A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for tag: FRCP 72

Judge Hall Holds that Magistrate Judge Hall's Order Was Not "Clearly Erroneous and Contrary to Law"

Andrew E. Russell, Jan. 26, 2024
FRCP 72 Objections to R&Rs

Order Approved
AI Generated, displayed with permission

Plaintiff in Applied Biokinetics LLC v. KT Health, LLC, C.A. No. 22-638-RGA-JLH (D. Del.) had some bad luck this month.

Late last month, Magistrate Judge Hall denied their motion to strike an expert report that they argued exceeded the bounds of the parties' contentions.

Shortly thereafter, Plaintiff objected to Magistrate Judge Hall's order, appealing to Judge Andrews to reverse the order because it is unsupported:

ABK would be unfairly prejudiced if KT were permitted to use its previously-undisclosed invalidity theories because ABK properly relied on KT’s invalidity contentions, discovery responses, and case narrowing during fact discovery. . . . The Magistrate Judge’s decision to not strike any portion of KT’s invalidity report …
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Objection to Dismissal Without Prejudice Gets a Different Standard of Review (Will This Be Our Least-Viewed Post Ever?)

Andrew E. Russell, Jan. 27, 2023
FRCP 72 Standard of Review

Newspaper
AI-Generated, displayed with permission

Ok, ok, I know. No one cares about standards of review. I know. But this is interesting!

Today Judge Andrews ruled on objections to a R&R recommending that the Court deny a motion to dismiss a breach-of-contract claim, and grant a motion to dismiss a trade secret claim, without prejudice.

So far, nothing out of the ordinary. But the interesting part is the standards of review applied.

In reviewing the magistrate judge's recommendation to deny the motion to dismiss on the breach of contract claim, the Court applied the ordinary de novo review standard for dispositive matters under FRCP 72(b).

The defendant, however, also objected to the magistrate judge's decision to dismiss the trade secret claim …

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Yes, Parties Can Object to Non-Dispositive Magistrate Judge Decisions

Andrew E. Russell, May 3, 2021
FRCP 72 Objections to R&Rs

It doesn't happen all that often, but remember that under FRCP 72, a party can object to a non-dispositive order by a magistrate judge:

(a) NONDISPOSITIVE MATTERS. . . . A party may serve and file objections to the order within 14 days after being served with a copy. . . . The district judge in the case must consider timely objections and modify or set aside any part of the order that is clearly erroneous or is contrary to law.

Parties sometimes seem to forget this, because unlike with Report and Recommendations on dispositive matters, the magistrate judges do not typically flag the 14-day objections period in their orders.

Fallen ice cream
Sarah Kilian, Unsplash

And, sometimes, it works out. In 2019, for example, Judge Noreika sustained an objection to one of the magistrate judge's common interest doctrine determinations, reversing an order to compel certain common interest materials. See AgroFresh Inc. v. Essentiv LLC, No. 16-662 (MN), 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 172423, at *13 (D. Del. Oct. 4, 2019).

All of that said, other times, it does not work out well. Today Judge Connolly denied such an objection before the other side had even filed a responsive brief ...

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Perhaps Not the Best Way to Object to a Magistrate Judge Ruling (District Judge Strikes Letter)

Andrew E. Russell, Dec. 10, 2020
FRCP 72 Objections to R&Rs

As we discussed last week, people sometimes forget that parties can object to even non-dispositive rulings by a magistrate judge under FRCP 72—although I don't know whether that is what happened here.

In Boston Scientific Co. v. Micro-Tech Endoscopy USA, Inc., C.A. No. 18-1869-CFC-CJB (D. Del.), defendants moved to strike plaintiff's infringement contentions for failure to apply the Court's claim construction. The motion was referred to Magistrate Judge Burke, who denied it:

(1) With regard to Defendant's request that Plaintiffs' FICs regarding the term "breakable link... adapted to be broken[,]" be stricken, (D.I. 169 at 2), it is DENIED. The Court did not construe this term, and Defendant has not convinced the Court that Plaintiffs are …
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District Judge Reverses Magistrate, Orders Production of Purported Common Interest Material

Andrew E. Russell, Dec. 6, 2020
FRCP 72 Common Interest Privilege

Corporations, looking down at the tattered remains of their common interest privilege
Corporations, looking down at the tattered remains of their common interest privilege Foggy skyscrapers, Matthew Henry, Unsplash

When magistrate judges are referred a dispositive matter, they issue an R&R that goes to the district judge. In Delaware, an R&R typically notes the objection period at the end, and the losing party typically (but not always) files objections.

When magistrate judges are referred a non-dispositive matter, they issue an order (and possibly an opinion). The order typically does not mention any review period or process for review.

What parties often forget is that you can object to a magistrate judge's order just as easily as you can to an R&R under FRCP 72. And, in fact, the District Court …

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