Case: 18-15205 Date Filed: 03/02/2020 Page: 1 of 17 [PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 18-15205 ________________________ D.C. Docket No. 9:17-cv-81070-BB HARRY SARGEANT, III, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus DANIEL HALL, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ________________________ (March 2, 2020) Before JORDAN and JILL PRYOR, Circuit Judges, and COOGLER, ∗ District Judge. JORDAN, Circuit Judge: ∗The Honorable L. Scott Coogler, Chief United States District Judge for the Northern District of Alabama, sitting by designation. Case: 18-15205 Date Filed: 03/02/2020 Page: 2 of 17 Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(d), if a plaintiff who voluntarily dismissed an action files a second action against the same defendant based on or including the same claim, “the court: (1) may order the plaintiff to pay all or part of the costs of that previous action; and (2) may stay the proceedings until the plaintiff has complied.” The question presented in this appeal—one of first impression in our circuit—is whether Rule 41(d) applies when a plaintiff, after dismissing the first federal action, files a subsequent action in state court. For the reasons which follow, we conclude that Rule 41(d) does not apply in such a scenario. I In February of 2018, Harry Sargeant, III filed a complaint against Daniel Hall and others in federal court. He alleged, in pertinent part, that Mr. Hall had conspired with the other defendants to access a computer server and email account in order to obtain his sensitive information. Mr. Sargeant asserted two claims against Mr. Hall. The first was conspiracy to violate the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), 18 U.S.C. § 1030, and the second was civil conspiracy to invade privacy and violate Florida’s Computer Abuse and Data Recovery Act (“CADRA”), Fla. Stat. § 668.801 et seq. Mr. Hall moved to dismiss the complaint, and the district court referred the motion to a magistrate judge. On May 30, 2018, the magistrate judge issued a report recommending that the district court grant the motion because Mr. Sargeant failed 2 Case: 18-15205 Date Filed: 03/02/2020 Page: 3 of 17 to state a claim against Mr. Hall. On June 4, 2018, before the district court acted on the report, Mr. Sargeant filed a notice of voluntary dismissal pursuant to Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i). The district court accordingly dismissed the action without prejudice, providing that “[e]ach party shall bear its own attorneys’ fees and costs[.]” D.E. 198. About three weeks later, Mr. Sargeant filed a new action—this time in a Florida state court—against Mr. Hall and the other defendants based on the same alleged wrongful conduct. Mr. Sargeant asserted the same Florida law claim against Mr. Hall—for civil conspiracy to invade privacy and violate CADRA—that had been alleged in the federal action, as well as a separate invasion of privacy claim, but omitted the federal CFAA claim. After Mr. Sargeant filed the state-court complaint, Mr. Hall moved in the closed federal case for costs of the previously ...
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