Court Opinion

ID: 988935
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2013-07-03 22:59:37.790643+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:59.653158
License: Public Domain

UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

ROGER D. YOUNG,
Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.                                                                    No. 95-6500

L. DAVIS BUTLER,
Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh.
James C. Fox, Chief District Judge.
(CA-93-729)

Submitted: September 12, 1995

Decided: April 1, 1996

Before HALL, NIEMEYER, and MICHAEL, Circuit Judges.

_________________________________________________________________

Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.

_________________________________________________________________

COUNSEL

Roger D. Young, Appellant Pro Se. Jacob Leonard Safron, Special
Deputy Attorney General, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

_________________________________________________________________

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See
Local Rule 36(c).

_________________________________________________________________
OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Appellant filed this civil action under 42 U.S.C.§ 1983 (1988)
against a Senior Case Analyst for the North Carolina Parole Commis-
sion, alleging that Defendant denied him parole because he is white.
Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment which was referred
to a magistrate judge for recommendations pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 636(b)(1) (1988). The magistrate judge recommended granting
Defendant's motion. During the statutory period for filing objections
to the magistrate judge's report, Appellant filed an"appeal" contain-
ing specific objections to many of the recommended findings. The
district court treated this filing as a notice of appeal. The district court
then entered a final order adopting the magistrate judge's report and
granting summary judgment to Defendant. The court found that
Appellant failed to file timely objections to the magistrate judge's
findings. Within the applicable appeal period, Appellant filed a dock-
eting statement with this court which contained all the information of
a valid notice of appeal under Fed. R. App. P. 3(c). Appellant also
filed a certificate of service stating that he mailed a copy of the dock-
eting statement to defense counsel.

We construe Young's docketing statement as a timely notice of
appeal from the district court's order. The Supreme Court has held
that a document is a valid notice of appeal if it satisfies the notice and
content requirements of Fed. R. App. P. 3(c). Smith v. Barry, 502 U.S.
244, 248-49 (1992). "[T]he notice afforded by a document, not the lit-
igant's motivation in filing it, determines the document's sufficiency
as a notice of appeal." Id. at 248. As mentioned, the docketing state-
ment contained the required information. Moreover, Young filed a
certificate of service confirming that he mailed a copy of the docket-
ing statement to defense counsel. Therefore, Appellant satisfied the
requirements of Smith.

Giving Appellant's "appeal" from the magistrate judge's report a
liberal construction, see Gordon v. Leeke, 574 F.2d 1147, 1151 (4th
Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 970 (1978), we find that such an appeal
filed within the objection period should be construed as timely objec-
tions to the magistrate judge's report. Appellant cited Fed. R. Civ. P.

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72(b), which outlines the procedures for objecting to the magistrate
judge's report, as the authority for his "appeal." Moreover, he
included a list of specific "objections" to the magistrate judge's find-
ings. We therefore vacate the district court's final order and remand
the case to the district court with instructions to construe the Appel-
lant's notice of appeal as timely objections and conduct the appropri-
ate de novo review of the challenged findings. Orpiano v. Johnson,
687 F.2d 44, 47-48 (4th Cir. 1982). We dispense with oral argument
because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented in the
materials before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.

VACATED AND REMANDED

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