Hall v. Sharpe

• Decision Date: 16 March 1987
• Docket Number: No. 84-8925,84-8925
• Parties: Robert Lee HALL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Junior SHARPE, Lanson Newsom, Joe Martin and Charles R. Balkcom, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 644

812 F.2d 644

Robert Lee HALL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Junior SHARPE, Lanson Newsom, Joe Martin and Charles R Balkcom, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 84-8925.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

March 16, 1987.

John Paul Batson, Augusta, Ga., for plaintiff-appellant.

Victoria H. Soto, Atlanta, Ga., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.

Before RONEY, Chief Judge, CLARK, Circuit Judge, and FAIRCHILD, ^* Senior Circuit Judge.

FAIRCHILD, Senior Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff Robert L. Hall appeals from a judgment against him in an action brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. He had additionally attempted to assert pendent state claims.

At the time of the events complained of, Hall was an inmate at the Montgomery County Correctional Institution in Georgia. On August 14, 1978, he was assigned to a work detail to clear away road-side vegetation using bush axes. Defendant Officer Junior Sharpe was assigned to supervise the ten inmates on the detail. While the vegetation was being cleared, Hall's hand was severely injured when it was struck by the ax of another inmate, David Mitchell.

In June or July, 1980, Hall sent a pro se complaint to the Pro Se Clerk of the Southern District of Georgia. For reasons that remain unclear, this complaint was not formally filed with the court until December 12, 1980, after expiration of the state's two-year statute of limitations. In his original complaint, Hall alleged that his injury received improper medical treatment, causing permanent damage; that the prison authorities (including Sharpe) had been callously indifferent to threats to his safety by the inmate who subsequently injured him; and that the prison officials had been negligent concerning his protection and medical treatment. The defendants answered and demanded a jury trial. Plaintiff then also demanded trial by jury.

Plaintiff later obtained counsel, who moved to file an amended complaint on July 6, 1981. This complaint was divided into four counts: I and II raised alleged constitutional violations; III and IV raised pendent state law claims for negligent failure to provide for Hall's protection, and medical malpractice, respectively. No defendant was named in the malpractice count. In the amended complaint, plaintiff demanded trial by jury.

A magistrate recommended that the motion be granted as to Counts I and II, but that it be denied as to Counts III and IV, because in the magistrate's view, the plaintiff now sought to add pendent claims not pleaded in the pro se complaint, after the expiration of the state statute of limitations (the limitations period had not run when Hall first tendered his pro se complaint). This recommendation was adopted by the district court.

In an order of September, 1983, the district judge referred to the magistrate several prisoner civil rights cases where a jury had been demanded, including the instant suit. Purporting to act pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Secs. 636(b)(1) and 636(b)(3), the district judge ordered the magistrate to impanel juries; to conduct "jury fact determinations"; to file with the district judge the juries' findings of fact and the magistrate's recommendations; to order the Clerk to mail copies to the parties; and to advise the parties of their right to file written objections. The ultimate adjudication was to remain with the district judge, who would make a de novo determination as to any matters to which a specific objection was made, in accordance with 28 U.S.C. Sec. 636(b)(1) and Fed.R.Civ.P. 50.

Just before trial began on December 12, 1983, the magistrate and both counsels signed a pretrial order. It set forth plaintiff's citation of recent Georgia cases in support of his position that the statutory limitations on his pendent state law claim of negligent failure to keep him safe from harm had been tolled. Over the defendant's objection, the magistrate then ruled that the state claim would be tried, notwithstanding the district court's earlier order denying leave to amend the complaint so as to assert that claim.

The pretrial order provided that it "supercedes the pleadings which are hereby amended." The order also provided that Sharpe was the only remaining defendant. It described the federal claim as alleging "that Officer Sharpe's actions, or inactions, recklessly placed Mr. Hall in a position of needless danger causing him damage." The order also described the state negligence claim.

Over the defendant's objection to proceeding before a non-Article III judge, a jury trial presided over by the magistrate was held. Plaintiff did not seek to offer evidence concerning his medical malpractice claim, but did offer evidence on his state negligence claim. The jury found for the defendant on all claims.

The magistrate reported to the court, in pertinent part, as follows:

Attached hereto are the Court's instructions, the jury's verdict, and tapes of the Court proceedings. I find and recommend that the verdict of the jury finding for the defendant and against the plaintiff be entered as the judgment of this Court.

The judge entered an order, in pertinent part as follows:

The Court has considered the objections of the plaintiff to the Magistrate's Report and Recommendation. After a careful review of the record, the Court concurs with the Magistrate's Report and Recommendation.

The Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate is adopted as the opinion of the Court. Therefore, the Clerk of Court is directed to enter judgment on behalf of the defendant and against the plaintiff.

Appellant first argues that he is entitled to a new trial because he did not consent to trial before the magistrate. We agree that the district court's referral of this case was not authorized by any provision of the Magistrate's Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 636, and thus the magistrate was without jurisdiction to conduct the trial.

Section 636(c) authorizes a magistrate (specially designated) to conduct any or all proceedings in a jury civil matter "[u]pon the consent of the parties." Section (c), added in 1979, was designed to codify and replace the experimental practice under Secs. (b)(2) and (b)(3) of trial by consent to the magistrate, and additionally to allow the magistrate to conduct jury trials. S.Rep. No. 74, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. 4, reprinted in 1979 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 1469, 1472. "The legislative history behind 636(c) reveals Congress' understanding that its provision for consensual references would for the first time authorize a magistrate to conduct jury trials." Ford v. Estelle, 740 F.2d 374, 379 (5th Cir.1984). Explicit, voluntary consent is crucial to this procedure, and was thought to obviate any concerns about the constitutionality of the conduct of trials and the entry of judgment by non-Article III judicial officers, S.Rep. No. 74 at 4, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1979, p. 1472; see Adams v. Heckler, 794 F.2d 303, 307 (7th Cir.1986). Consent also ensures against the wholesale delegation of certain classes of cases and discrimination among classes of litigants. S.Rep. No. 74 at 13, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1979, p. 1481; Collins v. Foreman, 729 F.2d 108, 119 (2d Cir.1984); see Note, Article III Constraints and the Expanding Civil Jurisdiction of Magistrates: A Dissenting View, 88 Yale L.J. 1023, 1050-51 (1979).

Consent must be "clear and unambiguous," and cannot be inferred from the conduct of the parties. See Adams, 794 F.2d at 307, and cases collected therein. Section (c)(2) spells out certain procedures for consent, and it seems clearly to follow that in this case, plaintiff's failure to add his objection to that of the defendant immediately before trial was not consent under Sec. (c).

Moreover, the district judge's order did not purport to rely on Sec. (c). Instead, the order invoked Secs. (b)(1) and (b)(3), and we think it clear that neither of those subsections authorizes a reference to a magistrate to conduct a jury trial. See Ford v. Estelle, supra.

As Sec. (b)(1)(A) concerns only pretrial matters, and cannot reasonably be read to authorize the conduct of jury trials, see Spears v. McCotter, 766 F.2d 179, 180 (5th Cir.1985), the court must have been purporting to act pursuant to Sec. (b)(1)(B), authorizing the magistrate to conduct hearings and to submit to a judge proposed findings of fact and recommendations for disposition of, among other things, prisoner petitions challenging conditions of confinement. ¹ Under Sec. (b)(1), the district court may accept, reject or modify the magistrate's report; if a party objects to any proposed findings and/or recommendations, the district judge must make a de novo determination of those issues.

The text, the legislative history, and the structure of the Act compel the conclusion that the conduct of jury trials by magistrates is not authorized by this subsection. First, Sec. (b)(1)(B) concerns hearings, including evidentiary hearings and dispositions of motions; this language cannot logically be stretched to include trial by jury. Hill v. Duriron Co., Inc., 656 F.2d 1208, 1212 (6th Cir.1981).

Second, nothing in the legislative history suggests that Sec. (b)(1) was meant to permit the magistrate to preside at nonconsensual jury trials. The purpose of the 1976 amendments to the Act was to clarify and further define the magistrate's unspecified "additional duties" under the 1968 version of Sec. 636(b). The amendment creating the current Sec. (b)(1) was designed to emphasize and clarify under what circumstances the district judge must make a de novo determination. H.R.Rep. No. 1609, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 3 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 6162, 6163.

Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, Sec. (b)(1) provides a procedure fundamentally incompatible with the function of the jury as factfinder. In enacting the 1976 amendments, Congress was quite conscious of the constraints imposed on that authority by Article III....