UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 22-1151

JOHN OSBORNE CRANDELL, III,

 Petitioner - Appellant,

v.

U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION,

 Respondent - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, at 

Elkins. Thomas S. Kleeh, Chief District Judge. (2:21-cv-00016-TSK-MJA)

Submitted: January 26, 2023 Decided: February 7, 2023

Before NIEMEYER and KING, Circuit Judges, and FLOYD, Senior Circuit Judge.

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

John Osborne Crandell, III, Appellant Pro Se.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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PER CURIAM:

John Osborne Crandell, III, appeals the district court’s order adopting the magistrate 

judge’s recommendation and dismissing with prejudice his civil action. Because the 

district court failed to apply the proper standard in reviewing the magistrate judge’s 

recommendation, we vacate and remand for further proceedings.

A district court must review de novo those portions of a magistrate judge’s 

recommendation to which specific objections are made. United States v. De Leon-Ramirez, 

925 F.3d 177, 181 (4th Cir. 2019); see United States v. George, 971 F.2d 1113, 1118 (4th 

Cir. 1992) (“By definition, de novo review entails consideration of an issue as if it had not 

been decided previously.”). To qualify as specific, a party’s objections must “reasonably 

. . . alert the district court of the true ground[s] for the objection[s].” Martin v. Duffy, 858 

F.3d 239, 245 (4th Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). This requirement 

“train[s] the attention of both the district court and the court of appeals upon only those 

issues that remain in dispute after the magistrate judge has made findings and 

recommendations.” United States v. Midgette, 478 F.3d 616, 621 (4th Cir. 2007). When 

a district court fails to apply the proper standard of review to a magistrate judge’s 

recommendation, a remand is warranted. De Leon-Ramirez, 925 F.3d at 181.

In these proceedings, Crandell sought an order from the district court directing the 

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) to produce the case file for 

Taylor v. Brown, No. 2:93-cv-00093-REM (N.D.W. Va.). The magistrate judge 

recommended dismissing Crandell’s civil action for failure to state a claim, or in the 

alternative, awarding summary judgment to NARA based on NARA’s representation that 

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the case file had been destroyed.*

 As relevant here, Crandell objected to the magistrate 

judge’s recommendation and asserted that, pursuant to NARA’s Records Disposition 

Schedule for district court case files, NARA was required to permanently retain the file for 

Taylor v. Brown. Crandell also supplied evidence to support his assertion. The district 

court deemed Crandell’s objections nonspecific and reviewed the magistrate judge’s 

recommendation for clear error only. Discerning no clear error, the district court adopted 

the recommendation and dismissed with prejudice Crandell’s action. The district court did 

not address Crandell’s assertion and evidence related to the Records Disposition Schedule.

Having reviewed Crandell’s objections to the magistrate judge’s recommendation, 

we disagree with the district court’s characterization of them as nonspecific. Crandell 

reasonably alerted the district court to his disagreement with the magistrate judge’s 

determination that the case file had been destroyed and explained that disagreement with 

citations to record evidence. See Martin, 858 F.3d at 245. We are therefore satisfied that 

the district court was obliged to review de novo that aspect of the magistrate judge’s 

recommendation.

Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s order and remand for the district court to 

apply the proper standard of review to the magistrate judge’s recommendation. We express 

no opinion on the ultimate merits of Crandell’s objections. We dispense with oral argument 

* The magistrate judge also determined that Crandell had failed to exhaust his 

administrative remedies before pursuing this action. But the district court’s dismissal with 

prejudice causes us to question whether the court relied on that determination in resolving 

this case. See Moss v. Harwood, 19 F.4th 614, 623 n.3 (4th Cir. 2021).

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because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials before this 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

VACATED AND REMANDED

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