Amanali Babwari v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-12022
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
AMANALI BABWARI,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
STATE FARM FIRE AND CASUALTY COMPANY,
Defendant-Appellant,
AYRS FOOD & FUEL LLC, et al.,
Defendants.
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 23-12022
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 2:21-cv-00895-RDP
____________________
Before J ORDAN, JILL PRYOR , and B RASHER , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
We issued jurisdictional questions (“JQs”) about (1) the dis-
trict court’s subject matter jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332,
given that original plaintiff Amanali Babwari and original defend-
ants A.Y.R.S. Food & Fuel, LLC (“A.Y.R.S.”), Ramzan Jiwani, and
Younus Saleh are all alleged to be citizens of Alabama, and the rec-
ord did not reflect the realignment of the parties; and (2) whether
the district court’s May 15, 2023 order that defendant State Farm
Fire and Casualty Company (“State Farm”) challenges on appeal is
final or immediately appealable.
In response to the JQs, Babwari asserts that we may lack ju-
risdiction over the appeal because the district court’s May 15, 2023
order did not determine or specify the means for determining the
amount of damages and interest to which he is entitled. Addition-
ally, following our JQs, State Farm filed a motion before the district
court to realign Jiwani, Saleh, and A.Y.R.S. as plaintiffs, which the
district court granted.
The district court’s order granting State Farm’s motion for
realignment of the parties confirmed that the district court had sub-
ject matter jurisdiction in the first instance. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332.
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23-12022 Opinion of the Court 3
We agree with Babwari that we lack jurisdiction over the ap-
peal because the district court’s May 15, 2023 order is not final or
otherwise immediately appealable. The May 15 order is silent as to
an award of any prejudgment interest, including the prejudgment
interest rate and the date from which any prejudgment interest
would accrue. See U.S. S.E.C. v. Carrillo, 325 F.3d 1268, 1272-74 (11th
Cir. 2003) (noting that the calculation of prejudgment interest can
be ministerial, but if the judgment amount, the prejudgment inter-
est rate, or the date from which prejudgment interest accrues is
unclear, the calculation of prejudgment interest is no longer a min-
isterial act and the court’s order is not final); Osterneck v. Ernst &
Whinney, 489 U.S. 169, 176 n.3 (1989) (indicating that prejudgment
interest is part of the “merits” of a case). Additionally, the May 15
order is not immediately reviewable under the collateral order doc-
trine because it is not effectively unreviewable on appeal from a
final judgment. See Plaintiff A v. Schair, 744 F.3d 1247, 1253 (11th
Cir. 2014) (explaining that a ruling that does not conclude the liti-
gation may be appealed under the collateral order doctrine if it,
inter alia, is “effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judg-
ment”).
Accordingly, this appeal is DISMISSED for lack of jurisdic-
tion.1
1 We also asked the parties to address whether the district court’s May 15, 2023
order was final given that it did not dispose of all the claims against all the
parties. Because we find that we lack jurisdiction over the appeal due to the
pending issue of damages, we express no opinion on the other finality issue.
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