Opinion ID: 171590
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motions to Amend Counterclaim and Quash Subpoena

Text: The Hubbells also contend that the district court abused its discretion by granting summary judgment without first ruling on their objections to the magistrate judge's orders granting the Banking Division's motion to quash the Hubbells' subpoena and denying the Hubbells' motion to add additional counterclaims. (After granting summary judgment, the district court entered a minute order declaring that the Hubbells' objections to both of the magistrate judge's decisions were moot.) We agree that the district court should have addressed the Hubbells' objections. Review of the magistrate judge's ruling is required by the district court when a party timely files written objections to that ruling. Hutchinson v. Pfeil, 105 F.3d 562, 566 (10th Cir.1997). But, again, the Hubbells have failed to show prejudice. With regard to the magistrate judge's ruling on the motion to quash, the Hubbells raise no argument on appeal that challenges the correctness of that ruling. We can therefore presume that the district court would have affirmed it. Moreover, the Hubbells did not ask the district court to delay ruling on summary judgment until it had ruled on their objection to the magistrate judge's ruling on the motion to quash. They therefore cannot complain on appeal that the judge first granted summary judgment and then ruled that the challenge to the magistrate judge's ruling was moot. The failure to grant unrequested relief is not error. See Glenn v. First Nat. Bank in Grand Junction, 868 F.2d 368, 371 (10th Cir.1989) (because the [a]ppellant did not move the court for leave to amend the complaint[,] ... the district judge committed no error in not ruling thereon.). As for the magistrate judge's ruling that the Hubbells' motion to add additional counterclaims was untimely, the Hubbells have not argued, much less made a showing, that the amendment would have benefitted them. Their proposed amendment would have added two causes of action. The first was for breach of fiduciary duty. But we have affirmed the district court's decision that the Bank was not acting as a fiduciary of the Hubbells. Accordingly, that claim would have failed. The second proposed counterclaim was for negligence. Yet it included no factual allegations other than to incorporate by reference the allegations in the original counterclaim. The Hubbells' motion to amend in district court indicated that the new negligence claim would add to the negligent-misrepresentation claim a claim that the Bank had acted negligently in inspecting construction and disbursing loan funds. But the Hubbells cannot recover from the Bank on account of its negligence unless that negligence violated a duty owed by the Bank to the Hubbells. See Vigil v. Franklin, 103 P.3d 322, 333 (Colo.2004) (duty is an element of negligence claims). The Hubbells have failed to set forth the source of such a duty, and we see none. Perhaps a duty of this type could arise out of a contractual relationship, but hardly in the situation before us, where the contract explicitly disavows the duty in the Limitation of Responsibility provision. Thus, the Hubbells suffered no prejudice from the district court's failure to rule on their objections to the magistrate judge's quashing the subpoena and refusing to allow addition of the two proffered counterclaims. The district court's failure does not entitle them to any relief.