictional issue concerns our jurisdiction under
“To have a case or controversy, a litigant must establish that he has standing, which must exist ‘throughout all stages of litigation,‘” including on appeal. United States v. Amodeo, 916 F.3d 967, 971 (11th Cir. 2019) (quoting Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U.S. 693, 705 (2013)). Standing is an “irreducible constitutional minimum,” and a “court is powerless to continue” in its absence. CAMP Legal Def.
Fund, Inc. v. City of Atlanta, 451 F.3d 1257, 1269 (11th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). To establish standing, a litigant must prove that “he has suffered a concrete and particularized injury.” Amodeo, 916 F.3d at 971 (quoting Hollingsworth, 570 U.S. at 704). In the appellate context, “the primary meaning of the injury requirement is adverseness.” Id. Specifically, the litigant “must be adverse as to the final judgment” to appeal from that judgment. OFS Fitel, 549 F.3d at 1356 (internal quotation marks omitted).
As a general rule, a plaintiff is not adverse to a voluntary dismissal that he requested. See, e.g., Druhan v. Am. Mut. Life, 166 F.3d 1324, 1326 (11th Cir. 1999). This rule “can easily be understood,” the former Fifth Circuit explained, because “the plaintiff has acquired that which he sought,” so the order cannot be adverse. LeCompte, 528 F.2d at 603.
Appellate standing is murkier when a plaintiff appeals from a voluntary dismissal to challenge an adverse interlocutory order. On the one hand, we have held that plaintiffs have standing to appeal from a voluntary dismissal if the adverse interlocutory order is effectively “case-dispositive” and “the district court bases its dismissal with рrejudice on the fact that its interlocutory decision disposed of the entire case.” OFS Fitel, 549 F.3d at 1359 (order excluding expert testimony that was legally necessary to prevail). On the other hand, interlocutory orders that do not address the merits of a plaintiff‘s claim cannot establish appellate standing. See Druhan, 166 F.3d at 1326 (order denying the plaintiff‘s motion to remand her suit to state court); accord Woodard v. STP Corp., 170 F.3d 1043, 1044 (11th Cir. 1999). The second class of appeals lacks adverseness because there is “no contested court ruling, either interlocutory or final, as to
This appeal does not fit neatly within our precedents on voluntary dismissals. Unlike the plaintiff in OFS Fitel, the Corleys did not voluntarily dismiss their claims to contest a “case-dispositive” order. They instead challenge a years-old order denying their motion to reconsider a summary judgment in favor of some defendants. But unlike the plaintiffs in Druhan and Woodard, the Corleys contest an order that completely resolved their claims against certain defendants on the merits and merged into the final judgment. See Akin, 991 F.2d at 1563 (“When a district court enters a final judgment, all prior non-final orders and rulings which produced the judgment are merged into the judgment and subject to review on appeal.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Because the Corleys never consented to that order, the final judgment contains an adverse decision on the merits that does not “derive[] only frоm the plaintiff‘s own written request.” OFS Fitel, 549 F.3d at 1356.
Although our precedent on voluntary dismissals does not resolve this appeal, a broader principle of appellate standing establishes that the Corleys are adverse to the final judgment: “a party is ‘aggrieved’ and ordinarily can appeal a decision ‘granting in part and denying in part the remedy requested.‘” Forney v. Apfel, 524 U.S. 266, 271 (1998) (quoting United States v. Jose, 519 U.S. 54, 56 (1996)). Even though the Corleys are not adverse to the order of voluntary dismissal, which granted their requested remedy for Fairbanks and Garlock, they are adverse to the order that denied their motion to reconsider the summary judgment in favor of the Navy suppliers. And the latter order is just as much a part of the final judgment as the voluntary-dismissal order. So, notwithstanding their voluntary dismissal, the Corleys arе adverse to part of the final judgment, which is enough to establish appellate standing. See Aaro, Inc. v. Daewoo Int‘l (Am.) Corp., 755 F.2d 1398, 1400–01 (11th Cir. 1985) (holding that plaintiffs who prevailed at trial on some of their claims and consented to a remittitur order could still appeal because they challenged an adverse partial summary judgment that had merged into the final judgment); see also Forney, 524 U.S. at 271; OFS Fitel, 549 F.3d at 1359 (“[W]hen the appeal is from a final judgment, the fact that the appeal substantively concerns an interlocutory ruling is no bar to jurisdiction.“).
III. STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review the denial of a motion for reconsideration for an abuse of discretion. See Richardson v. Johnson, 598 F.3d 734, 740 (11th Cir. 2010).
IV. DISCUSSION
The merits of this appeal are straightforward. The Corleys contend that the district court abused its discretion when it dеnied their motion for reconsideration, which argued that they had a valid claim against the Navy suppliers under maritime law. The Corleys argue that they had a right to “make an election between civil and admiralty law,” even after the district court entered a summary judgment. We disagree.
When the district court denied the Corleys’ motion, it explained that the Corleys had “never argued previously that maritime law should apply.” In their complaint, the Corleys instead alleged that “no claim of admiralty or maritime law is raised.” They maintained this position in their response
We have long held that district courts act well within their discretion when they refuse to consider arguments that a party made for the first time in a motion for reconsideration. See, e.g., Bost v. Fed. Express Corp., 372 F.3d 1233, 1242-43 (11th Cir. 2004); Hashwani v. Barbar, 822 F.2d 1038, 1041 (11th Cir. 1987). As we have explained, “[t]here is a significant difference between pointing out errors in a court‘s decision on grounds that have already been urged before the court and raising altogether new arguments on a motion to amend; if accepted, the latter essentially affords a litigant two bites at the apple.” Am. Home Assur. Co. v. Glenn Estess & Assocs., Inc., 763 F.2d 1237, 1239 (11th Cir. 1985) (internal quotation marks omitted). This principle extends to plaintiffs’ motions for reconsideration that urge district courts to apply a different law to govern their claims for relief. See id. (holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it rejected a choice-of-law argument that a party raised for the first time in a motion for reconsideration).
The Corleys contend that
The Corleys are not entitled to a second bite at the apple. They argued that Alabama law applied until the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Navy suppliers. Their motion for reconsideration was the first time they even suggested that maritime law applied. And they do not offer a compelling explanation to justify their delay. For example, the Corleys’ main argument is that the intervening decision of a district court in аn unrelated suit, Conner v. Alfa Laval, Inc., 799 F. Supp. 2d 455 (E.D. Pa. 2011), changed the law and allowed them to bring a maritime claim. But, of course, decisions of district courts “have no binding precedential authority beyond the case in which they are entered,” Dow Jones & Co. v. Kaye, 256 F.3d 1251, 1258 n.10 (11th Cir. 2001); accord Garner et al., The Law of Judicial Precedent § 29, at 255, so Conner could not have affected their ability to bring a claim under maritime law. At bottom, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that this motion was an incorrect vehicle to change the substantive law governing the suit.
V. CONCLUSION
We AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, joined by LUCK, Circuit Judge, concurring:
Although this Court has jurisdiction to hear the Corleys’ appeal from their voluntary
Nearly every circuit has encountered similar issues to those we considered in this appeal. We are not the first court to face an intracircuit split in our precedent. See Robinson-Reeder v. Am. Council on Educ., 571 F.3d 1333, 1338-39 & n.6 (D.C. Cir. 2009) (explaining that several inter- and intra-circuit splits exist on the question); Chappelle v. Beacon Commc‘ns Corp., 84 F.3d 652, 654 (2d Cir. 1996) (listing intracircuit splits); see also Terry W. Schackmann & Barry L. Pickens, The Finality Trap: Accidentally Losing Your Right to Appeal (Part I), 58 J. Mo. Bar 78, 84 (2002) (сautioning litigants that judicial decisions in this area are not “assured of adherence in the future” and are sometimes “ignore[d]“). And although the panel opinion compares this Circuit‘s finality doctrine on Rule 41(a) to a Jackson Pollock painting, we might have also called it an “egregious mess,” Williams v. Seidenbach, 958 F.3d 341, 355 (5th Cir. 2020) (en banc) (Willett, J., concurring in the judgment) (internal quotation marks omitted), or lamented that “[i]t would be an understatement to say that our precedents . . . are difficult to harmonize,” West v. Macht, 197 F.3d 1185, 1188 (7th Cir. 1999).
Nor are we the only circuit to riddle our doctrine with exceptions to the purported nonfinality of voluntary dismissals without prejudice. Many circuits, for example, assess the likelihood that the plaintiff will relitigate dismissed claims. See, e.g., Spring Creek Expl. & Prod. Co., LLC v. Hess Bakken Inv., II, LLC, 887 F.3d 1003, 1015–16 (10th Cir. 2018). In other сircuits, this plaintiff can secure appellate jurisdiction by recanting before the appellate panel any intention of pursuing the voluntarily dismissed claims. See, e.g., Jewish People for the Betterment of Westhampton Beach v. Vill. of Westhampton Beach, 778 F.3d 390, 394 (2d Cir. 2015). The plaintiff will receive a particularly good deal in the Third Circuit, which requires him to renounce pursuing the dismissed claims only in the same district court. See Doe v. Hesketh, 828 F.3d 159, 165 (3d Cir. 2016). The First Circuit will hear an appeal if he “unequivocally” reserved the right to appeal in the district court, see Scanlon v. M.V. SUPER SERVANT 3, 429 F.3d 6, 8 (1st Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted), while the Federal and Ninth Circuits will reach the merits if he persuades them that he acted in good faith and did not intend to manufacture appellatе jurisdiction
In the light of the volatility Rule 41(a) brings to appellate jurisdiction, district courts faced with voluntary-dismissal motions would act well within their discretion to redirect litigants to other avenues to appeal. See McCants v. Ford Motor Co., Inc., 781 F.2d 855, 857 (11th Cir. 1986) (“Dismissal on motion of the plaintiff pursuant to Rule 41(a)(2) is within the sound discretion of the district court, and its order may be reviewed only for an abuse of discretion.“). The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide litigants with better options to secure an appeal.
For example, district courts can designate decisions on the merits as final under
Alternatively, district courts may sever a party‘s remaining claims. See
Still other possibilities remain open to еxplore. For example, a district court could grant leave to amend a complaint to drop lingering claims. See
District courts should consider the availability of these options when deciding whether to grant a voluntary dismissal without prejudice under
I express no opinion on the need for such a shift, much less on the merits of any future dispute over our appellate jurisdiction. Regardless of these issues, litigants have a number of more reliable tools to use when seeking appeals. They should look first to them before resorting to Rule 41(a).