No. 06-2357EM.United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
July 6, 2006.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
ORDER
J. Michael Koehler sued the attorneys who had represented the plaintiffs in a class action suit arising out of the merger of Nations Bank and Bank of America, claiming they breached their fiduciary duties during settlement negotiations. The district court dismissed the case on April 20, 2006. Koehler appealed the dismissal, and the defendants moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground motions for attorneys’ fees and sanctions are still pending in the district court. We deny the motion.
This Court has jurisdiction over appeals from “all final decisions of the district courts of the United States . . . except where a direct review may be had in the Supreme Court.” 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291. Generally, a final decision within the meaning of Sec. 1291 is one ending “the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.” Union Pacific R.R. Co. v. United Transp. Union, 3 F.3d 255,258 (8th Cir. 1993) (quoting Catlin v. United States, 324 U.S. 229,233 (1945)). We have noted “the collateral character of the [attorneys’] fee issue establishes that an outstanding fee question does not bar recognition of a merits judgment as `final’ and `appealable.'” Maristuen v. Nat’l States Ins. Co., 57 F.3d 673,676 (8th Cir. 1995) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
Similarly regarding sanctions, we agree with the Second Circuit “that for jurisdictional purposes Rule 11 sanctions are [not] substantively different from statutory attorney’s fees,” and “[t]o the extent that Rule 11 sanctions are aimed at punishment or deterrence rather than compensaion, they appear to be even more collateral to the main action than statutory attorney’s fees.” Cooper v. Salomon Bros., 1 F.3d 82,85 (2d Cir. 1993); see also Jackson v. Cintas Corp., 425 F.3d 1313,1316 (11th Cir. 2005) (collecting cases). Therefore, the motion to dismiss the appeal is denied.