No. 20-1112

THE COMMONWEALTH SCHOOL, INC.,

Plaintiff, Appellee,

v.

COMMONWEALTH ACADEMY HOLDINGS LLC, a/k/a Commonwealth Academy, ET AL.,

Defendants, Appellants.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

[Hon. Indira Talwani, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Kayatta, Selya, and Barron, Circuit Judges.

John H. Ray, III, with whom Ray & Counsel, P.C. was on brief, for appellants. M. Lawrence Oliverio, with whom Polsinelli P.C. was on brief, for appellee.

April 14, 2021 SELYA, Circuit Judge. This multifaceted appeal requires us to resolve, as threshold matters, a pair of jurisdictional issues. The first is an issue concerning our appellate jurisdiction, and the second is an issue concerning the district court's jurisdiction. After concluding that neither of these jurisdictional booby traps derails the appeal, we reach the merits and reverse the district court's order of dismissal, direct enforcement of the contested agreement, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. I. BACKGROUND

The dispute between the parties dates back several years, and we think it helpful to sketch the relevant facts. The Commonwealth School, Inc. (the School) has operated a Boston-based private school since 1958. It was the plaintiff below and is the appellee in this court. The School's antagonist, defendant- appellant Commonwealth Academy Holdings LLC,1 operates a relatively new private school (founded in 2011) in Springfield, Massachusetts. The distance between Boston and Springfield is slightly over ninety miles.

1The School's suit also named other defendants allegedly associated with Commonwealth Academy Holdings LLC, and the latter — in its pleadings — suggested that an unnamed entity, Project 13, Inc., may be the real party in interest. For present purposes, nothing turns on the interrelationships among these players, and we refer to them, collectively, as "the Academy."

- 2 - The pot began to boil in April of 2016. At that time, the School brought suit under the Lanham Act, see 15 U.S.C. §§ 1114(a), 1125(a), against the Academy. The School alleged that it had trademarked the name "Commonwealth School" and that the Academy's name ("Commonwealth Academy") infringed that trademark. The School's complaint also contained supplemental claims arising under Massachusetts law, based on essentially the same conduct. The School subsequently filed an amended complaint covering much the same ground, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1)(B), and the Academy filed an answer in which it denied liability, raised affirmative defenses, and asserted four counterclaims.

In August of 2016, the two parties seemingly achieved a settlement through court-attached mediation. The settlement was based on an oral agreement reached at a mediation session held on August 3, 2016. The material terms of the agreement are straightforward: the School agreed to pay $25,000 to the Academy in exchange for the Academy changing its name to "Springfield Commonwealth Academy."2 The mediator reported the oral agreement to the district court the next day. Based on the mediator's report, the district court conditionally dismissed the case on August 8, cautioning that the conditional order of dismissal

2 The agreement also authorized the Academy to use the acronym "