Court Opinion

ID: 9471139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:25:48.703092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:17.168008
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
concurring
and dissenting:
While I concur in the original opinion of this panel published at 707 F.2d 483 (4th Cir., May 10, 1983), I must respectfully dissent to its supplemental opinion.
In the original opinion of the panel, we held the district court was without jurisdiction and directed that the action be dismissed. Indeed, this direction of dismissal is repeated in the last paragraph of the supplemental opinion.
I think the proposition too plain for argument that if the district court had no jurisdiction to decide the merits of the case, then its judgment had to be vacated for it was powerless to decide any of the merits, specifically including whether or not the 180-day filing period of 29 U.S.C. § 626(d)(1) had been equitably tolled.
I think it equally plain that if the district court had no jurisdiction to decide that matter, then we have no jurisdiction to decide that or any other matter in the case once we have concluded that the district court was without jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court has addressed this proposition quite clearly in Ex parte McCardle, 74 U.S. 506, 7 Wall. 506, 19 L.Ed. 264 (1869). In the McCardle case, the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to hear the case being appealed was taken away by Congress during the pendency of the appeal, indeed, after argument thereof. 74 U.S. at 265, 7 *1014Wall, at 515. The question before the Court was whether or not the Act of Congress passed while the appeal was pending had taken away the Court’s jurisdiction to hear the appeal. The Court held that the statute had just that effect and in its discussion said:
“Without jurisdiction the Court cannot proceed at all in any cause. Jurisdiction is power to declare the law, and when it ceases to exist, the only function remaining to the Court is that of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause. And this is not less clear upon authority than upon principle.” 74 U.S. at 514, 7 Wall, at 514.
Later in the same opinion, the Court said with respect to pronouncing judgment in the case:
“It is quite clear, therefore, that this Court cannot proceed to pronounce judgment in this case, for it has no longer jurisdiction of the appeal; and judicial duty is not less fitly performed by declining ungranted jurisdiction than in exercising firmly that which the Constitution and laws confer.” 74 U.S. at 515, 7 Wall, at 515.
Lest there be any doubt that McCardle suffers from an infirmity of age (Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 1 Cranch 137, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803), certainly does not), the Court has only recently restated the same principle in Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Risjord, 449 U.S. 368, 101 S.Ct. 669, 66 L.Ed.2d 571 (1980). In Firestone the Court decided that an order refusing to disqualify an attorney was not an appealable order and reversed the Eighth Circuit which had decided that point to the same effect, but had made its decision prospective only and had reached the merits of the question appealed. It was because the Eighth Circuit “reached the merits of the order appealed from,” 449 U.S. at 379, 101 S.Ct. at 676, that it was reversed. The Court stated the proposition clearly in part III of its opinion:
“If the appellate court finds that the order from which a party seeks to appeal does not fall within the statute, its inquiry is over. A court lacks jurisdiction to consider the merits of a case over which it is without jurisdiction, and thus, by definition, a jurisdictional ruling may never be prospective only. We therefore hold that because the Court of Appeals was without jurisdiction to hear the appeal, it was without jurisdiction to decide the merits.” 449 U.S. at 379,101 S.Ct. at 676.1
I suggest that our court is doing in this opinion precisely what the Supreme Court declined to do in McCardle and reversed the Eighth Circuit for doing in Firestone. We are pronouncing judgment in a case in which there was no jurisdiction in the district court, much less in our own.
Without discussion of the philosophical underpinnings which make obligatory upon Article III courts the rule of McCardle and Firestone, it will suffice for me to say at this time that I think we exceed our warrant.

. We have cited this proposition from Firestone with approval in American Federation, etc. v. Federal Labor Board Auth., 675 F.2d 612 (4th Cir.1982).