Rowland v. S. Health Partners, Inc.

• Decision Date: 21 July 2021
• Docket Number: No. 20-5944,20-5944
• Parties: Kimissa ROWLAND, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. SOUTHERN HEALTH PARTNERS, INC.; Jane Bartram, APRN, Stacy Jensen, APRN, and Sabina Trivette, LPN, Individually, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

4 F.4th 422

Kimissa ROWLAND, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.SOUTHERN HEALTH PARTNERS, INC.; Jane Bartram, APRN, Stacy Jensen, APRN, and Sabina Trivette, LPN, Individually, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 20-5944

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: March 12, 2021

Decided and Filed: July 21, 2021

ARGUED: Gregory A. Belzley, BELZLEY, BATHURST & BENTLEY, Prospect, Kentucky, for Appellant. Margaret Jane Brannon, JACKSON KELLY PLLC, Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Gregory A. Belzley, BELZLEY, BATHURST & BENTLEY, Prospect, Kentucky, for Appellant. Margaret Jane Brannon, Robert F. Duncan, JACKSON KELLY PLLC, Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellees.

Before: MOORE, ROGERS, and READLER, Circuit Judges.

ROGERS, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which READLER, J., joined. MOORE, J. (pp. 430–37), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge.

Civil Rule 54(b) permits a district court to enter final judgment "as to one or more, but fewer than all, claims or parties" when it determines, using a multi-factor analysis, that "there is no just reason for delay." Can a litigant circumvent the requirements of Rule 54(b) by the expedient of voluntarily dismissing her surviving claims in order to seek immediate appellate review of an adverse judgment on her resolved claims, with the intention of reinstating the dismissed claims should she obtain a favorable outcome on appeal? Eight years ago, we answered this question no, because such a dismissal does not create a final order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Page Plus of Atlanta, Inc. v. Owl Wireless, LLC , 733 F.3d 658, 658 (6th Cir. 2013). The answer is still no.

Kimissa Rowland appeals from two district court orders disposing of her state and federal claims arising from injuries she sustained while incarcerated. In the first order, the district court entered partial summary judgment in favor of the defendants on Rowland's 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and punitive damages claims. Afterwards, by agreement of the parties, the court entered an order dismissing Rowland's remaining state-law negligence claims without prejudice, so that Rowland could pursue this appeal on her federal claims. Rowland requests on appeal that if we decide to reverse on any of the resolved claims, then we should also reinstate her dismissed state-law claims. But this attempt to manufacture finality by voluntarily dismissing certain claims without prejudice in order to pursue what would otherwise be an interlocutory appeal is an impermissible circumvention of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). In the absence of an effective final judgment, we lack appellate jurisdiction to hear this appeal.

Rowland brought suit in federal district court alleging claims for deliberate indifference for failure to provide adequate medical care under § 1983, and negligence under Kentucky law, and she sought punitive damages in her request for relief. The defendants, Southern Health Partners, Inc. (the healthcare provider for Franklin County Jail) and its three employee nurses who worked at the jail, filed a motion for summary judgment on all claims. The district court granted partial summary judgment in favor of the defendants on all claims except for the negligence claims against two of the nurses in their individual capacities. Rowland v. S. Health Partners, Inc. , No. 3:18-cv-00033-GFVT-EBA, 2020 WL 4288401, at *8 (E.D. Ky. July 27, 2020). As to these claims, the court ruled that summary judgment was inappropriate because a reasonable jury could find that negligence on the part of the two nurses caused Rowland's injuries. Id. at *7. Shortly thereafter, in a teleconference with the court, both parties agreed to dismiss the remaining state-law claims, and the district court entered an order dismissing those claims without prejudice. The order stated:

[d]uring the teleconference, the parties agreed that their preferred method of moving forward is to dismiss the remaining claims so that Plaintiff Kimissa Rowland may appeal the Court's Order granting summary judgment in favor of the defendants as to the constitutional claims. Accordingly, and the Court being otherwise sufficiently advised, it is hereby ORDERED that all remaining claims are DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. The matter is STRICKEN from the Court's active docket.

Rowland appealed from both the partial summary judgment order and the order dismissing her remaining claims without prejudice, even though she requested the latter order.

On appeal, Rowland does not challenge the dismissal of her state-law claims. Instead, she argues that the "state claims that were dismissed by the District Court without prejudice should be restored and remanded for resolution with her federal claims, given that they are all based on the same underlying facts and to promote judicial economy and the interests of justice." (Rowland asserts on appeal that the dismissal was an exercise of the district court's discretion under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3) to decline supplemental jurisdiction over her state-law negligence claims. But this rationale is absent from the district court's order.) Rowland contends that she appealed the order dismissing her claims without prejudice "in order to support their reinstatement should the District Court's decision on her § 1983 claims be reversed, and to toll the deadline for refiling such claims in state court should its decision be affirmed." At oral argument, we questioned the parties as to the nature of the dismissal and whether it had any effect on our appellate jurisdiction. Rowland's counsel maintained that we have appellate jurisdiction despite the lack of a Rule 54(b) certification by the district court, because the dismissal was made for the purpose of promoting judicial economy in case we reversed the summary judgment on some or all of her federal claims. The parties have also filed supplemental briefs, at our request, on the question of our appellate jurisdiction.

We lack jurisdiction over this appeal because the voluntary dismissal of Rowland's remaining state-law claims did not create an appealable final order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Rowland's decision to voluntarily dismiss her—presumably strongest—claims without prejudice for the purpose of obtaining an immediate appeal, and with the intention of reinstating the dismissed claims if the appeal was successful, is an impermissible circumvention of the finality requirement and the procedures set forth in Rule 54(b). Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b). This conclusion is compelled by our own precedent and is consistent with the decisions of nearly every other circuit court to address this issue. See Page Plus , 733 F.3d at 662 ; JTC Petroleum Co. v. Piasa Motor Fuels, Inc. , 190 F.3d 775, 776 (7th Cir. 1999) (surveying circuit court cases).

We have appellate jurisdiction over "final decisions of the district courts." 28 U.S.C. § 1291. A final decision is one that "ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment." Catlin v. United States , 324 U.S. 229, 233, 65 S.Ct. 631, 89 L.Ed. 911 (1945). With narrow exceptions not pertinent here, "the finality requirement establishes a one-case, one-appeal rule." Page Plus , 733 F.3d at 659 (citing Digital Equip. Corp. v. Desktop Direct, Inc. , 511 U.S. 863, 868, 114 S.Ct. 1992, 128 L.Ed.2d 842 (1994) ). This rule "guards against piecemeal appeals that permit litigants to second-guess the district court at each turn, harming the district court's ability to control the litigation in front of it and consuming finite appellate court resources along the way." Id. (citing Mohawk Indus., Inc. v. Carpenter , 558 U.S. 100, 106–07, 130 S.Ct. 599, 175 L.Ed.2d 458 (2009) ).

Page Plus is directly on point. 733 F.3d at 659. In that case, we considered whether we had appellate jurisdiction over an appeal where the parties submitted a stipulation of dismissal under Rule 41(a)(2) to the district court seeking to dismiss the only claim remaining in the litigation after summary judgment was granted on all other claims. Id. at 659 ; Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(2). The parties jointly sought to dismiss the defendant's counterclaim for breach of contract without prejudice so that they both could pursue appeals on the resolved claims. Page Plus , 733 F.3d at 659. The district court granted the dismissal, with a stipulated agreement that if the defendant received an adverse judgment on appeal, defendant would be allowed to reassert the counterclaim following remand, and plaintiffs agreed not to assert any defense based on the passage of time. Id. We held that this conditional dismissal did not meet the "traditional test of finality," because instead of guaranteeing an end to the litigation, the order ensured that "the reserved claim would ‘spring back to life’ if ... any of the issues teed up for our consideration by the parties were reversed." Id. at 660. Here, Rowland similarly dismissed her state claims for the purpose of pursuing what would otherwise be an interlocutory appeal on other issues. This tactic presents, in essence, the same issue we confronted in Page Plus , because Rowland's claims can also "spring back to life" if we were to reverse the summary judgment on any of her federal claims. Id. Although there was no formal stipulation of dismissal submitted by the parties here, the record reflects that both sides jointly agreed with this maneuver. Moreover, the defendants offered no objection to Rowland's request that her dismissed claims be reinstated if we grant her a favorable outcome on her resolved claims. Such attempts at obtaining an effectively interlocutory appeal contravene the purpose of the finality requirement, which is intended to prevent parties from pausing the litigation, appealing, then resuming the litigation on a "half-abandoned claim if the case returns." Id. This type of piecemeal appeal "diminishes the role of the district court, delays the district court proceedings and wastes appellate court resources." Id. at...