Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-01482/USCOURTS-ca7-14-01482-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA
Appellee
Vernon T. Jones
Appellant

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14-1482

VERNON T. JONES,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

ASSOCIATION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS-CWA,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 11 C 4413 — Michael T. Mason, Magistrate Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED NOVEMBER 12, 2014∗ — DECIDED JANUARY 30, 2015

____________________

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and TINDER, Circuit 

Judges.

∗ After examining the briefs and the record, we have concluded that oral 

argument is unnecessary. The appeal is therefore submitted on the briefs

and the record. See FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2).

 

Case: 14-1482 Document: 25 Filed: 01/30/2015 Pages: 7
2 No. 14-1482

WOOD, Chief Judge. More than seven months after settling 

a federal lawsuit against his former labor union, Vernon 

Jones filed in the district court a document that he called a 

“motion to establish court’s jurisdiction.” The motion’s caption reflected the name and docket number of his suit 

against the union, and so the clerk’s office sent it to the judge 

who had presided over that action (a magistrate judge, who 

had acted with the parties’ consent). The judge entered a

minute order ostensibly dismissing Jones’s submission for 

lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Jones appealed, urging us 

to reverse that jurisdictional finding. Before reaching that 

issue, however, we must consider whether the magistrate 

judge was authorized to enter a dispositive ruling on Jones’s 

submission, and whether we have appellate jurisdiction to 

review that ruling.

The underlying case arose out of Jones’s 15-year stint as a 

flight attendant for United Airlines. He lost that job in 2010 

when he was fired for misconduct; the next year, he sued the 

Association of Flight Attendants, the union that had represented him during his employment with the airline. Because 

of racial animus and his complaints about discrimination, he 

charged, the union had backed the airline instead of fairly 

representing him in his bid to keep his job. See 42 

U.S.C. §§ 1981, 2000e-2(c), 2000e-3(a).

When a settlement appeared likely, the parties consented 

to have a magistrate judge preside over the lawsuit. See 28 

U.S.C. § 636(c)(1). By then Jones was represented by appointed counsel. As part of the settlement, the union agreed 

to challenge his discharge by pursuing on his behalf a grievance with the System Board of Adjustment, the body responsible under the collective bargaining agreement for reCase: 14-1482 Document: 25 Filed: 01/30/2015 Pages: 7
No. 14-1482 3

solving disputes or grievances between the union and airline. In turn, Jones agreed to dismiss his lawsuit with prejudice. The settlement does not provide for continuing jurisdiction in federal court. See generally Kokkonen v. Guardian

Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 381–82 (1994); Shapo v. Engle, 

463 F.3d 641, 643 (7th Cir. 2006); Lynch, Inc. v. SamataMason Inc., 279 F.3d 487, 489 (7th Cir. 2002). In June 2013, counsel for both parties signed a stipulation of dismissal under 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(A)(ii).

Less than two weeks later, Jones filed the first of three 

pro se submissions, all of which the clerk’s office directed to 

the magistrate judge. The first of these is a two-sentence request to discharge Jones’s recruited lawyer and to return his 

suit against the union to the district judge for future proceedings. The magistrate judge disposed of this filing in a 

minute order explaining that the suit already had been dismissed with prejudice and terminated.

Five months after this ruling, Jones filed the second document. This time he asked that his lawsuit be reinstated and 

that a “default judgment” be entered against the union. His 

filing acknowledges that the union was pursuing a grievance 

before the System Board of Adjustment, as it had promised 

to do in the settlement. But the motion also conveys Jones’s 

displeasure with the progress of that proceeding. The magistrate judge disposed of this filing in another minute order 

explaining that the court had not retained jurisdiction to enforce the settlement.

Then two weeks later, on January 30, 2014, Jones submitted his “motion to establish court’s jurisdiction.” Once more 

the magistrate judge issued a minute order, this one purporting to dismiss the filing for lack of subject-matter jurisdicCase: 14-1482 Document: 25 Filed: 01/30/2015 Pages: 7
4 No. 14-1482

tion. The magistrate judge’s order explains that the court 

could not exercise jurisdiction over a case that had been 

dismissed with prejudice. Jones appeals only this last ruling.

How best to characterize Jones’s third filing affects not 

only whether the magistrate judge had subject-matter 

jurisdiction to address it, but also whether we have appellate 

jurisdiction. A magistrate judge who enters by consent a

final judgment in civil litigation also has authority to dispose 

of postjudgment motions in the same litigation. King v. 

Ionization Int’l, Inc., 825 F.2d 1180, 1185 (7th Cir. 1987); HoltOrsted v. City of Dickson, 641 F.3d 230, 233–34 (6th Cir. 2011).

This authority extends to motions under Federal Rule of 

Civil Procedure 60(b). See Kiswani v. Phx. Sec. Agency, Inc.,

584 F.3d 741, 742–43 (7th Cir. 2009); Cincinnati Ins. Co. v. 

Leighton, 403 F.3d 879, 880–81 (7th Cir. 2005). Because Jones 

filed his third submission so long after his suit was 

dismissed, Rule 60 is the only possible source of authority 

for action by the magistrate judge who disposed of the case. 

See Banks v. Chi. Bd. of Educ., 750 F.3d 663, 666–67 (7th Cir. 

2014). If what Jones filed is really a new case—one geared 

toward enforcing the settlement, for example—then the 

magistrate judge’s power to rule on the submission was 

cabined both by the contractual nature of settlements and by 

§ 636(c).

A disagreement about whether parties to a settlement 

have honored their commitments is a contract dispute. 

See Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 378, 381. Suits for breach of contract, including those to enforce ordinary settlements, arise

under state law. They cannot be adjudicated in federal court 

unless there is an independent basis of subject-matter jurisdiction, such as diversity. There is an exception, inapplicable 

Case: 14-1482 Document: 25 Filed: 01/30/2015 Pages: 7
No. 14-1482 5

here, for settlements “embodied in a consent decree or some 

other judicial order or unless jurisdiction to enforce the 

agreement is retained (meaning that the suit has not been 

dismissed with prejudice).” Lynch, Inc., 279 F.3d at 489; see

Dupuy v. McEwen, 495 F.3d 807, 809 (7th Cir. 2007); Shapo, 463 

F.3d at 643. The terms of the agreement between Jones and 

the union are not incorporated into a judicial order or consent decree, and the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice. 

And as a practical matter it would be impossible for Jones to 

establish diversity of citizenship: no matter what state citizenship he has (we know only that he “resides” “near” Chicago), diversity would exist only if none of the union’s 60,000 

members (who are scattered throughout the United States) 

shares his citizenship. See Fellowes, Inc. v. Changzhou Xinrui 

Fellowes Office Equip. Co., 759 F.3d 787, 788 (7th Cir. 2014); 

Copeland v. Penske Logistics, LLC, 675 F.3d 1040, 1043 (7th Cir. 

2012). Jones has made no such showing.

The magistrate judge’s minute order is silent about the 

basis for Jones’s third submission, but the court’s discussion 

of subject-matter jurisdiction makes clear that the court did 

not understand the filing to be a Rule 60(b) motion. We agree 

with that implicit conclusion. In this filing, Jones accuses the 

union of not demanding a timely ruling from the System 

Board of Adjustment. He also suggests that the union failed 

properly to investigate an encounter he had with police in a 

Chicago suburb after the settlement. As relief Jones asks that 

the union be fined continuously until the Board rules. In 

other words, Jones is trying to enforce the settlement, not to 

set it aside or otherwise alter it. See FED. R. CIV. P. 60(b); 

Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 378; Neuberg v. Michael Reese Hosp. 

Found., 123 F.3d 951, 955–56 (7th Cir. 1997); McAlpin v. 

Case: 14-1482 Document: 25 Filed: 01/30/2015 Pages: 7
6 No. 14-1482

Lexington 76 Auto Truck Stop, Inc., 229 F.3d 491, 503 (6th Cir. 

2000).

The magistrate judge was thus correct to conclude that 

Jones had not filed a Rule 60(b) motion and that the court 

lacked jurisdiction to enforce the parties’ agreement. See

Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 381–82. The question is what step 

should have come next: disposition of the new request for 

enforcement action, or something else? The answer is “something else.” Once the judge saw that Jones’s submission was 

not part of the litigation covered by the parties’ consents, he

should have recognized that he did not have authority to issue a dispositive ruling, even one ordering dismissal for lack 

of subject-matter jurisdiction. Jones was bringing a new lawsuit. The magistrate judge could dispose of that new action 

only if it was assigned to him by a district judge and the parties furnished new consents. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1); FED. R.

CIV. P. 73(a); Stevo v. Frasor, 662 F.3d 880, 883 (7th Cir. 2011); 

Silberstein v. Silberstein, 859 F.2d 40, 41–42 (7th Cir. 1988).

The magistrate judge’s error in this respect has consequences in this court. A purported final decision issued by a 

magistrate judge acting outside of his authority is a nullity. 

See Kalan v. City of St. Francis, 274 F.3d 1150, 1153–54 (7th Cir. 

2001); Rice v. Sunrise Express, Inc., 209 F.3d 1008, 1013 n.7 (7th 

Cir. 2000); Silberstein, 859 F.2d at 41–42. That means that we 

have no final judgment in this case; it is still pending before 

the district court with a de facto recommendation from the 

magistrate judge. We therefore lack appellate jurisdiction

and must dismiss the appeal. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291; Egan v. 

Freedom Bank, 659 F.3d 639, 644 (7th Cir. 2011); Heft v. Moore, 

351 F.3d 278, 281 (7th Cir. 2003); Kalan, 274 F.3d at 1154; 

Jaliwala v. United States, 945 F.2d 221, 223–24 (7th Cir. 1991); 

Case: 14-1482 Document: 25 Filed: 01/30/2015 Pages: 7
No. 14-1482 7

McNab v. J&J Marine, Inc., 240 F.3d 1326, 1327–28 (11th Cir. 

2001); Holbert v. Idaho Power Co., 195 F.3d 452, 454 (9th Cir. 

1999).

In closing, we note that it may be possible to construe 

what Jones filed not only as a motion to enforce the settlement, but also as a new action arising from the union’s duty 

under the National Labor Relations Act fairly to represent 

him before the System Board of Adjustment. See 29 U.S.C. 

§§ 159(a), 185; Marquez v. Screen Actors Guild, Inc., 525 U.S. 

33, 44 (1998); Chauffeurs, Teamsters & Helpers, Local No. 391 v. 

Terry, 494 U.S. 558, 563–64 (1990). If the district court adopts 

the latter characterization, it should consider whether the 

federal claim provides supplemental jurisdiction over 

Jones’s state-law claim for breach of the settlement contract. 

See 28 U.S.C. § 1367. We leave these questions for the assigned district judge to evaluate in the first instance. Either 

way, however, Jones must pay a new filing fee or qualify to 

proceed in forma pauperis before any new matter may proceed in the district court. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1914(a), 1915(a)(1); 

Richmond v. Chater, 94 F.3d 263, 266–67 (7th Cir. 1996).

DISMISSED.

Case: 14-1482 Document: 25 Filed: 01/30/2015 Pages: 7