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15. Should the appellate court grant the city's motion to dismiss?
The firefighter then voluntarily dismissed his claim against the supervisor without prejudice. Several months later, the one-year statute of limitations for re-filing the voluntarily dismissed claim expired. The day after the claim expired, the firefighter filed a notice of appeal from the district court's grant of summary judgment to the city. The city moved to dismiss the appeal as untimely.
A firefighter filed a federal suit against a city (his former employer) and his former supervisor, alleging that he was fired because of his ethnicity. The district court granted the city's motion for summary judgment and denied the supervisor's motion for summary judgment.
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Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 58 states that the judgment has been reached when it is «set out in a separate document.» Then, the judgment is deemed to have been «entered» and the time to appeal is started. When a plaintiff is suing multiple defendants, the plaintiff must wait until a final judgment has been reached against all the defendants, unless the plaintiff can persuade the trial court to make a direct entry of a final judgment as to one or more of the defendants. However, this is rarely allowed.
A is correct. To correctly answer this question, it is very important to keep track of the timing. There was no immediately appealable final judgment until the claims against the supervisor were barred by the statute of limitations.
Partial summary judgment is not an immediately appealable issue because it is not a final judgment. When the supervisor was denied summary judgment, some, but not all the claims, had been disposed of, so there was no final judgment.
Note that there are three parties in this question. The firefighter voluntarily dismissed his claim against the supervisor without prejudice, which means the firefighter could have reinstated his claim against the supervisor at any time before statute of limitations barred the claims. His failure to reinstate the claims resulted in a final judgment against the supervisor, meaning the case has become immediately appealable.
In ordinary federal civil cases, the appellant must file a notice of appeal with the district clerk within 30 days after final judgment is entered. Here, the firefighter filed his notice of appeal the day after the final judgment, rendering it timely filed against the city.
B is incorrect. The FRAP permit a litigant in appellate court proceedings to file a motion to dismiss the appeal, as long as it states with particularity the grounds for the motion, the relief sought, and the legal argument necessary to support it. See FRAP 27.
C is incorrect. As explained above, only final judgments are appealable in federal court. Here, the appeal was not premature because there is now a final judgment in the case. When summary judgment was denied to the supervisor, a final judgment had not been reached. To appeal the grant of summary judgment for the city, the firefighter would need to wait until the statute of limitations expired so that the summary judgment would be the final judgment on the case.
D is incorrect. This appeal was timely filed. Appellants must typically file a notice of appeal within 30 days after the final judgment was entered. Here, there was not a final judgment in the case until the statute of limitations ran out on the claim against the supervisor. The facts state that the day after the claim became appealable, the firefighter filed the appeal.