UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _______________

No. 21-1108 _______________

ABDUL A. JALUDI, Appellant v.

CITIGROUP AND COMPANY or one or more of its direct or indirect subsidiaries

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania (D.C. No. 3:15-cv-02076) District Judge: Honorable Malachy E. Mannion _______________

Argued: May 25, 2022

Before: KRAUSE, BIBAS, and PHIPPS, Circuit Judges

(Filed: January 4, 2023) _______________ Christina Bowen [ARGUED] Emily Erwin Mary E. Levy Arielle Schoenburg TEMPLE UNIVERSITY BEASLEY SCHOOL OF LAW 1719 N. Broad St. Philadelphia, PA 19122 Jessica Rickabaugh TUCKER LAW GROUP 1801 Market St. Ten Penn Center, Suite 2500 Philadelphia, PA 19103

Counsel for Appellant Christen L. Casale SALMANSON GOLDSHAW 1500 John F. Kennedy Blvd. Two Penn Center, Suite 1230 Philadelphia, PA 19102 Thomas A. Linthorst [ARGUED] MORGAN LEWIS & BOCKIUS 502 Carnegie Center Princeton, NJ 08540 William R. Peterson MORGAN LEWIS & BOCKIUS 1000 Louisiana St., Suite 4000 Houston, TX 77002

Counsel for Appellee

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OPINION OF THE COURT _______________ BIBAS, Circuit Judge. Procedural errors can sink a case, even if they are not juris- dictional. Abdul Jaludi made two such errors on his way to fed- eral court: he filed his administrative complaint after the statute of limitations had run, and he sued before exhausting his ad- ministrative remedies. Though neither mistake was jurisdic- tional under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, his delay in filing justi- fied the District Court’s dismissal. We will thus affirm. I. BACKGROUND Jaludi had a flourishing career at Citigroup. But after he reported company wrongdoing, he was demoted, transferred, and (in 2013) let go. His troubles did not end there. Citigroup, he claims, blacklisted him from the whole financial industry. In 2015, Jaludi sued Citigroup for retaliation. He brought claims under both the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The District Court sent his claims to arbitration. Jaludi appealed the arbitration order. In early 2018, while that appeal was pending, he filed an administrative complaint with the Secretary of Labor. That complaint rehashed the alle- gations here, and added one more: In late 2017, a headhunter had stopped returning his calls. Citigroup, he suspected, was behind this silent treatment. We then decided his appeal, hold- ing that he need not arbitrate his Sarbanes-Oxley claims, and

3 remanded to let them proceed in court. Jaludi v. Citigroup, 933 F.3d 246, 248 (3d Cir. 2019). But Jaludi’s victory was short-lived. On remand, the Dis- trict Court dismissed for failure to state a claim because his administrative complaint was untimely. Though Sarbanes- Oxley required an administrative complaint within 180 days of the retaliatory conduct, he had waited more than two years after the last incident. We appointed Mary Levy of Temple University’s Beasley School of Law to brief this appeal on Jaludi’s behalf, together with her law students Christina Bowen, Emily Erwin, and Ari- elle Schoenburg. Jessica Rickabaugh also contributed to the brief, and Bowen argued the case for Jaludi. We thank them all for their service to our Court. On appeal, both parties say the District Court got it wrong. Jaludi says the court should have granted him leave to amend because the 2017 allegation that he added in his administrative complaint happe