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989 F.2d 371

Docket No. 93-35006.

Serine v. Peterson

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

Submitted March 24, 1993.*

Decided March 31, 1993.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1993-03-31

3 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“a notice of appeal from a non-final decision operate[s] as a notice of appeal from the final judgment only when a district court announces a decision that would be appealable if immediately followed by the entry of judgment”

quoted by 4 later decisions, including Shelton v. Estelle, Moreno v. Jeffries

“Plaintiff himself betrayed his awareness of this fact by filing objections to the magistrate judge's order in the district court.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including In Re Jack Raley Construction, Inc., Kendall v. Homestead Development Co.

Applies 28 U.S.C. § 636

Relies on Firstier Mortgage Co. v. Investors Mortgage Insurance · Anderson v. Allstate Insurance · Ruby v. Secretary of the United States Navy

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1993-03-31

How this case has been cited

Cited by 46 later decisions — most recently October 2019 · most notably Khan v. Attorney General of United States (2012), Clausen v. Sea-3, Inc. (1994)

24 federal appellate · 1 district ·

230199320002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Contributes to a circuit split: Whether a party who obtained a favorable judgment in the district court is sufficiently aggrieved to have standing to appeal an adverse ruling or finding underlying that judgment

¶1*372Alden E. Serine, Salem, OR, for plaintiff-appellant.

¶2Michael E. Swain, Swain, Betterton & Eder, Salem, OR, for defendants-appellees Peterson, Quesseth, and Quesseth.

¶3Denise G. Fjordbeck, Dept, of Justice, Salem, OR, for defendant-appellee State of Oregon Right of Way Dept.

¶4Before J. WALLACE, Chief Judge, PARRIS and BRUNETTI, Circuit Judges.

¶6ORDER

¶7Appellees move to dismiss this appeal from a magistrate judge’s order for lack of appellate jurisdiction. We grant the motion.

¶8On December 1, 1992, Magistrate Judge Thomas M. Coffin filed a document entitled “Findings and Recommendation and Order” in this case, indicating that the “defendants’ motion to dismiss should be allowed and this action dismissed.” On December 10, 1992, plaintiff filed his response to the magistrate judge’s order with the district court. Without any further action by the magistrate judge or the district court, on December 30, plaintiff filed this notice of appeal. Then, on January 8,1993, the district court adopted the magistrate judge’s findings and recommendation and entered judgment for the defendants. Plaintiff did not file another notice of appeal after final judgment was entered.

¶9Defendants now move to dismiss the appeal. They contend that a magistrate judge’s recommendation of dismissal does not constitute a final, appealable order absent consent by the parties, and therefore that the notice of appeal was premature and ineffective. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1); In re San Vicente Medical Partners Ltd., 865 F.2d 1128 (9th Cir.1989); Alaniz v. California Processors, Inc., 690 F.2d 717 (9th Cir.1982).

¶10In certain circumstances, this court has considered the prematurity of a notice of appeal to be cured by the subsequent entry of judgment. See e.g., Anderson v. Allstate, 630 F.2d 677 (9th Cir.1980); Ruby v. Secretary of the Navy, 365 F.2d 385 (9th Cir.1966); Firchau v. Diamond National Corp., 345 F.2d 269 (9th Cir.1965). The Supreme Court recently examined this question in FirsTier Mortg. Co. v. Investors Mortg. Ins. Co., 498 U.S. 269, -, 111 S.Ct. 648, 652, 112 L.Ed.2d 743 (1991).

¶11FirsTier involved a grant of summary judgment from the bench which was not reduced to judgment until after the notice of appeal was filed. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(2) states: “Except as provided in (a)(4) of this Rule 4, a notice of appeal filed after the announcement of a decision or order but before the entry of the judgment or order shall be treated as filed after such entry and on the day thereof.” The Court noted that the Rule’s intent is , “to, protect the unskilled litigant who files a notice of appeal from a decision that he reasonably but mistakenly believes to be a final judgment.” Id.498 U.S. at -, 111 S.Ct. at 652. Based on this interpretation of Fed.R.App.P. 4(a)(2), the Court set certain parameters on the nonfinal decisions that can be rendered final by a post-appeal entry of judgment. Specifically, the Court found that:

Rule 4(a)(2) permits a notice of appeal from a nonfinal decision to operate as a notice of appeal from the final judgment only when a district court announces a decision that would be appealable if immediately followed by the entry of judgment.

¶12Id.498 U.S. at -, 111 S.Ct. at 653 (emphasis in original).

¶13Here, there is no question that the magistrate judge’s order was not a final judgment. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1); In re San Vicente Medical Partners Ltd., 865 F.2d 1128 (9th Cir.1989); Alaniz v. California Processors, Inc., 690 F.2d 717 (9th Cir.1982). Plaintiff himself betrayed his awareness of this fact by filing objections to the magistrate judge’s order in the district court. Unlike the bench ruling at *373issue in FirsTier, the magistrate judge’s order could not be “appealable if immediately followed by the entry of judgment” because the order could not form the basis of a final judgment without subsequent intervention by the district court. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1); In re San Vicente Medical Partners Ltd., 865 F.2d 1128 (9th Cir.1989); Alaniz v. California Processors, Inc., 690 F.2d 717 (9th Cir.1982). The notice of appeal was premature. The appeal is dismissed.

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