Devine v. Walker, No. 19-2819 (8th Cir. 2020)
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Plaintiff filed suit against various officials of an Arkansas jail, where he had been held as a pretrial detainee. After he was transferred to a facility in Texas, some of the defendants moved to stay the case. Although the case had already entered discovery, a magistrate judge granted the stay. Plaintiff then filed an objection to the motion to stay and a motion for relief from the magistrate order. The district court never acted on the motions, referred back to the magistrate judge, who then denied relief.
The Eighth Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, holding that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear a direct appeal of a magistrate judge's order on a nondispositive pretrial matter. In this case, without a decision of a district court, this court lacked jurisdiction to proceed any further.
Court Description: [Stras, Author, with Kelly and Wollman, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Civil rights. Plaintiff, a pretrial detainee, filed suit against jail staff and when he was transferred to a facility in Texas, some of the defendants asked the magistrate judge assigned to hear pretrial matters in the case to stay the case because of the difficulty of scheduling plaintiff's out-of-state deposition; the magistrate judge granted the stay and plaintiff filed a document which, in substance, asked the district court for relief from the magistrate judge's stay order; this motion was never acted upon and plaintiff appealed. Held, this court does not have jurisdiction to hear an appeal from a magistrate judge's order on a nondispositive pretrial order, and the appeal is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.
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