Opinion ID: 4013395
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Second Level of Waiver

Text: Assuming the panel found the requisite miscarriage of justice, it would still have to determine that a second and separate rule of waiver is inapplicable to remand this matter to 8 the district court. As early as 1997, this court has stated, “[o]ur cases are replete with warnings that the consequences of failing to file objections is waiver of the right to appeal.” Wells v. Shriners Hosp., 109 F.3d 198, 199 (4th Cir. 1997). The text of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72 warns parties of the failure to object. Regarding nondispositive matters, “[a] party may not assign as error a defect in the order not timely objected to.” Fed. R. Civ. 72(a). Regarding dispositive matters, to which the magistrate judge must file a R&R, the aggrieved party must file objections within fourteen days and “[t]he district judge must determine de novo any part of the magistrate judge’s disposition that has been properly objected to.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(2)-(3) (emphasis added). This court has extended the waiver rule to both dispositive and nondispositive matters. Solis v. Malkani, 638 F.3d 269, 274 (4th Cir. 2011) (Gregory, J.). The order entered by the majority appears to indicate that it considered the order entered by the magistrate judge to be dispositive and, for that reason, remand was warranted. There are two types of referrals under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). Specifically, under § 636(b)(1)(A) a magistrate judge may “hear and determine” any pending pretrial matter and issue an order, so long as the matter does not involve a set of listed motions. Under § 636(b)(1)(B), a magistrate judge may consider the 9 motions listed in § 636(b)(1)(A) but has to issue a R&R instead of an order. Several unpublished decisions of this court have indicated that a motion that is the functional equivalent of a listed motion under § 636(b)(1)(A) is deemed dispositive and that a district court should apply a de novo standard of review instead of a clearly erroneous standard of review to timely filed objections. See, e.g., Reddick v. White, No. 08-2286, 456 F. App'x 191, 193-94 (4th Cir. Dec. 1, 2011); see also Gomez v. United States, 490 U.S. 858, 868 (1989) (classifying the listed motions as “dispositive”). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72, a corollary to § 636, makes the distinction between (A) and (B) referrals by reference to whether a particular matter is dispositive or nondispositive. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72. To the knowledge of the undersigned, no case in this court has addressed directly the situation posed in this appeal: what happens when a magistrate judge enters an order on a matter that is deemed functionally dispositive and said order is never objected to? Should the court refuse to apply the general rule of waiver because the magistrate judge was supposed to enter a R&R? The Solis case is actually instructive on this point. In Solis, the district court judge referred a request for fees to the magistrate judge without specifying whether the magistrate 10 judge should issue a R&R or an order. 638 F.3d at 272. The magistrate judge ultimately issued findings on a document entitled “order of the Court.” Id. In Solis, neither party objected to the magistrate judge’s order within the required period. Id. Instead, the aggrieved litigant appealed directly to the Fourth Circuit. The Fourth Circuit dismissed this first appeal for lack of jurisdiction. 1 On remand, the district court judge held that § 636(b)(1)’s list of motions was not exhaustive and instead extended to all dispositive motions. Chao v. Malkani, mem. op., No. 8:00-cv-03491, at  (D. Md. Feb. 25, 2009). It then held that the motion requesting fees was 1The panel reasoned that “[i]t is unclear from the record whether the district court’s referral to the magistrate judge was pursuant to § 636(c) or § 636(b).” Chao v. Malkani, No. 071828, at  (4th Cir. June 5, 2008) (unpublished order). Given the ambiguity, the court found that it was without jurisdiction because a party may not directly appeal a R&R or a magistrate judge’s order because of the application of the final judgment rule. See id. (such an order “cannot be directly appealed to this Court”) (citing Reynaga v. Cammissa, 972 F.2d 414, 416-18 (9th Cir. 1992) (discussing the final judgment rule and deciding to issue a writ of mandamus to avoid determining whether appellate jurisdiction existed)). If the magistrate judge’s order was under § 636(c), consent was not evident from the record. Id. Given the uncertainty of whether a final judgment was present, the panel remanded the matter to the district court and did “not address the issue of whether appellants have waived their right to appeal, as that is not before us at this time.” Id. Here, it is abundantly clear that the court has jurisdiction over the final judgment entered by the district court in its grant of summary judgment. Moreover, the waiver issue is directly before this court. 11 dispositive under § 636. The district court judge then considered whether the parties waived the right to object to the magistrate judge’s filing denominated as an “order.” The district court judge stated that the only way the magistrate judge could have heard the motion was under § 636(b)(1)(B). Id. at 7. 2 Accordingly, the district court recharacterized the “order” as a R&R and determined that the parties waived the right to appeal the matter to him. Id. Finally, the district judge “adopted the report without further review.” Id. at 8. On appeal, the Solis panel decided de novo whether the aggrieved party “waived its rights to challenge the findings of the magistrate judge by failing to file objections with the district court.” 638 F.3d at 273. The court held that it was immaterial that the magistrate judge entered an order as opposed to a R&R: “Counsel should have known that their failure to act waived the right of their clients to district court review of recommendations, and that, thereafter, the court would be free to adopt the recommendations wholesale.” Id. at 274. There is no reason not to apply Solis to the instant case. Assuming 2The district court judge also held that the defendants knew of the distinction because they objected to the referral of the matter to the magistrate judge on the dispositive/nondispositive distinction. Chao, mem. op., No. 8:00-cv-03491, at . However, the panel did not cite this evidence as a basis for upholding the district court’s decision. 12 arguendo that the matters decided by the magistrate judge can be declared dispositive as stated by the majority, a clear line of precedent from this court indicates that filing objections is imperative to preserving review even at the district court level. Moreover, Solis posits that waiver applies no matter how the magistrate judge denominates his order. Perhaps Solis and the general rule of waiver can be distinguished in the instant case, but that task has not been undertaken by the majority. The arguments distinguishing application of this second level of waiver were themselves waived by failing to include them in the initial brief. Assuming the majority has declined to apply the first level of waiver, it could perhaps have considered distinguishing the second level of waiver discussed above. In Thomas v. Arn, the Supreme Court expressly approved of the use of waiver when a party fails to object to a magistrate judge’s R&R. 474 U.S. 140, 146-47 (1985). This rule derives from the courts of appeals’ supervisory powers and serves (1) to focus the district court judge’s attention on disputed matters; and (2) to promote judicial economy. Id. Without the rule of waiver, an aggrieved litigant could sandbag the district court judge by raising its objections on appeal. Id. at 147-48. As a consequence, either district court judges would have to consider carefully every single unobjected-to matter before their magistrate judges to 13 ensure that no error is present or appellate panels would have to perform this duty. Id. at 148. This court has suggested that an opportunistic litigant might even attempt to “bypass the district court entirely, even though Congress had lodged the primary responsibility for supervision of federal magistrates’ functions with that judicial body.” United States v. Schronce, 727 F.2d 91, 94 (4th Cir. 1984). The Supreme Court held that this enormous waste of the parties’ and the judicial system’s resources can properly be avoided by utilizing the appellate courts’ supervisory powers. Arn, 106 U.S. at 47. However, the Supreme Court cautioned that these supervisory powers could not be applied if they “conflict with constitutional or statutory provisions.” Id. at 148. The Ninth Circuit holds that waiver is inappropriate when a magistrate judge issues an order on a dispositive motion as opposed to a R&R because it implicates structural principles of Article III. Bastidas v. Chappell, 791 F.3d 1155, 1159 (9th Cir. 2015) (“The line Congress drew between dispositive and nondispositive motions was not a result of happenstance. Rather, it reflects the very real concern that, at least absent consent, delegating the final disposition of cases to magistrate judges would run afoul of the Constitution.”). The Ninth Circuit did not rest its holding on Article III but rather determined that the Magistrates Act amounted to a “statutory 14 provision that embodies a strong policy concerning the proper administration of judicial business.” Bastidas, 791 F.3d at 1160 (quoting Nguyen v. United States, 539 U.S. 69, 78 (2003)). Following Nguyen, the Ninth Circuit stated that “the importance of policing the proper designation of judicial officers in Article III courts convinces us that review is warranted despite [the] failure to object.” Id. at 1160. If the majority’s order implies that this rule applies here, it should make that determination explicit in order to avoid the time consuming process that occurred in the instant case. Moreover, this court should carefully examine Bastidas before adopting its reasoning. I will not attempt to exhaustively examine the Bastidas opinion, but I will pose several issues that deserve further examination before it is applied in this court. First, Nguyen concerned the improper assignment of a nonArticle III judge to a panel in clear violation of 28 U.S.C. § 292. 539 U.S. at 79-80. The violation of § 636 is not so clear. It relies upon a construction of § 636 that is more restrictive of the magistrate judge’s powers than supplied in the text Congress enacted. In this case, the motion ruled upon by the magistrate judge is not a listed motion under § 636(b)(1)(A). 15 Secondly, the majority’s order states that the magistrate judge’s order itself was dispositive of the matter, but, the question then arises, when was it dispositive? How is a district court judge or magistrate judge to determine when particular discovery matters are dispositive of a claim? The answer to this question would seem to not be after an appellate panel returns these matters for further review. Third, Nguyen concerned entry of a final ruling in a case by an improperly formed panel. However, here the magistrate judge’s order never amounted to a final ruling that was appealable to this court. Rather, the final order on appeal is the grant of summary judgment. This is not a distinction without merit. The magistrate judge never purported to be the final arbiter of the viability of the claims advanced by the Estate and the district court always retained its supervisory role to hear any objections. Congress provided a mechanism for ensuring that aggrieved litigants receive Article III review of a magistrate judge’s disposition of particular matters. Congress envisioned a system where the district court judge is the primary supervisor of the magistrate judge and § 636 supplies dissatisfied parties an avenue to ensure that the desired amount of supervision is available. See Schronce, 727 F.2d at 94. Any inclination here to adopt the Ninth Circuit’s position without seriously examining Congress’ other strong 16 policy favoring district court review of magistrate judge matters is inappropriate. C. There is Not a Putative Rule 36(b) Motion Pending Before the District Court Finally, the majority’s order appears to aver that the district court judge failed to rule upon an otherwise ripe Rule 36(b) motion. However, as stated above, the magistrate judge considered the entirety of the filings before him, including (1) the Estate’s response to the motion to deem the RFAs admitted, and (2) its response to the RFAs. The essence of the majority’s ruling implies comfort with conjuring an implicit motion but discomfort with allowing an implicit denial. When the magistrate judge entered the order deeming the RFAs admitted, he implicitly denied any implied purported pending motions attending the Estate’s response. Ruling otherwise would require a district court judge to comb through the materials presented to a magistrate judge to determine if some implicit matter was raised but not directly addressed in the magistrate judge’s order or R&R. Our adversarial system stands as a check on such an effect. Moreover, a contrary holding would run afoul of the Magistrates Act’s purposes as articulated by this court in numerous decisions as well as by the Supreme Court in Arn. 17 Unpublished precedent indicates that putative, un-ruled upon motions do not exist in this type of situation. By way of example, in Bailey, the magistrate judge was presented with a request for extension of time to answer requests for admission. 483 F. App’x 808, 809-10. The magistrate judge erroneously believed that he was constrained by Rule 36(a) and did not treat the motion for extension of time as the functional equivalent of a motion under Rule 36(b). Id. at 810. Critically, Bailey objected to this motion. Id. The district court summarily denied the objection. Id. Nowhere in the opinion does the Bailey panel intimate that the motion remained pending even after appeal. See id. Rather, the panel concluded that the district court itself erred by summarily rejecting the objections to the magistrate judge’s disposition. Id. If the motion remained pending, the Bailey panel would not have needed to hold that the district court judge erred and would have instead, like the majority in this case, remanded the matter to