Opinion ID: 4522373
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: As an initial matter, Defendants argue that we lack jurisdiction to review the district court’s summary judgment ruling that Plaintiff could not recover 7 Case: 18-12276 Date Filed: 04/03/2020 Page: 8 of 17 compensatory or punitive damages because Plaintiff’s notice of appeal did not reflect an intent to appeal that ruling. We disagree. “[A]n appellate court has jurisdiction to review only those judgments, orders or portions thereof which are specified in an appellant’s notice of appeal.” Weatherly v. Ala. State Univ., 728 F.3d 1263, 1271 (11th Cir. 2013) (quotation marks omitted). Generally, “we will not expand [a notice of appeal] to include judgments and orders not specified unless the overriding intent to appeal these orders is readily apparent on the face of the notice.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). However, “we always construe pro se pleadings liberally,” and because “only a final judgment or order is appealable, the appeal from a final judgment draws in question all prior non-final orders and rulings which produced the judgment.” Davila v. Gladden, 777 F.3d 1198, 1208– 09 n.5 (11th Cir. 2015) (quotation marks omitted). Here, because Plaintiff’s notice of appeal challenged “the judgment rendered in favor of all the Defendants March 22, 2018”—that is, the court’s final judgment—we have jurisdiction to review prior non-final rulings that produced that judgment, including the district court’s summary judgment ruling, which resulted in a bench trial rather than a jury trial. Id. (holding that we had jurisdiction to review a motion-to-dismiss ruling where the pro se plaintiff’s notice of appeal did not mention the motion to dismiss but “specifically referenced ‘the [final] judgment entered . . . on February 6th 2013’”); see also Barfield v. Brierton, 8 Case: 18-12276 Date Filed: 04/03/2020 Page: 9 of 17 883 F.2d 923, 930 (11th Cir. 1989) (“The plaintiff seeks review of the entire final judgment which implicates all non-final orders preceding it, including the stay.”). We therefore proceed to the merits of Plaintiff’s appeal.