Fielding v. Tollaksen ( 2007 )


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  • No. 06-5393-cv
    Fielding v. Tollaksen
    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
    FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
    August Term, 2007
    (Argued: November 7, 2007                                                Decided: December 12, 2007)
    Docket No. 06-5393-cv
    MARIA FIELDING ,
    Plaintiff-Appellant,
    -v.-
    JEFFREY TOLLAKSEN , MYRNA COHEN , VINCENT M. BOYD , New York State Police Investigator,
    STEVEN JOHNSTONE, New York State Trooper, PETER LUNGEN , District Attorney, JOEY
    DRILLINGS, Assistant District Attorney, MICHAEL MC GUIRE, Assistant District Attorney, ROBERT
    ZANGLA, Assistant District Attorney, IVAN KALTER, Fallsburg Town Court Judge, JUDGE BART
    RASNIK , Fallsburg Town Court Judge, JUDGE JOEL W. WELSH , Mamakating Town Court Judge,
    Defendants-Appellees.
    Before: CABRANES, SACK , KATZMANN , Circuit Judges.
    Plaintiff appeals from an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District
    of New York (Stephen C. Robinson, Judge) adopting a magistrate judge’s Report and
    Recommendation and entering final judgment in favor of defendants on plaintiff’s 
    42 U.S.C. § 1983
    complaint. We conclude that, because the District Court implicitly overruled plaintiff’s Rule 72(a)
    objections to the magistrate judge’s earlier order, which denied plaintiff leave to amend her
    complaint, we have jurisdiction to review the order denying the motion to amend. We conclude that
    it was not error for the magistrate judge to deny plaintiff’s motion to amend her complaint.
    Affirmed.
    MARIA FIELDING , pro se, Fallsburg, NY, for
    Plaintiff-Appellant.
    1
    ROBERT M. SPADARO , New York, NY, for
    Defendants-Appellees Tollaksen and Cohen.
    DONALD P. DELANEY , White Plains, NY, for
    Defendants-Appellees Boyd and Johnstone.
    CHERYL MC CAUSLAND , (Samuel S. Yasgur on
    brief) Barryville, NY, for Defendants-Appellees
    Lungren, Drillings, McGuire, and Zangla.
    BRUCE A. TORINO , Mineola, NY, for
    Defendants-Appellees Kalter and Rasnik.
    RICHARD STOLOFF, Monticello, NY, for
    Defendant-Appellee Welsh.
    JOSÉ A. CABRANES, Circuit Judge:
    Plaintiff-appellant Maria Fielding (“plaintiff”) appeals pro se from an October 25, 2006 order
    and judgment entered by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
    (Stephen C. Robinson, Judge) adopting the March 3, 2006 Report and Recommendation (“R & R”)
    of United States Magistrate Judge George A. Yanthis to dismiss plaintiff’s suit and to grant
    defendants’ motion for summary judgment.1 During the course of proceedings before the
    magistrate judge, plaintiff moved for leave to amend her complaint. Magistrate Judge Yanthis
    denied the motion to amend as futile in an order entered the
    same day that he filed the R & R on defendants’ dispositive motions. Pursuant to Federal Rule of
    Civil Procedure 72(a),2 plaintiff filed an objection to the magistrate judge’s order denying her motion
    1
    The R & R addressed three separate motions for summary judgment and two motions to dismiss brought by
    various defendants. Motions for summary judgment were filed by (1) defendants Kalter and Rasnick; (2) defendant
    Welsh; and (3) defendants Tollaksen and Cohen. The two motions to dismiss were filed by (1) defendants Boyd and
    Johnstone; and (2) defendants Lungen, Drillings, McGuire, and Zangla. [A. 14] The District Court, in adopting the R &
    R, granted each of the motions and subsequently entered a judgment against plaintiff.
    2
    Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a) states:
    A magistrate judge to whom a pretrial matter not dispositive of a claim or defense
    of a party is referred to hear and determine shall promptly conduct such
    2
    to amend. In a separate filing, plaintiff also objected to the magistrate judge’s R & R. Judge
    Robinson did not explicitly rule on plaintiff’s Rule 72(a) objection to the magistrate judge’s order
    denying leave to amend before he granted defendants’ motions and entered judgment for defendants
    pursuant to the R & R. In a separate summary order filed today, we affirm the judgment entered by
    Judge Robinson and dispose of most of the issues presented on appeal. We write here solely to
    address the question of whether a district court’s dismissal of an action without expressly ruling on a
    pending objection filed pursuant to Rule 72(a) serves as an order overruling that objection.
    I.
    Following a protracted landlord-tenant dispute that played out in several venues, including
    two state courts, and involved plaintiff’s arrest on criminal charges that were later dismissed, plaintiff
    filed an action for malicious prosecution and abuse of process pursuant to 
    42 U.S.C. § 1983
     against
    her landlords, Jeffrey Tollaksen and Myrna Cohen (collectively, “the landlords” or “private-citizen
    defendants”), and the government actors involved in her arrest and aborted prosecution: New York
    State Police Investigator Vincent M. Boyd; New York State Trooper Steven Johnstone; District
    Attorney of Sullivan County Peter Lungen; Assistant District Attorneys Joey Drillings, Michael
    McGuire, and Robert Zangla; Fallsburg Town Court Judges Ivan Kalter and Bart Rasnik; and
    Mamakating Town Court Judge Joel W. Welsh (collectively, “government defendants”). Plaintiff
    proceedings as are required and when appropriate enter into the record a written
    order setting forth the disposition of the matter. Within 10 days after being served
    with a copy of the magistrate judge’s order, a party may serve and file objections to
    the order; a party may not thereafter assign as error a defect in the magistrate
    judge’s order to which objection was not timely made. The district judge to whom
    the case is assigned shall consider such objections and shall modify or set aside any
    portion of the magistrate judge’s order found to be clearly erroneous or contrary to
    law.
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    sought compensatory and punitive damages and a declaratory judgment that defendants had violated
    her constitutional rights. We recount here only those aspects of the record that are pertinent to the
    disposition of the issue before us.
    II.
    Beginning on February 1, 2000, plaintiff rented an apartment owned by the landlords in the
    town of Fallsburg, New York. On February 17, 2003, she complained to the landlords about a
    broken water heater. On March 1, 2003, with the water heater still not fixed, she gave thirty days’
    notice that she would vacate the apartment. Three days later, she complained in writing to the
    landlords about broken concrete steps leading to her apartment. Six days thereafter, plaintiff called
    the municipal building inspector to complain about the water heater and the steps. After the
    inspection, the municipal inspector called the landlords to demand that they fix the problems. On
    March 21, 2003, a plumber apparently called by the landlords determined that the heater had failed
    due to a manufacturer’s defect and replaced the heater. When plaintiff vacated the apartment on
    March 31, 2003, she demanded her security deposit from the landlords; according to plaintiff, the
    latter did not respond. When plaintiff complained to the New York State Attorney General’s office
    about the landlords’ failure to return her security deposit, that office sent her a copy of a letter from
    the landlords alleging that it was she who had damaged their property.
    On March 31, 2004, plaintiff filed suit in small claims court against the landlords for the
    return of her security deposit. The case was assigned at first to defendant Judge Ivan Kalter.
    However, Judge Kalter recused himself because his former partner had represented plaintiff,
    whereupon the case was re-assigned to defendant Judge Bart Rasnik. The landlords interposed a
    counterclaim for property damage allegedly caused by plaintiff.
    4
    In August 2004, the landlords went to the Sullivan County District Attorney’s office to seek
    an order of protection against plaintiff. In depositions signed by each of the landlords on August
    14, 2004, the landlords stated that they believed plaintiff caused the damage to the water heater and
    concrete steps, and that she had physically and verbally abused them when they confronted her.
    Based on these depositions, defendant New York State police officers Boyd and Johnstone arrested
    plaintiff, and she was arraigned on two felony counts of criminal mischief. Judge Rasnik recused
    himself from both the criminal and small claims actions after plaintiff filed a Notice of Judicial
    Misconduct making him an interested party. The criminal and civil cases were then consolidated and
    assigned to a Town Judge, defendant Judge Joel W. Welsh.
    Plaintiff moved for dismissal of the criminal charges on November 29, 2004. On December
    21, 2004, the District Attorney’s Office dropped one of the felony charges and reduced the other
    felony charge to criminal mischief in the fourth degree, a misdemeanor. On February 2, 2005,
    defendant Assistant District Attorney Robert Zangla moved to dismiss the pending information.
    Judge Welsh granted the motion and dismissed the criminal case.
    In the small claims action, Judge Welsh on March 3, 2005 entered a default judgment in
    favor of plaintiff for her security deposit and dismissed the landlords’ counterclaim without
    prejudice. The record does not reflect further proceedings in the small claims action.
    III.
    Plaintiff filed the instant action in the United States District Court for the Southern District
    of New York on March 7, 2005. On June 7, 2005, she moved for leave to amend her complaint to
    add Sullivan County and the towns of Fallsburg and Mamakating as defendants. The case was
    subsequently referred to Magistrate Judge Yanthis for disposition of plaintiff’s motion to amend as
    5
    well as motions for summary judgment and motions to dismiss filed by defendants. On March 3,
    2006, Magistrate Judge Yanthis filed an R & R on defendants’ motions. On the same day, in a
    separately filed order, he denied the motion to amend, having concluded, based on Advanced
    Magnetics, Inc. v. Bayfront Partners, Inc., 
    106 F.3d 11
     (2d Cir. 1997), that the proposed amendment
    would be “futile” because plaintiff had failed to state a cause of action against the municipalities. See
    Advanced Magnetics, 
    106 F.3d at 18
     (“Leave to amend need not be granted . . . where the proposed
    amendment would be futile.”) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Plaintiff timely
    objected, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a), to the magistrate judge’s order denying
    her motion to amend.
    Without explicitly ruling on plaintiff’s Rule 72(a) objection, Judge Robinson on October 25,
    2006, acting on the basis of the R & R, granted summary judgment to certain of the defendants and
    dismissed plaintiff’s action against the other defendants, see note 1, ante. Concluding that the
    government defendants acted with probable cause and that their actions were protected by either
    absolute or qualified immunity, Judge Robinson granted their motions for summary judgment and
    motions to dismiss. Judge Robinson found that the landlords were private-citizen defendants and
    did not act under color of state law and thus were not subject to liability under 
    42 U.S.C. § 1983
    .
    Accordingly, Judge Robinson entered an order granting summary judgment to the landlords.
    Judgment was entered against plaintiff on October 27, 2006. This appeal followed.
    IV
    As a matter of case management, a district judge may refer nondispositive motions, such as a
    motion to amend the complaint, to a magistrate judge for decision without the parties’ consent. 
    28 U.S.C. § 636
    ; Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a). Under Rule 72(a), a party may object to the magistrate judge’s
    6
    order within ten days of being served with a copy. 
    Id.
     The rule also provides that “[t]he district
    judge to whom the case is assigned shall consider such objections and shall modify or set aside any
    portion of the magistrate judge’s order found to be clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” 
    Id.
    Although we have not previously spoken on this issue, other circuits have concluded that a
    district judge’s entry of judgment without ruling on a motion or argument is tantamount to an denial
    or rejection of that motion or argument. See, e.g., Alpine View Co. v. Atlas Copco AB, 
    205 F.3d 208
    ,
    220 (5th Cir. 2000) (interpreting “lack of an explicit statement” on Rule 72(a) objections as “refusal
    to overrule the magistrate judge’s order”); Miller v. Auto. Club of New Mexico, Inc., 
    420 F.3d 1098
    , 1118
    (10th Cir. 2005) (“Given the court’s denial of [plaintiff’s] motion for sanctions in conjunction with
    its subsequent order granting [defendant] summary judgment on a number of the claims implicated
    by her discovery requests, we conclude the district court’s silence on [plaintiff’s] motion to compel
    was a conscious and implicit denial of her discovery requests and a refusal to overrule the magistrate
    judge’s order.”); Hill v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 
    393 F.3d 1111
    , 1116 (10th Cir. 2004) (concluding
    that “the district court’s failure to address [a party’s] arguments may be properly construed as an
    implicit denial of those arguments”).
    In Alpine View, the district court adopted a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation,
    dismissing the plaintiffs’ suit without explicitly addressing the plaintiffs’ Rule 72(a) objections to an
    earlier order of the magistrate judge. 
    205 F.3d at 219
    . The Fifth Circuit concluded that it had
    jurisdiction to review the earlier order despite the absence of an explicit statement on the issue by
    the district judge. 
    Id. at 220
    . As the Fifth Circuit explained, because the record on appeal indicated
    that the plaintiffs had presented their Rule 72(a) objections to the district court, “the district court’s
    determination to adopt the magistrate judge’s dismissal recommendation” could be reasonably
    interpreted as overruling those objections. 
    Id.
    7
    This approach comports with our own observation that “[w]hen a district court enters a final
    judgment in a case, interlocutory orders rendered in the case typically merge with the judgment for
    purposes of appellate review.” Shannon v. Gen. Elec. Co., 
    186 F.3d 186
    , 192 (2d Cir. 1999); see also15A
    Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3905.1, at
    250 (2d ed. 1992) (noting the “general rule that appeal from final judgment opens the record and
    permits review of all rulings that led up to the judgment”). Accordingly, we hold that, when a
    district judge enters an order disposing of a case without expressly ruling on a pending objection
    filed pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(a), the judgment entered pursuant to that order
    functions as a final order overruling the objection.
    In the instant case, appellant filed timely objections to the magistrate judge’s ruling, and the
    district judge, without ruling on her objections, explicitly adopted the R & R of the magistrate judge,
    thereby dismissing the suit altogether. For the reasons set forth above, we conclude that we have
    jurisdiction to review Magistrate Judge Yanthis’s order denying plaintiff’s motion to amend her
    complaint. The magistrate judge’s order denying plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend, which was
    implicitly adopted by Judge Robinson, was soundly reasoned and certainly not an abuse of
    discretion. See Nettis v. Levitt, 
    241 F.3d 186
    , 192 (2d Cir. 2001) (“We review only for abuse of
    discretion a district court’s decision to permit or deny leave to amend a complaint.”) overruled on other
    grounds by Slayton v. American Express Co., 
    460 F.3d 215
    , 226 (2d Cir. 2006). Accordingly, we affirm.
    CONCLUSION
    Judge Robinson effectively denied plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend her complaint when
    he adopted Magistrate Judge Yanthis’s Report and Recommendation proposing dismissal of the
    action and entered final judgment in favor of defendants. We affirm.
    8
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