Procedural glitch prevents the 2d Circuit from hearing appeal from jury verdict

This wage and hour case went to trial. The plaintiffs sued under federal and state law, but the trial court asked the parties if they were OK with submitting only the state law claims to the jury, as that tactic would simplify the jury instructions. The jury ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on the state law claims. 

After the district court resolved post-trial motions and the district court certified this case for immediate appeal under Rule 54(b), defendants appealed to the Second Circuit, claiming the trial court should not have exercised supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims. The appeal is dismissed and resolution of this case will be delayed.

The case is Zivkovic v. Laura Christy LLC, issued on March 5. The appeal is dismissed because the federal claims were never resolved in this case. The Fair Labor Standards Act claims are still pending. They were neither dismissed nor resolved by the district court. The lack of clarity about the status of the FLSA claims complicates the appeal because "it leads to questions about the validity of the district court's judgment certifying this appeal" for immediate review in the Second Circuit. Second, "the status of the FLSA claims may be relevant to our analysis of Defendants' challenge to the district court's exercise of jurisdiction" under 28 USC 1367, the supplemental jurisdiction statute that allows the trial courts to hear related state law claims. 

The case returns to the district court to clarify the status of the FLSA claims. When that happens, the parties may return to the Court of Appeals (Kearse, Park and Robinson) to resolve these issues on the merits.