On December 9, 2015, in Goode v. Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, Inc., the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held, for the first time in a precedential opinion, that it did not have appellate jurisdiction to review an order dismissing a complaint, without prejudice, for failure to plead sufficient facts because it was not a final order ( (4th Cir. Dec. 9, 2015)).

The plaintiff, Freddie Lee Goode, was a Senior Managing Attorney for Central Virginia Legal Aid Society ("CVLAS") until CVLAS's Board of Directors eliminated Goode's position in March 2013. Goode brought suit against CVLAS, alleging discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and age. CVLAS filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The district court granted the motion to dismiss without prejudice and Goode timely appealed.

On appeal, Goode argued that the district court erred in its pleading requirements. CVLAS argued that the district court's order granting its motion to dismiss without prejudice was not appealable as a final order because Goode could have amended his complaint to cure the pleading deficiencies that the district court identified, even if they were erroneous. The Fourth Circuit agreed.

The Fourth Circuit stated that the relevant jurisdictional inquiry was whether the grounds of the dismissal made clear that no amendment could cure the defects in the plaintiff's case. In other words, if the plaintiff could save his action by amending the complaint, the dismissal order is not final and appealable.

Under Fourth Circuit precedent, orders of dismissal without prejudice were final and appealable when cases were dismissed for procedural reasons unrelated to the contents of the pleadings, such as in cases dismissed because the plaintiffs had no right to bring the particular causes of action or because the claims were barred. Further, the court explained that appellate jurisdiction existed where a district court's order clearly indicated that amendment to the complaint could not cure the complaint's defects.

The Fourth Circuit stated that, in this case, the district court had identified several grounds for dismissal, each of which was readily curable by amendment, irrespective of whether the court was correct in imposing the pleading requirements. As such, Goode could have simply amended his complaint to add factual allegations to satisfy the pleading standards for a prima facie case of discrimination. The district court's order of dismissal was therefore held to be a non-final, non-appealable order, precluding the Fourth Circuit from exercising appellate jurisdiction. The court remanded the matter to the district court with instructions to allow Goode to amend his complaint.