Court Opinion

ID: 9406785
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-03 18:01:16.003304+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:33.272162
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-14236    Document: 51-1     Date Filed: 07/03/2023   Page: 1 of 5

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-14236
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       DEREKY MARTIN HAGLER,
                                 Plaintiﬀ-Counter Defendant-Appellant,
       versus
       TAMMY RIVERA WILLIAMS,
       a.k.a. Tammy Rivera Malphurs,

                                Defendant-Counter Claimant-Appellee.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Georgia
                     D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-03015-JPB
USCA11 Case: 22-14236      Document: 51-1      Date Filed: 07/03/2023     Page: 2 of 5

       2                      Opinion of the Court                  22-14236

                            ____________________

       Before WILSON, LUCK, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Dereky Hagler (“Dereky”) appeals the district court’s grant
       of summary judgment in favor of Tammy Rivera Williams (“Mal-
       phurs”) in Dereky’s lawsuit against Malphurs. Upon review of this
       case, we have determined that we do not have jurisdiction because
       there is no ﬁnal judgment. When Dereky ﬁled suit against Mal-
       phurs, Malphurs responded by ﬁling counterclaims against her.
       Shortly thereafter, Dereky’s husband Albert ﬁled a separate suit
       against Malphurs, raising almost identical claims, but Malphurs did
       not ﬁle counterclaims against him. While the district court granted
       summary judgment to Malphurs on Dereky’s claims and denied
       Dereky’s motion for default judgment, it denied Malphurs sum-
       mary judgment on her counterclaims. Thereafter, it consolidated
       the two cases and administratively closed Dereky’s case. There is
       nothing in the record indicating the counterclaims which Malphurs
       ﬁled against Dereky in response to Dereky’s complaint against her
       have been disposed of.
               “We have a threshold obligation to ensure that we have ju-
       risdiction to hear an appeal, for without jurisdiction we cannot pro-
       ceed at all in any cause.” Acheron Cap., Ltd. v. Mukamal, 22 F.4th 979,
       986 (11th Cir. 2022) (internal quotation marks omitted). Federal
       appellate courts have jurisdiction to review “appeals from all ﬁnal
       decisions of the district courts of the United States.” 28 U.S.C. §
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       22-14236                Opinion of the Court                          3

       1291. Typically, a decision is suﬃciently ﬁnal when it “ends the lit-
       igation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but
       execute the judgment.” Van Cauwenberghe v. Biard, 486 U.S. 517,
       521–22 (1988). In this case we requested and received supplemental
       brieﬁng on the jurisdictional issue sua sponte identiﬁed by the court.
               In Hall v. Hall, 138 S. Ct. 1118 (2018), the Court held that two
       cases were independent despite being consolidated under Rule
       42(a) and allowed the appeal of the completed one while the other
       was still pending. There, an inter vivos trust ﬁled against the son
       for various torts and when the mother/trustee died, her daughter
       became the trustee. The son then ﬁled counterclaims against his
       sister in her capacity as a trustee and individually. However, be-
       cause she was not a party in her individual capacity in the trust case,
       he had to ﬁle a separate action to raise the claims against her in her
       individual capacity. Thus, the son had counterclaims against the
       daughter in the trust case and claims against her in her individual
       capacity in the individual case. After being consolidated, the cases
       were tried together. Just before trial, the district court dismissed
       the son’s counterclaims against the daughter in the trust case, leav-
       ing the daughter’s (as trustee) claims against the son as the only
       claims left in the trust case. While the jury decided against the
       daughter in both cases, the judge ordered a new trial in the individ-
       ual case. She appealed the trust case and the Supreme Court held
       that the cases were separate notwithstanding the consolidation,
       and there was a ﬁnal judgment in the trust case that could be ap-
       pealed. In other words, the Supreme Court held in Hall: “when one
       of several consolidated cases is ﬁnally decided, a disappointed
USCA11 Case: 22-14236         Document: 51-1         Date Filed: 07/03/2023         Page: 4 of 5

       4                          Opinion of the Court                       22-14236

       litigant is free to seek review of that decision in the court of ap-
       peals.” Id. at 1131.
               As in Hall, in the instant appeal, we also have two cases. The
       ﬁrst case (“Case #1”) is Dereky’s complaint against Malphurs, in
       which Malphurs ﬁled counterclaims against Dereky. Although the
       district court granted summary judgment in favor of Malphurs on
       Dereky’s claims, Malphurs’ counterclaims against Dereky have not
       been ﬁnally resolved.
              The second case (“Case #2”) is Alfred’s separate complaint
       against Malphurs. Dereky is not a party to this Case #2. The rec-
       ord reveals that Alfred’s case is still pending in the district court.
               Although as in Hall, the two cases in this appeal have been
       consolidated, the instant case is distinguished from Hall. In this
       case, Dereky is appealing the summary judgment against her in
       Case #1. However, Malphurs’ counterclaims against Dereky are
       still pending in the district court, and they are part of Dereky’s Case
       #1. 1 This case is not like the situation in Hall—where there were
       no claims still pending in the district court in the case being ap-
       pealed.

       1 Although the district court here instructed that “future filings in these [con-
       solidated] cases shall occur only in” the case number for Alfred’s cases, Doc.
       121 at 19, and although the district court administratively closed Case #1, we
       do not believe that that somehow eliminates from Case #1 Malphurs’ coun-
       terclaims against Dereky and somehow relocates them in Alfred’s Case #2, a
       case to which Dereky is not even a party.
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       22-14236              Opinion of the Court                        5

               In other words, in the case on appeal, Case #1, there is not
       a ﬁnal judgment because Malphurs’ counterclaims against Dereky
       are still pending in the district court. Accordingly, we do not have
       appellate jurisdiction. The appeal is
       DISMISSED.