Background
Rasien Avery Butler-Mazyck filed a pro se complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office and other defendants. The district court accepted a magistrate judge’s recommendation, allowed Butler-Mazyck’s malicious-prosecution claim to proceed against some defendants, and dismissed all his other claims with prejudice and without leave to amend.
Butler-Mazyck appealed that order to the Fourth Circuit and moved to expedite the appeal. Because the malicious-prosecution claim remained pending in the district court, the Fourth Circuit examined whether it had jurisdiction to review the partial dismissal.
The Court’s Holding
The Fourth Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. It held that the challenged district-court order was not a final order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 because it did not resolve the entire case.
The court also determined that the order was not an appealable interlocutory or collateral order under 28 U.S.C. § 1292, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), or the collateral-order doctrine. It therefore denied Butler-Mazyck’s motion to expedite and dismissed the appeal without oral argument.
Key Takeaways
- An order dismissing some claims while allowing another claim to proceed ordinarily is not immediately appealable as a final judgment.
- The dismissal of claims with prejudice and without leave to amend did not create appellate jurisdiction while the malicious-prosecution claim remained pending.
- Because no basis for interlocutory or collateral-order review applied, the Fourth Circuit lacked jurisdiction and dismissed the appeal.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that litigants generally must wait until the district court has resolved the entire action before appealing, unless the court enters an appropriate Rule 54(b) judgment or another recognized basis for immediate appellate review exists.
The unpublished opinion does not bind future Fourth Circuit panels, but it illustrates the jurisdictional risk of appealing a partial dismissal before the remaining claims have been adjudicated.