Tampa Associate Brandon J. Tyler recently won his first federal appeal on an issue of first impression in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The client had represented the plaintiff-appellant in bankruptcy court and successfully settled the proceeding. Two years later, the plaintiff turned around and claimed our client had settled the case without his consent. The bankruptcy court (and many other courts) rejected this claim, so he sued our client in state court for legal malpractice and fraud. That case was removed to federal court and the plaintiff moved to remand the case back to state court. Brandon successfully convinced the district court that there was federal jurisdiction because the malpractice and fraud claims arose from our client’s work in the bankruptcy proceeding.
The plaintiff then tried to appeal the denial of remand based on a statute that says a court’s decision not to abstain from hearing a case is reviewable by appeal. Whether that statute granted a right to an immediate appeal was a matter of first impression in the Eleventh Circuit. Brandon filed a motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction because the district court’s order was non-final, arguing that statutory history and context indicated the order was only reviewable if it was otherwise appealable as a final order or under a recognized exception to the finality requirement.
The Eleventh Circuit issued its opinion agreeing with Brandon’s motion on all points and dismissing the appeal.
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