In City of Jacksonville v. Jacksonville Hospitality Holdings, L.P., No. 22-12419 (11th Cir. Sept. 13, 2023), the Eleventh Circuit holds in a matter of first impression that all parties to a case—not just those directly involved in the dismissal—must sign a Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) dismissal motion for it to be effective. Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) permits a plaintiff to dismiss an action without a court order by filing “a stipulation of dismissal signed by all parties who have appeared.”
“This saga began in March 2015, when the City of Jacksonville (the City) filed a second amended complaint to recover costs and damages related to the contamination of soil and groundwater near a gas plant located within its borders.” Though there were originally three defendants, as the case progressed, more third-party defendants were added to the case. “Bit by bit, whether through amended complaints, summary judgments, or voluntary dismissals, the claims dropped off. Important for this case, numerous claims were ‘dismissed’ using stipulations of voluntary dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii).”
Altogether, seven stipulations were entered in this case but, significantly for this appeal, not one of them was executed by all the parties that had appeared in the case. “After the dust settled and all the claims were seemingly resolved, Continental filed its notice of appeal, challenging an earlier district court order that denied its motion to voluntarily dismiss Houston pursuant to Rule 41(a)(2).”
The Eleventh Circuit dismisses the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, holding that even the presence of one defective dismissal in the docket deprives the case of finality.
The panel begins by noting its recent decision in In re Esteva, 60 F.4th 664 (11th Cir. 2023), which held that a “plain reading” of Rule 41(a)(1)(A) “reveals that [it] does not authorize the voluntary dismissal of individual claims.” Only entire actions, not just claims, may be dismissed by stipulation. This same principle was later extended to Rule 41(a)(2), which allows an action to be dismissed “at the plaintiff’s request only by court order, on terms that the court considers proper.” (see May 12, 2023 blog entry).
“We now pick up where those cases left off and turn to the meaning of the phrase ‘all parties who have appeared.’ There have [sic] been a paucity of cases addressing this interpretive question, and those that do exist, unhelpfully enough, arrive at different conclusions.” The Fifth Circuit recognizes the validity of a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) signed by fewer than all the parties. National City Golf Finance v. Scott, 899 F.3d 412, 415 n.3 (5th Cir. 2018). Other non-precedential decisions have rejected this conclusion.
“Looking to the text of Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), there is simply no language that qualifies the clause “all parties who appeared.” The lack of any words restricting the subsection’s scope suggests that a broad reading—one covering all parties in a lawsuit—is warranted. . . . And all means all.”
“[W]e are not blind to the inconveniences this may cause parties in large, multi-defendant lawsuits. And, we further recognize the drafters’ directive that the Federal Rules should be ‘construed, administered, and employed by the court and the parties to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 1. However, there are practical considerations that support this holding as well . . . . By requiring each and every party that has thus far appeared in a lawsuit to sign a stipulation of dismissal, this construction helps to ensure that other parties are not somehow prejudiced by the sudden dismissal of a defendant.” The panel notes that in cases where all defendants may not consent to stipulate to dismiss, there are alternative routes to dismissal under Rules 41(a)(2) and 54(b), or amending the complaint remove parties under Rule 15.
The panel wraps up: “The eight-year path of this litigation has been long and winding, and unfortunately, we must extend it a little further. Because many parties purported to voluntarily dismiss their claims through joint stipulations but did not obtain the signatures of ‘all parties who ha[d] appeared’ as we have interpreted that phrase here, the dismissals were ineffective, and the claims remain before the district court. Because judgment is not final on all of the claims, we lack jurisdiction to hear this appeal.”
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