Court Opinion

ID: 9483377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:19:02.490166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:35.944314
License: Public Domain

RALPH B. GUY, JR., Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with all of the court’s opinion except for part III. I believe that it is appropriate to apply a harmless error analysis in the circumstances presented here. I further conclude that, if a harmless error analysis were applied, any error committed would be harmless as a matter of law.
At the time that the district judge referred this case to a magistrate for the impanelling of a jury, the law was unsettled as to whether a magistrate may draw a jury in a civil action without the consent of the parties. To this date, the Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on this issue nor has our circuit.
The district judge, however, appreciating that in light of Gomez there was some uncertainty in this area, adopted a procedure whereby the magistrate had the primary responsibility for impanelling the jury, but the judge would rule on all objections and challenges for cause. This procedure was followed. Stockier makes no effort to point out how he was prejudiced in *734any way by the magistrate drawing this jury. He did not even use all of his peremptory challenges, indicating that he was satisfied with the composition of the jury.
Stockier argued at length in his brief and at oral argument about all of the alleged dire consequences of a magistrate impanell-ing a jury in a civil case. Without reiterating these arguments, suffice it to say that the parade of horribles all referenced would exist if the parties consented to a magistrate drawing a jury. If, as Stockier argues, a fair trial cannot be conducted unless the jury’s initial contact with a judicial officer is with the trial judge, then it would be impossible to have a fair trial even when the parties consent to a magistrate’s participation. To merely state the proposition is to show its absurdity.
The court’s decision today requires the district court to go through another rancorous trial over trivial issues generated primarily by the parties' animosity toward one another. In these days of crowded dockets, the district judge has far better things to do than retry this case.