Opinion ID: 751831
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: 18 The complaint names as individual defendants Theodor J. Kundtz, a securities analyst employed by Lehman Brothers, and Robert P. Anastasi, a securities analyst employed by Robinson-Humphrey. Neither of these two defendants was served, and neither appeared in court. Plaintiffs agreed with the two analysts to dismiss the claims against them without prejudice, subject to revival based on the outcome of an appeal. Merisel argues that because the analysts were not included in the district court's grant of dismissal as to all moving defendants, the district court's dismissal was not a final judgment subject to appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 19 Merisel contends that an identical conditional dismissal agreement defeated appellate jurisdiction in Dannenberg v. Software Toolworks, Inc., 16 F.3d 1073 (9th Cir.1994). In Dannenberg, after the district court granted summary judgment against plaintiffs on all but one cause of action against auditor defendants, the plaintiffs stipulated to dismissal of the auditor defendants, subject to refiling if any part of the partial summary judgment order were reversed on appeal. The district court approved the stipulation, but the plaintiffs neither sought nor obtained a judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), under which district courts may certify as final judgments as to fewer than all claims or parties. Because the stipulation did not finalize the district court's order, this court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Id. at 1075, 1078. 20 The agreement in this case is not identical to that in Dannenberg, however, because here the individual stock analyst defendants with whom the plaintiffs stipulated to dismissal were never served. 21 If an action is dismissed as to all of the defendants who have been served and only unserved defendants remain, the district court's order may be considered final under Section 1291 for the purpose of perfecting an appeal. In such circumstances there is no reason to assume that there will be any further adjudication of the action. 22 Patchick v. Kensington Publishing Corp., 743 F.2d 675, 677 (9th Cir.1984) (per curiam) (citations omitted). Merisel attempts to distinguish Patchick on the ground that its rationale derived from cases involving fictitious defendants. The unserved defendants in Patchick, however, were not fictitious, and no such distinction is made in other cases applying the Patchick rule. See, e.g., Trulis v. Barton, 107 F.3d 685, 691 n. 1 (9th Cir.1995) (summary judgment final as to named and served parties regardless of the fact that there were other named defendants who were not served); Hillis Motors, Inc. v. Hawaii Auto. Dealers' Ass'n, 997 F.2d 581, 584 n. 5 (9th Cir.1993) (citing Patchick, 743 F.2d at 677) (Two unserved defendants and Doe defendants were named in the complaint. This does not affect the appealability of the district court's judgment.). See also Gomez v. Government of Virgin Islands, 882 F.2d 733, 736 (3d Cir.1989) (finding appellate jurisdiction when judgment did not include named, not fictitious, unserved defendants); Sider v. Valley Line, 857 F.2d 1043, 1045-46 (5th Cir.1988) (per curiam) (same). 23 We have jurisdiction.