Keena v. Groupon, Inc.

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The Fourth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction over plaintiff's appeal from the district court's dismissal with prejudice of her complaint. Like the plaintiff in Microsoft Corp. v. Baker, 137 S. Ct. 1703, 1712-15 (2017), plaintiff secured a voluntary dismissal of her complaint in order to seek an immediate appeal from an otherwise interlocutory order. The court found Justice Ginsburg's opinion in Microsoft instructive, where Justice Ginsburg characterized the appeal in that case as arising from a voluntary-dismissal tactic that contravened the final-judgment rule embodied in 28 U.S.C. 1291. In this case, plaintiff also sought to transform an otherwise interlocutory order into a section 1291 final decision. Therefore, the court held that the dismissal order secured by plaintiff was not an appealable final decision under section 1291 and the court lacked appellate jurisdiction. View "Keena v. Groupon, Inc." on Justia Law