Ritu Bhambhani v. Neuraxis, Inc.

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: June 3, 2024
• Docket: 22-1764
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

USCA4 Appeal: 22-1764 Doc: 45 Filed: 06/03/2024 Pg: 1 of 6

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 22-1764

RITU BHAMBHANI, M.D.; SUDHIR RAO, M.D., on behalf of themselves and others similarly situated,

Plaintiffs - Appellants,

v.

NEURAXIS, INC., f/k/a Innovative Health Solutions, Inc.; ACCLIVITY MEDICAL, LLC; DRAGONSLAYER STRATEGIES, LLC; JOY LONG; RYAN KUHLMAN,

Defendants - Appellees,

and

TERRI ANDERSON; COLEMAN CERTIFIED MEDICAL BILLING & CONSULTANT, LLC; INNOVATIVE HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS, LLC,

Defendants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Lydia Kay Griggsby, District Judge. (1:19-cv-00355-LKG)

Submitted: April 26, 2024 Decided: June 3, 2024

Before QUATTLEBAUM and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. USCA4 Appeal: 22-1764 Doc: 45 Filed: 06/03/2024 Pg: 2 of 6

ON BRIEF: Ugo Colella, Washington, D.C., John J. Zefutie, Jr., COLELLA ZEFUTIE LLC, Princeton, New Jersey; John W. Leardi, BUTTACI LEARDI & WERNER LLC, Princeton, New Jersey; Robert A. Gaumont, GORDON FEINBLATT LLC, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellants. Jeffrey R. Teeters, WOOD & LAMPING LLP, Cincinnati, Ohio; Richard M. Goldberg, SHAPIRO SHER GUINOT & SANDLER, Baltimore, Maryland; Marshall N. Perkins, MALLON LLC, Baltimore, Maryland; Joy Long, Greenfield, Indiana, for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

2 USCA4 Appeal: 22-1764 Doc: 45 Filed: 06/03/2024 Pg: 3 of 6

PER CURIAM:

Ritu Bhambhani and Sudhir Rao (“Appellants”) appeal the district court’s order

granting summary judgment to some defendants, dismissing Appellants’ third amended

complaint, and denying Appellants leave to file a fourth amended complaint in their

putative class action suit. Appellants contend that the court erred in finding that they lacked

standing for their claims and abused its discretion in denying them leave to file a fourth

amended complaint. Appellees—Neuraxis, Inc., f/k/a/ Innovative Health Solutions, Inc.

(“Neuraxis”), Acclivity Medical, LLC, Ryan Kuhlman, DragonSlayer Strategies, LLC, and

Joy Long—move to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, arguing that the district

court’s order is not a final, appealable order.

We may exercise jurisdiction only over final orders, 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and certain

interlocutory and collateral orders, 28 U.S.C. § 1292; Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b); Cohen v.

Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 545-46 (1949). “Ordinarily, a district court

order is not final until it has resolved all claims as to all parties.” Porter v. Zook, 803 F.3d

694, 696 (4th Cir. 2015). “Regardless of the label given a district court decision, if it

appears from the record that the district court has not adjudicated all of the issues in a case,

then there is no final order.” Id.

Appellees assert that the district court’s order is not final because the court granted

summary judgment motions filed by only some of the defendants but did not

unambiguously resolve Appellants’ claims against the remaining defendants. We are

unpersuaded. In the order on appeal, the district court granted the summary judgment

motions after concluding that Appellants lacked standing to assert any of their claims for

3 USCA4 Appeal: 22-1764 Doc: 45 Filed: 06/03/2024 Pg: 4 of 6

relief—a defect that barred them from seeking relief from any defendant, as “[s]tanding is

a threshold, jurisdictional question that ensures a suit is appropriate for the exercise of the

federal courts’ judicial powers.” Dreher v. Experian Info. Sols., Inc., 856 F.3d 337, 343

(4th Cir. 2017) (cleaned up). Indeed, “[b]ecause subject matter jurisdiction goes to the

power of the court to adjudicate a claim,” the court’s order “necessarily dismisse[d] the

claim[s] as to all defendants.” Houck v. Substitute Tr. Servs., Inc., 791 F.3d 473, 478 (4th

Cir. 2015). The district court’s order thus resolved all claims as to all parties and ended

the litigation on the merits. Therefore, we have jurisdiction over the appeal, and we deny

the motions to dismiss.

Next, we review the district court’s decision granting summary judgment de novo,

viewing all facts and drawing all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the

nonmoving party. See Wikimedia Found. v. Nat’l Sec’y Agency, 14 F.4th 276, 289 (4th

Cir. 2021). “The party invoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing

standing” under Article III. Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 411-12 (2013).

Appellants must therefore “demonstrate (1) that [they] suffered an injury in fact . . . (2) that

the injury was caused by the defendant, and (3) that the injury would likely be redressed

by the requested judicial relief.” Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., 140 S. Ct. 1615, 1618 (2020).

At the summary judgment stage, Appellants “can no longer rest on mere allegations, but

must set forth by affidavit or other evidence specific facts” to establish standing. Clapper,

568 U.S. at 412 (cleaned up).

An injury in fact is “an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and

particularized and actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Spokeo, Inc. v.

4 USCA4 Appeal: 22-1764 Doc: 45 Filed: 06/03/2024 Pg: 5 of 6

Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 339 (2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). The imminence

requirement “ensure[s] that the alleged injury is not too speculative for Article III

purposes.” Clapper, 568 U.S. at 409. “[T]hreatened injury must be certainly impending

to constitute injury in fact, and . . . allegations of possible future injury are not sufficient.”

Id. (cleaned up). When an allegation of future injury rests on a “highly attenuated chain of

possibilities,” that threatened injury is not imminent or “certainly impending.” Id. at 410.

Having considered the record and the parties’ arguments, we discern no error in the district

court’s determination that Appellants failed to show that they suffered a cognizable injury.

Rather, we conclude that Appellants’ contentions regarding the risk of future threatened

injuries do not satisfy Article III’s requirements, as these harms are “necessarily

conjectural” and not imminently impeding. Clapper, 568 U.S. at 412. Therefore, the

district court properly granted summary judgment based on Appellants’ lack of standing to

bring their claims.

Finally, we review the district court’s denial of Appellants’ motion for leave to

amend the complaint for abuse of discretion. See Nourison Rug Corp. v. Parvizian, 535

F.3d 295, 298 (4th Cir. 2008). When a party moves to amend a pleading after the deadline

for amendments provided in the district court’s scheduling order has passed, “the good

cause standard [provided in Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)] must be satisfied to justify leave to

amend the pleadings.” Id. Only diligent efforts to comply with the scheduling order can

satisfy Rule 16’s good cause standard. See Kmak v. Am. Century Cos., Inc., 873 F.3d 1030,

1034 (8th Cir. 2017). Here, the district court correctly applied Rule 16(b)’s good cause

standard in evaluating Appellants’ motion and properly found that Appellants had not been

5 USCA4 Appeal: 22-1764 Doc: 45 Filed: 06/03/2024 Pg: 6 of 6

diligent in seeking leave to amend their pleading. Thus, the court did not abuse its

discretion in denying Appellants’ motion.

Accordingly, we deny Appellees’ motions to dismiss the appeal and affirm the

district court’s order. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this court and argument would

not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED