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Gallagher v. The Fiderion Group LLC

The appellee's voluntary dismissal without prejudice divested the trial court of jurisdiction, therefore, the trial court's subsequent criminal contempt order against the appellant was a nullity.

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In this business tort and contract action brought by The Fiderion Group, LLC and Fiderion Financial Services Group, LLC collectively “Fiderion” against their former employee Robert Gallagher, Gallagher appeals the order finding him in criminal contempt. He argues that Fiderion had voluntarily dismissed the case before the contempt motion was even filed, thus divesting the trial court of jurisdiction to consider such. We agree and reverse. The question of whether the trial court had jurisdiction to hear Fiderion’s motion is a purely legal issue and we owe no deference to the trial court’s ruling, which we review de novo under the “plain legal error” standard of review. See Laughlin v. City of Atlanta .1

The undisputed facts show that in April 2008, Fiderion sued Gallagher for various business torts and for breach of contract, based on Gallagher’s actions that took place just before and soon after Gallagher was terminated from Fiderion’s employ. Fiderion was particularly concerned about Gallagher’s contacting and threatening Fiderion’s clients. The parties consented to two TROs, after which the court conducted a hearing and entered an order on May 14, 2008 that prohibited Gallagher from threatening or contacting any of Fiderion’s clients about Fiderion or about the litigation.

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