Opinion ID: 155990
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: joinder of insurance companies

Text: 49 In the proceedings below, Gorman-Rupp filed a Motion for Joinder of Real Parties in Interest. It requested joinder as real parties in interest of eleven insurance companies, which had underwritten liability insurance for Frontier. The motion was referred to a magistrate judge who granted Gorman-Rupp's motion. Frontier did not appeal that ruling to the district court. Instead, it proceeded to trial and first raised the issue as error in its Motion for New Trial. 50 Frontier's failure to appeal the magistrate's ruling to the district court precludes it from raising the issue on appeal to this court. Rule 72(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides in relevant part: 51 Within 10 days after being served with a copy of the magistrate judge's order, a party may serve and file objections to the order; a party may not thereafter assign as error a defect in the magistrate judge's order to which objection was not timely made. 52 (Emphasis added.) 53 In Niehaus v. Kansas Bar Ass'n, 793 F.2d 1159, 1165 (10th Cir.1986), this court held that a party waives its right to appeal a magistrate's order when it has not filed objections with the district court. In Niehaus we noted that by failing to file timely objections with the district court, the party stripped the district court of its function of effectively reviewing the magistrate's order and frustrated the policy behind the Magistrate's Act, i.e., to relieve courts of unnecessary work. Id. These policies are particularly relevant in the instant case. Frontier proceeded through trial without objecting to the magistrate's order, thereby allowing significant judicial resources to be expended on a trial in which Frontier contends inappropriate parties were joined. The text of Rule 72 and precedent preclude Frontier from now raising an objection to the magistrate's ruling allowing joinder. 14 See Ayala v. United States, 980 F.2d 1342, 1352 (10th Cir.1992); Video Views, Inc. v. Studio 21 Ltd., 797 F.2d 538, 539 (7th Cir.1986); United States v. Schronce, 727 F.2d 91, 94 (4th Cir.1984); McCarthy v. Manson, 714 F.2d 234, 237 (2d Cir.1983); United States v. Renfro, 620 F.2d 497, 500 (5th Cir.1980).