Authored by: James J. Duane
Abstract
Every first-year law student knows that a federal court that lacks subject-matter jurisdiction in a case may not resolve any disputed questions with respect to its merits or to enter a judgment on the merits. But what exactly should the judge do next? If the judge determines that the case must be dismissed on that basis, is the court still permitted—or maybe required—to enter some sort of a judgment, perhaps one closing the case without prejudice? Or is a court that lacks jurisdiction forbidden to enter any judgment, and required instead to merely enter an order dismissing the case?
This fairly jejune question of judicial administration, although not especially exciting or dramatic, arises in a great number of cases around the country every day, including every case in which a federal court dismisses a case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). But until recently, the Supreme Court of the United States had not given the lower courts much explicit guidance on that topic, which could have arguably been considered an open question. Considering how fundamental this question is to the administration of justice in the federal courts, it is surprising that the United States Courts of Appeals have been quite inconsistent over its answer. In an assortment of offhand comments, almost all of them made without any close or substantial analysis or explanation, the federal appellate courts have been divided as to whether an absence of jurisdiction requires a district court, instead of entering a judgment, to merely enter an order dismissing the case—as if those procedural devices were somehow incompatible or mutually exclusive ways of closing a case.
American Journal of Trial Advocacy 