Walthour v. Middle Georgia Family Rehab: Eleventh Circuit Reinforces Limits on Using Rule 41(a) to Manufacture Appellate Finality

I. Introduction

In Joshua Walthour v. Middle Georgia Family Rehab LLC, the Eleventh Circuit again confronted a now-recurring problem: parties attempting to use Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a) to voluntarily dismiss some—but not all—claims in order to generate a “final judgment” and secure appellate review of an earlier partial summary judgment order.

The underlying lawsuit is a qui tam False Claims Act (FCA) case alleging that Middle Georgia Family Rehab and its principals improperly billed federal and state healthcare programs for therapy services that were not provided. The United States and the State of Georgia intervened and obtained a large partial summary judgment. The defendants (appellants) then sought to appeal that ruling. When an initial appeal was dismissed for lack of a final judgment, the parties tried to close out the remaining issues by stipulating to dismiss the non-adjudicated claims under Rule 41(a).

The Eleventh Circuit held that this maneuver failed. Because the Rule 41(a) dismissal was ineffective, claims remained pending in the district court, and there was no final, appealable decision. The court therefore dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

Although unpublished and “not for publication,” the opinion is an important application of the Circuit’s increasingly strict jurisprudence on Rule 41(a) dismissals, the meaning of “final” under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and the proper interaction between Rules 41, 54(b), 15, and 21. It underscores that litigants in the Eleventh Circuit cannot use a partial Rule 41(a) dismissal to manufacture appellate finality.

II. Factual and Procedural Background

A. The Underlying Qui Tam and Government Intervention

In 2018, relator Joshua Walthour filed a qui tam action under the federal False Claims Act (FCA) and the Georgia False Medicaid Claims Act (GFMCA), alleging that:

Middle Georgia Family Rehab, LLC, and its principals Brenda and Clarence Hicks
schemed to submit claims to Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE
for occupational and physical therapy services that were not actually rendered.

Walthour asserted four FCA claims and one GFMCA claim. Almost three years later, the United States and the State of Georgia intervened and filed their own complaint, asserting additional claims under the FCA, the GFMCA, and the common law.

B. Partial Summary Judgment and Rule 54(b) Certification

In December 2021, the government moved for partial summary judgment on more than a thousand alleged false claims. The motion did not target all counts or all theories in the case; rather, it sought summary judgment only on a subset of claimed false submissions.

The district court:

granted the motion in part,
entered judgment on 796 alleged false claims,
in the amount of $9,617,679.22,
and purported to certify that partial judgment for immediate appeal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b).

C. First Appeal: Rule 54(b) Certification Rejected

The defendants appealed the partial summary judgment. The Eleventh Circuit dismissed that earlier appeal for lack of jurisdiction, concluding that the Rule 54(b) order was not a “final judgment” for purposes of Rule 54(b because it did not:

Completely dismiss any party, or
Fully resolve any claim for relief asserted in the government’s complaint.

See Walthour v. Middle Ga. Family Rehab LLC, No. 22‑12189 (11th Cir. Jan. 23, 2023). That determination later became important under the “law of the case” doctrine.

D. Attempted Voluntary Dismissal of Remaining Claims

After remand, the parties advised the district court that they intended to voluntarily dismiss the claims still pending. Following resolution of Walthour’s motion for attorneys’ fees, the parties filed a “joint stipulation of partial dismissal” under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii). The stipulation stated that:

“all claims except for those on which the government was awarded summary judgment,” and
Walthour’s claim for fees, costs, and expenses

“may be dismissed.”

Because not all counsel had signed the stipulation (in particular, not Walthour’s counsel), the district court treated it as a request for a court-ordered dismissal and entered a paperless order under Rule 41(a)(2). That order directed the clerk to enter judgment because, in the court’s view, all remaining non-adjudicated claims had been dismissed by stipulation.

The defendants again appealed, seeking review of the partial summary judgment and the large monetary judgment entered on 796 claims.

III. Summary of the Eleventh Circuit’s Opinion

The Eleventh Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

The court held, in substance:

The earlier partial summary judgment order—despite the district court’s attempted Rule 54(b) certification—was not a “final judgment” within the meaning of Rule 54(b). The court had already so held in the prior appeal, and that determination was binding under the law-of-the-case doctrine.
Because the Rule 54(b) certification was ineffective, the claims resolved at summary judgment remained pending in the district court when the parties later attempted their voluntary dismissal.
Under Eleventh Circuit precedent interpreting Rule 41(a), Rule 41(a) cannot be used to dismiss less than the entire “action.” A dismissal that removes only some claims in an action is invalid.
The parties’ Rule 41(a) stipulation and the district court’s Rule 41(a)(2) order purported to dismiss only the remaining, non-adjudicated claims and did not encompass the claims previously resolved at summary judgment. Therefore, the Rule 41(a) dismissal was ineffective and invalid.
With both the summary-judgment claims and the supposedly dismissed claims still legally pending in the district court, there was no “final decision” under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The Eleventh Circuit consequently lacked appellate jurisdiction and dismissed the appeal.

The court also emphasized that parties wishing to accelerate appellate review have better tools—namely, amendment under Rule 15 or severance under Rule 21—than trying to manipulate Rule 41(a).

IV. Detailed Analysis

A. Appellate Jurisdiction and the Final Judgment Rule

Federal appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 is limited to “final decisions” of district courts. A decision is “final” when it resolves all claims as to all parties, leaving nothing for the district court to do but execute the judgment.

The court reiterates that:

“Our jurisdiction is generally limited to final decisions of the district courts, and an order that adjudicates fewer than all the claims against all the parties to an action is typically not a final judgment from which an appeal can be taken.” (quoting Weinstein v. 440 Corp., 146 F.4th 1046, 1050 (11th Cir. 2025)).

Two principal mechanisms can create “finality” where fewer than all claims have been substantively resolved:

Rule 54(b): certification of a partial judgment as “final” when it completely resolves at least one claim or all claims as to at least one party.
Rule 21 / Separate Action: severance of some claims into a separate action, whose resolution can then become final even while other claims continue in the original case.

By contrast, Rule 41(a) is not a generalized tool to sculpt appealable orders out of partial dispositions. In the Eleventh Circuit, it can dismiss only an entire “action,” not selected claims.

B. Rule 54(b) and the Law-of-the-Case Constraint

The district court initially treated its partial summary judgment order as a final judgment under Rule 54(b). The Eleventh Circuit, in the earlier appeal, rejected that view, holding that the order:

did not fully dispose of any entire “claim for relief” in the government’s complaint, and
did not dismiss any party entirely from the case.

Consequently, Rule 54(b) could not support immediate appellate review. This matters in the present appeal because the court is now bound by its earlier jurisdictional decision under the law-of-the-case doctrine, as explained in Dorsey v. Continental Cas. Co., 730 F.2d 675, 678 (11th Cir. 1984).

The panel underscores that:

“A district court's Rule 54(b) certification is not conclusive on [our Court].” (quoting Ebrahimi v. City of Huntsville Bd. of Educ., 114 F.3d 162, 166 (11th Cir. 1997)).

In other words, even if the district court labels its order “final” under Rule 54(b), the appellate court must independently decide whether the order truly qualifies. Once the Eleventh Circuit determined in the first appeal that it did not, that finding became binding for future stages of this same case, including the present appeal.

C. Rule 41(a): “Action” Means the Entire Case, Not Individual Claims

The opinion reinforces a now well-developed Eleventh Circuit line of authority holding that Rule 41(a) can only dismiss an entire “action,” not just some claims within it.

The text of Rule 41(a)(2) authorizes the court, “on terms that the court considers proper,” to dismiss “an action” at the plaintiff’s request. The Eleventh Circuit has interpreted “action” to mean the entire case, not selective claims. As the court summarizes:

“Any attempt to use Rule 41(a) to dismiss anything less than the entire action will be invalid.” (quoting Weinstein v. 440 Corp., 146 F.4th at 1051).

The same principle applies whether the dismissal is by:

Stipulation without court order (Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii)), or
Order of the court (Rule 41(a)(2)).

In this case:

The parties’ stipulation referred only to dismissing “all claims except for those on which the government was awarded summary judgment” and the fee claim.
The district court’s order likewise spoke of dismissing only the “remaining non-adjudicated claims.”

But the claims on which summary judgment had been granted were not yet part of a final judgment, because the failed Rule 54(b) attempt meant they remained subject to revision “at any time” before the entry of a final, all-claims judgment. Thus:

Those claims were still live components of the “action,” and
The attempt to dismiss only some other claims left the “action” as a whole unresolved.

Under Weinstein, CMYK, and other cases, that kind of partial Rule 41(a) dismissal is invalid as a matter of Eleventh Circuit law.

D. Key Precedents and Their Influence

1. CMYK Enterprises, Inc. v. Advanced Print Techs., LLC

CMYK, 154 F.4th 1329 (11th Cir. 2025), is the central precedent informing this opinion. There, the parties litigated numerous claims and counterclaims. After partial summary judgment resolved two breach-of-contract claims (but left others unresolved), the parties:

did not obtain a Rule 54(b) certification,
instead moved under Rule 41(a)(2) to dismiss “the remaining counts” not addressed by summary judgment, and
then went straight to appeal on the summary judgment ruling.

The Eleventh Circuit held there was no final judgment:

The summary judgment order did not become “final” without a proper Rule 54(b) certification.
The claims decided at summary judgment remained pending in the district court.
The attempted Rule 41(a)(2) dismissal of only some counts was invalid upon filing, because it did not dismiss the entire action.
As a result, all claims—those resolved at summary judgment and those purportedly dismissed—remained pending, so no final decision existed.

Walthour applies this same reasoning. The only distinction is that in Walthour the district court tried—but failed—to create a Rule 54(b) judgment, while in CMYK there was no such attempt. The panel treats this as a distinction without a difference: either way, the claims resolved at summary judgment were not finally disposed of, so they remained pending when the parties invoked Rule 41(a).

2. Weinstein v. 440 Corp. and the Rule 41(a) “Whole Action” Rule

In Weinstein v. 440 Corp., 146 F.4th 1046 (11th Cir. 2025), the court reaffirmed in strong terms that Rule 41(a) cannot be used to dismiss individual claims while leaving the rest of the action intact:

“[A]ny attempt to use Rule 41(a) to dismiss anything less than the entire action will be invalid.” (146 F.4th at 1051).

Weinstein also highlights the interplay between Rule 41 and other rules—particularly Rule 21, which allows claims or parties to be severed into a separate proceeding that can then reach final judgment on its own.

Walthour quotes this core rule from Weinstein and uses it to invalidate the parties’ attempted partial dismissal of only the remaining, non-adjudicated claims.

3. Rosell, Esteva, and the Limits of Partial Dismissals

The panel’s reasoning aligns with two other Eleventh Circuit decisions:

Rosell v. VMSB, LLC, 67 F.4th 1141 (11th Cir. 2023): confirming that Rule 41(a) is not the proper mechanism to drop individual claims, and pointing litigants instead to Rule 15 amendments or Rule 21 severance.
Esteva v. UBS Fin. Servs. Inc. (In re Esteva), 60 F.4th 664 (11th Cir. 2023): again emphasizing that partial dismissals under Rule 41(a) are invalid, and that litigants must use other procedural tools to dismiss or restructure claims.

4. Corley, Perry, and Klay: Better Tools Than Rule 41(a)

The panel echoes the concerns expressed by Chief Judge Pryor’s concurrence in Corley v. Long-Lewis, Inc., 965 F.3d 1222 (11th Cir. 2020), where he called Rule 41(a) a “poor mechanism to accelerate appellate review” and urged litigants to use more appropriate alternatives.

The alternatives, which the panel highlights, are:

Rule 15(a) (Amendments): A party can amend the complaint to remove particular claims. As the court notes—citing Perry v. Schumacher Grp. of La., 891 F.3d 954, 958 (11th Cir. 2018), and Klay v. United Healthgroup, Inc., 376 F.3d 1092, 1106 (11th Cir. 2004)—“[t]he easiest and most obvious” way to drop a single claim is to amend the pleadings under Rule 15, not to dismiss the “action” under Rule 41.
Rule 21 (Severance): The court can sever remaining claims into a separate case. As summarized in Corley and cited in CMYK and Weinstein, “[t]he severed claims would proceed as a discrete suit and result in their own final judgment from which an appeal may be taken.”

5. City of Jacksonville and Sanchez: Technical Requirements Under Rule 41(a)(1)

The panel also touches on procedural nuances regarding stipulations under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii):

City of Jacksonville v. Jacksonville Hosp. Holdings, L.P., 82 F.4th 1031 (11th Cir. 2023): All parties who have appeared—not just the parties to be dismissed—must sign a Rule 41(a)(1) stipulation.
Sanchez v. Discount Rock & Sand, Inc., 84 F.4th 1283 (11th Cir. 2023): If a Rule 41(a)(1) stipulation fails (for example, lacking all required signatures), a district court may nonetheless dismiss the action by entering an order under Rule 41(a)(2).

Here, the stipulation was defective under City of Jacksonville because Walthour’s counsel did not sign it. The district court therefore treated it as a request for a Rule 41(a)(2) dismissal—something the Eleventh Circuit assumes was proper in form, but invalid in substance because it sought to dismiss less than the entire action.

E. The Court’s Reasoning, Step by Step

Appellate jurisdiction is limited to final decisions.
The court begins by reiterating that it may review only final decisions under § 1291, and partial adjudications are normally not final.
The partial summary judgment order is not final under Rule 54(b).
In the earlier appeal, the Eleventh Circuit already held that the partial summary judgment—purportedly certified under Rule 54(b)—was not a final judgment because it neither disposed of any entire claim for relief nor dismissed any party.
That determination is law of the case.
Under Dorsey, prior appellate determinations in the same case are generally binding. The court “stands by” its earlier conclusion that the Rule 54(b) certification was ineffective.
Therefore, the summary-judgment claims remained pending.
Because the Rule 54(b) certification failed, the claims resolved at summary judgment remained part of the ongoing “action” and were subject to revision until a final, all-claims judgment.
The parties’ Rule 41(a) stipulation addressed only non-adjudicated claims.
The stipulation (and the district court’s resulting order) purported only to dismiss “all claims except for those on which the government was awarded summary judgment” plus the fee claim. It did not encompass the claims resolved at summary judgment.
Under Eleventh Circuit precedent, Rule 41(a) cannot dismiss less than the entire action.
Citing Weinstein, Rosell, Esteva, and CMYK, the court holds that any attempt to use Rule 41(a) to dismiss fewer than all claims against all parties is invalid. The “action” remained pending because some components (namely, the summary-judgment claims) were left untouched.
The Rule 41(a)(2) order was therefore ineffective.
Because it purported to dismiss only the remaining, non-adjudicated claims, the order did not terminate the entire action and was ineffective under the governing precedent. Those claims remain unresolved in the district court.
With claims still pending, there is no final judgment and no jurisdiction.
Both:
- the claims resolved at summary judgment (which are not yet final), and
- the supposedly dismissed claims
remain before the district court. The Eleventh Circuit therefore lacks a final, appealable decision and must dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
There were better procedural paths available.
The opinion closes by observing that litigants could have:
- amended the pleadings under Rule 15(a) to remove the remaining non-summary-judgment claims, or
- asked the court to sever certain claims under Rule 21, creating a separate action capable of reaching its own final judgment.
Instead, they used Rule 41(a), which the court characterizes—via Corley—as a poor mechanism for accelerating appellate review.

V. Simplifying the Key Procedural Concepts

A. “Final Decision” and Why It Matters

Think of a lawsuit as a bundle of questions. A decision is “final” only when all of those questions have been fully answered:

Every claim has been resolved (won, lost, or dismissed), and
No more issues are left for the trial court except carrying out the judgment.

Appellate courts generally cannot review “half-finished” lawsuits. That is why partial summary judgment orders—those that resolve some issues but leave others—are usually not immediately appealable.

B. What Does Rule 54(b) Do?

Rule 54(b) is a narrow exception to the final-judgment rule. It allows a district court to declare a judgment “final” and immediately appealable even though other claims remain pending, but only if:

That judgment completely resolves at least one whole claim (or all claims as to one party), and
The court expressly finds that there is “no just reason for delay.”

Crucially, the appellate court independently checks whether a purported Rule 54(b) judgment really qualifies. The district court’s say-so is not enough.

C. Rule 41(a)(1) vs. Rule 41(a)(2)

Rule 41(a) governs voluntary dismissals:

Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i): A plaintiff can unilaterally dismiss “an action” before the defendant answers or moves for summary judgment.
Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii): All parties who have appeared may sign a stipulation to dismiss “an action” without needing a court order.
Rule 41(a)(2): After the defendant has responded, or where a (a)(1) stipulation is defective, the plaintiff may ask the court to dismiss “an action” by order, typically on agreed terms.

In the Eleventh Circuit, “action” in these provisions means the entire case, not just some claims. To eliminate particular claims within an action:

Use Rule 15 (amend the pleading to drop the claim), or
Use Rule 21 (sever the claim into a different action).

D. Law of the Case

“Law of the case” is a doctrine that prevents the same appellate court, in the same litigation, from revisiting its own earlier decisions on issues that were already decided. Once the Eleventh Circuit held in the first appeal that the Rule 54(b) order was not final, that determination became binding in later stages of Walthour.

E. Severance Under Rule 21

Rule 21 allows the court to “sever” claims or parties, effectively splitting one lawsuit into two (or more) separate cases. Once severed:

The severed claims proceed as their own lawsuit, with their own docket number and final judgment.
An appeal can then be taken from that separate judgment without waiting for the original case to finish.

Severance, therefore, is a legitimate way to obtain appellate review of discrete issues while other claims continue in the district court—unlike partial dismissals under Rule 41(a), which are invalid in this Circuit.

VI. Practical Impact and Strategic Implications

A. For Litigants in the Eleventh Circuit

Walthour reinforces a clear, and unforgiving, rule: parties may not manipulate Rule 41(a) in order to create a final judgment for appeal when some claims or parties remain unresolved.

Practical consequences include:

No partial Rule 41(a) dismissals: Do not rely on stipulations or court orders that purport to dismiss only some claims while leaving others (including claims decided at summary judgment) in place.
Plan for finality early: When structuring pleadings and claims, anticipate how any potential partial rulings will interact with the final-judgment rule and what will be required to reach appealable finality.
Use appropriate tools:
- To drop unwanted claims, amend under Rule 15.
- To isolate claims for appellate review, seek severance under Rule 21 and then pursue final judgment in the severed action.

B. For District Courts

District courts in the Eleventh Circuit must now be particularly cautious about:

Treating partial summary judgment orders as “final” under Rule 54(b) when they do not dispose of an entire claim or an entire party.
Entering Rule 41(a)(2) orders that dismiss only certain claims—the appellate court may later deem these orders ineffective.
Ensuring that, before entering a purported final judgment, all claims have either been:
- resolved by substantive ruling,
- voluntarily dropped through a proper Rule 15 amendment, or
- severed into a separate action via Rule 21.

C. For FCA and Complex Multi-Claim Litigation

FCA and other complex cases often involve:

multiple statutory and common-law claims,
overlapping factual predicates, and
numerous alleged false submissions or transactions.

In such settings, partial summary judgment—resolving some claims or transactions but not others—is common. Walthour signals that parties in the Eleventh Circuit cannot short-circuit full litigation by:

winning or losing some subset of claims,
stipulating away the rest under Rule 41(a), and
then taking an immediate appeal.

Instead, they must either:

wait until the entire case is resolved, or
carefully use Rule 15 amendments or Rule 21 severance to produce a discrete, truly final judgment.

D. The Opinion’s Status and Persuasive Value

The opinion is designated “NOT FOR PUBLICATION,” which means it is not binding precedent in the Eleventh Circuit. Still, it is an application of, and consistent with, a robust line of published decisions (Weinstein, Rosell, Esteva, CMYK, Perry, Klay, etc.) and thus has significant persuasive value.

For practitioners, Walthour is a warning shot: appellate courts will scrutinize efforts to engineer finality, and Rule 41(a) is no shortcut. Missteps can lead to costly, time-consuming jurisdictional dismissals like this one.

VII. Conclusion

Joshua Walthour v. Middle Georgia Family Rehab LLC is not about the merits of FCA liability. The Eleventh Circuit expressly declines to reach those merits, dismissing the appeal solely for lack of jurisdiction. But procedurally, the case is significant.

The key takeaways are:

Partial summary judgment plus a defective Rule 54(b) certification does not create a final, appealable judgment. Claims resolved at summary judgment remain pending until there is a proper final judgment or a valid Rule 54(b) certification.
Rule 41(a) cannot be used to dismiss individual claims or subsets of claims. In the Eleventh Circuit, any attempt to use Rule 41(a)—whether by stipulation or court order—to dismiss less than the entire action is invalid.
Improper use of Rule 41(a) leaves claims pending and defeats appellate jurisdiction. Here, both the summary-judgment claims and the purportedly dismissed remaining claims still reside in the district court, so there is no final decision under § 1291.
Better procedural tools exist. Litigants should use Rule 15 to amend pleadings and drop claims, or Rule 21 to sever claims into a separate action, if they wish to create a proper pathway to appellate review of partial dispositions.

By reinforcing these principles, Walthour contributes to a clear message in Eleventh Circuit practice: jurisdictional rules of finality and the proper use of procedural devices like Rules 41, 54(b), 15, and 21 are not formalities. They are substantive constraints that can determine whether an appeal is heard at all.