Background
Herman L. Gladney filed civil claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the American with Disabilities Act. The district court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss without prejudice and with leave to amend, affording Gladney twenty-one days to file an amended complaint. Instead of waiting for the district court to issue a final order upon the expiration of the deadline, Gladney filed a notice of appeal on the twenty-first day. The defendant then moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that it was interlocutory.
The court’s reasoning
The court explained that it may exercise jurisdiction only over final orders and certain interlocutory or collateral orders. When a district court dismisses a complaint with leave to amend, the order is not final because the district court is not finished with the case. This remains true even if the plaintiff declines to amend unless the plaintiff requests that the district court enter a final decision dismissing the case without leave to amend and the court does so. The same rule applies when the district court establishes a deadline to file an amended complaint and the plaintiff does not file before the deadline. In that situation, the district court should issue a final order upon the expiration of the deadline, or the plaintiff can elect to stand on the complaint by waiving the right to amend and requesting a finalized decision. The district court here afforded Gladney twenty-one days to amend, but he filed his notice of appeal on the twenty-first day without the district court entering a final order. The court concluded that the order sought to be appealed was neither a final order nor an appealable interlocutory or collateral order.
When a district court dismisses a complaint with leave to amend, that order is not a final decision because it means that the district court is not finished with the case.
Britt v. DeJoy, 45 F.4th 790, 793 (4th Cir. 2022)
What it means going forward
This decision reinforces the requirement that plaintiffs must secure a final order from the district court before appealing a dismissal with leave to amend, preventing piecemeal litigation and ensuring appellate courts review only complete cases.
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