NOT PRECEDENTIAL 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

___________ 

No. 23-2329 

__________ 

PAUL E. PIECZYNSKI, 

 Appellant 

v. 

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA; STEPHANIE J. SALAVANTIS, Acting 

District Attorney; MICHAEL T. VOUGH, Acting Judge; DAVID W. LUPAS 

____________________________________ 

On Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania 

(D.C. Civil Action No. 3:22-cv-02037) 

District Judge: Honorable Malachy E. Mannion 

____________________________________ 

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) 

March 13, 2024 

Before: SHWARTZ, RESTREPO, and FREEMAN, Circuit Judges 

(Opinion filed: March 19, 2024) 

___________ 

OPINION*

___________ 

*

 This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.
2 

PER CURIAM 

Pennsylvania citizen Paul Pieczynski appeals pro se from the District Court’s 

decision dismissing his case without prejudice for failure to effect service. We will 

affirm that judgment, albeit on a different basis than that provided by the District Court. 

I. 

In 2022, Pieczynski moved the District Court to confirm, pursuant to the Federal 

Arbitration Act (“FAA”), a 2019 arbitration award of more than $26 million. He claimed 

that the award had been issued in his favor and against the Commonwealth of 

Pennsylvania, two Pennsylvania state-court judges, and a district attorney (“Appellees”).1

 

In June 2023, several months after a United States Magistrate Judge directed Pieczynski 

to serve Appellees, the District Court dismissed the case without prejudice under Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 4(m) for failure to effect service. This timely appeal followed. 

II. 

 We have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.2

 Our review 

here is plenary, see McCurdy v. Am. Bd. of Plastic Surgery, 157 F.3d 191, 194 (3d Cir. 

1

 The District Court did not decide whether the arbitration award is genuine, and we need 

not do so to resolve this appeal. 

2

 Although the District Court’s dismissal was “without prejudice,” it nevertheless 

constitutes a “final” decision under § 1291, because the time for Pieczynski to move to 

confirm the purported arbitration award has expired. See Green v. Humphrey Elevator & 

Truck Co., 816 F.2d 877, 878 n.4 (3d Cir. 1987); see also Teamsters Local 177 v. United 

Parcel Serv., 966 F.3d 245, 255 (3d Cir. 2020) (stating that “the statute of limitations for 

confirmation of arbitration awards under the FAA is one year” (citing 9 U.S.C. § 9)). 
3 

1998), and we may affirm the District Court’s decision on any basis supported by the 

record, see Murray v. Bledsoe, 650 F.3d 246, 247 (3d Cir. 2011) (per curiam). 

III. 

 We need not decide whether dismissal was warranted in this case for failure to 

effect service. As explained below, dismissal was warranted for a more fundamental 

reason: the District Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over Pieczynski’s motion to 

confirm. 

 Although the FAA authorizes the filing of a motion to confirm an arbitration 

award, see 9 U.S.C. § 9, that authorization does not itself confer subject-matter 

jurisdiction upon a federal district court, see Badgerow v. Walters, 596 U.S. 1, 4 (2022). 

For a federal district court to have jurisdiction over such a motion, there must be “an 

independent jurisdictional basis.” See id. (internal quotation marks omitted). That 

independent jurisdictional basis must be apparent from the motion itself; a court cannot 

“look through” the motion to the underlying substantive dispute to find it. See id. at 4-5. 

 There is no independent jurisdictional basis in this case. Pieczynski did not appear 

to claim that diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a) lies here, and there is no 

indication that it does. See Johnson v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 724 F.3d 337, 346 

(3d Cir. 2013) (“Jurisdiction under § 1332(a) requires complete diversity, meaning that 

no plaintiff can be a citizen of the same state as any of the defendants” (internal quotation 

marks omitted)). Furthermore, Pieczynski did not invoke anything in his motion to 

confirm that triggered the district court’s federal-question jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. 
4 

§ 1331 (providing that “[t]he district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil 

actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States”). 

Because the District Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over Pieczynski’s 

motion to confirm, that motion was subject to dismissal. Accordingly, we will affirm the 

District Court’s decision to dismiss his case.3

3

 We find no merit to Pieczynski’s contention that the District Court and the Magistrate 

Judge were biased against him. See generally Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 

(1994) (“[J]udicial remarks . . . that are critical or disapproving of, or even hostile to, 

counsel, the parties, or their cases, ordinarily do not support a bias or partiality 

challenge.”).