Roy Moore v. Tiana Lowe, et al.

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 22-13187
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ROY STEWART MOORE,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
TIANA LOWE,
JERRY DUNLEAVY,
TIMOTHY CARNEY,
PHILLIP KLEIN,
BRAD POLUMBO, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
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2 Order of the Court 22-13187
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 4:20-cv-00124-CLM
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Before N EWSOM , B RANCH, and L UCK , Circuit Judges.
BY THE COURT:
This appeal is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. By statute,
Congress has limited our jurisdiction, at least as a general matter,
to “final decisions of the district courts[.]” 28 U.S.C. § 1291. “To
constitute a final decision, the district court’s order generally must
adjudicate all claims against all parties[.]” Jenkins v. Prime Ins. Co.,
32 F.4th 1343, 1345 (11th Cir. 2022) (quoting Corsello v. Lincare, Inc.,
276 F.3d 1229, 1230 (11th Cir. 2001)).
In this case, portions of two of Moore’s claims—portions re-
lated to Counts I and II—survived the defendants’ motion to dis-
miss. Without citing any specific source of authority, Moore (who
was proceeding pro se) filed a pleading styled “Plaintiff’s Voluntary
Dismissal of Remaining Claims,” in which he agreed to dismiss the
remaining aspects of Counts I and II and asked the district court to
enter final judgment. The district court construed Moore’s motion
as one filed pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(2),
granted it, and directed the clerk to close the case.
The district court’s reliance on Rule 41(a) was misplaced.
We have explained that Rule 41(a) may be used to dismiss only
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22-13187 Order of the Court 3
entire “action[s],” not individual claims. See, e.g., Perry v. Schu-
macher Grp. of La., 891 F.3d 954, 957–58 (11th Cir. 2018). Had the
district court instead construed Moore’s pleading as a motion to
amend his complaint to abandon Counts I and II and invoked Fed-
eral Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a), it could have entered final judg-
ment, and jurisdiction would have been proper here. See id. (ex-
plaining that “Rule 15 was designed for situations like this”); accord,
e.g., GEICO v. Glassco, Inc., 58 F.4th 1338, 1343 (11th Cir. 2023).
DISMISSED.
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