Opinion ID: 3012865
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343, 1367, and the relevant provision of the IDEA granting subject matter jurisdiction over claims arising under the Act to the federal courts. See 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(A). Because the State reasserts nearly the full panoply of defenses that it argued before the District Court, our jurisdiction over this appeal requires some clarification. We first consider whether we have jurisdiction over the District Court’s rulings. 28 U.S.C. § 1291 limits our jurisdiction to final judgments. See We Inc. v. City of Philadelphia, 174 F.3d 322, 324 (3d Cir. 1999). A final judgment is one that “ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.” Cunningham v. Hamilton County, Ohio, 527 U.S. 198, 204 (1999) (citations omitted). The final judgment rule calls into question several claims made by the State on appeal. The denial of a motion to dismiss on the grounds of failure to exhaust administrative remedies is not, by any definition, a final judgment that ends the litigation on the merits. The District Court’s decision merely indicates that 13 a decision on the merits of the IDEA and § 1983 claims lies ahead. The notion that a denial of a motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust is not a final judgment is “[s]o clear . . . that, until now, no court of appeals has been required to deal in a published opinion with a contention that rejection of an exhaustion argument is immediately appealable.” Davis v. Streekstra, 227 F.3d 759, 762 (7th Cir. 2000). In a similar situation, we held that a district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss for failure to submit to an informal dispute resolution procedure was not immediately appealable. See Harrison v. Nissan Motor Corp. in U.S.A., 111 F.3d 343, 352 (3d Cir. 1997). While we tend to agree with the State that the issue of exhaustion is important, we cannot conclude that the District Court’s decision was conclusive or that the exhaustion issue will be unreviewable on appeal after a decision on the merits. For these reasons, we lack jurisdiction to review the State’s exhaustion arguments at this stage of the litigation. The District Court’s decision to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the claims under New Jersey state law is also not final. While we have said that a discretionary remand that takes place pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c) may constitute a final judgment, see In re U.S. Healthcare, Inc., 193 F.3d 151, 159 (3d Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 530 U.S. 1242 (2000), that situation is the exact opposite of the one present here, where the District Court has retained its supplemental jurisdiction over the two state law causes of action. Again, a final decision on the merits lies ahead, and we lack jurisdiction to review this aspect of the District Court’s judgment.9 Pursuant to the collateral order doctrine, however, we have jurisdiction to review the state’s claim of Eleventh Amendment immunity. See Puerto Rico Aqueduct & Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 147 (1993) (“We hold that States and state entities that claim to be 9. The State reasserted the sovereign immunity argument in their motion to dismiss the § 1983 and state law claims. Our analysis of the Eleventh Amendment issue in Part III.A, infra, controls with respect to the State’s objections to all three sets of Plaintiffs’ claims under the IDEA, § 1983, and state law. 14 ‘arms of the State’ may take advantage of the collateral order doctrine to appeal a district court order denying a claim of Eleventh Amendment immunity.”). Because the protection of the Eleventh Amendment is akin to absolute immunity from suit, rather than an affirmative defense, that protection is lost if the suit is permitted to proceed without an appeal. See id. at 144. As to the entry of injunctive relief, we have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1292(a)(1) over the state’s interlocutory appeal. Therefore, our analysis below is confined to these two aspects of the District Court’s judgment. Our review of the denial of sovereign immunity is plenary, and we review the entry of injunctive relief for abuse of discretion. See Lavia v. Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, 224 F.3d 190, 194 (3d Cir. 2000); Novartis Consumer Health, Inc. v. Johnson & Johnson-Merck Consumer Pharmaceuticals Co., 290 F.3d 578, 586 (3d Cir. 2002).