The Eleventh Circuit in Weinstein v. 440 Corp., No. 23-13807 (11th Cir, July 25, 2025), holds that there is a final judgment when an individual plaintiff in a multi-plaintiff case voluntarily dismisses all of their claims against all defendants in a case under Fed. R. Civ. P. 21 or 41(a).
Rule 41(a) allows a plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss an “action” by (i) filing a notice of dismissal before the opposing party answers or moves for summary judgment, (ii) by stipulation of all parties who have appeared; or (iii) by leave of court. Rule 21 provides that “[o]n motion or on its own, the court may at any time, on just terms, add or drop a party.”
In this case, a Fair Labor Standards Act collective action with opt-in plaintiffs raising minimum wage claim, “Plaintiffs filed unopposed motions to voluntarily dismiss Drake, Gonzalez, Lewis, Lehan, and Schroth as plaintiffs” without prejudice. “The district court granted the motions and dismissed the five opt-in plaintiffs,” though it failed to specify whether dismissal was under Rule 21 or 41(a). Subsequently, the district court entered judgment in favor of the defendant employers after a bench trial. The remaining plaintiffs in the case appealed.
On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit is presented with the issue of whether those voluntary dismissals – and thus the entire judgment below – were final for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1291. It holds that the dismissals were indeed final and that it therefore had appellate jurisdiction over the rest of the case.
The Eleventh Circuit “has consistently emphasized the narrow scope of Rule 41(a).” Because the rule requires the dismissal of an “action,” the court interprets the rule not to allow the dismissal of fewer than all claims. But “[w]e have recognized an exception to this rule, allowing plaintiffs to voluntarily dismiss less than the entire action so long as they dismiss a defendant in its entirety (i.e., they dismiss all of the claims brought against that defendant).”
The question presented here is whether the corollary is true, i.e., whether dismissal of a plaintiff in their entirety is also allowed. That panel clarifies here that it is. “We now make clear that, under Rule 41(a), an ‘action’ refers to all claims that an individual plaintiff has brought against an individual defendant, even if multiple actions involving multiple parties have been combined into a single lawsuit . . . . A single plaintiff or a single defendant may be dismissed from a lawsuit pursuant to Rule 41(a) if (and only if) all claims involving the dismissed party are also dismissed.”
The panel finally observes in a footnote that same result would attend if the dismissal were accomplished under Rule 21. “The district court below did not cite any rule in its dismissal order. As such, we could review the district court’s dismissal order under Rule 41 or Rule 21, and either avenue would result in a valid dismissal of the five opt-in plaintiffs for the purposes of our appellate jurisdiction.”
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