Opinion ID: 798613
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Retaining Jurisdiction under Kokkonen

Text: In Kokkonen, the Supreme Court recognized that the enforcement of a settlement agreement falls outside of the scope of ancillary jurisdiction of the federal courts, even when the court had jurisdiction to hear the underlying case. 511 U.S. at 379-80, 114 S.Ct. at 1676. The Supreme Court reasoned that a district court could retain jurisdiction to enforce a settlement agreement with consent of the parties and of the court, provided the district court issues an order requiring compliance with the settlement agreement. Id. at 381, 114 S.Ct. at 1677. In that case, non-compliance would be a violation of a court order and the district court could use its ancillary jurisdiction to enforce its orders (and by extension enforce the settlement agreement). Id. The Supreme Court stated that a district court could require compliance by either making the settlement agreement part of the court order by a separate provision retaining jurisdiction or by incorporating the terms of the agreement into the order itself. Id. at 381, 114 S.Ct. at 1677. Underlying Kokkonen is the well-established proposition that jurisdiction cannot exist by mere consent of the parties. See, e.g., Eagerton v. Valuations, Inc., 698 F.2d 1115, 1118 (11th Cir.1983). To retain jurisdiction to enforce a settlement agreement, the court itself must act; agreement by the parties is not enough. See SmallBizPros 618 F.3d at 464 n. 4 (speculating that a situation might arise in which a district court may lack jurisdiction to enforce a settlement agreement because it issued no order retaining jurisdiction even though the parties expressly provide for ancillary jurisdiction in their stipulation for dismissal). The Supreme Court stated that when dismissal is pursuant to Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), the district court is authorized to embody the settlement contract in its dismissal order ... if the parties agree. Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 381-82, 114 S.Ct. at 1677. In Chmielarz, this court's first interpretation of Kokkonen, we did not detail the methods by which a district court could retain jurisdiction. We did note, however, that the district court entered an order of dismissal following the filing of a stipulation of dismissal and that the court's dismissal order sufficiently adopted the settlement agreement to retain jurisdiction. 289 F.3d at 1318, 1320-21.