Gary Will v. E. Rasnick, et al.

Roanoke, Virginia civil rights lawyers represented Plaintiff, who sued Defendants on 1983 civil rights violation theories.



In this appeal, prisoner Gary Wall raises constitutional and state-law claims against

numerous prison officials arising from a physical altercation at Red Onion State Prison in

Virginia. As part of his evidentiary showing, Wall repeatedly sought production of videos

recording the encounter. When he learned that some of the videos were not preserved, Wall

moved for spoliation sanctions.



After an evidentiary hearing, the magistrate judge denied Wall's spoliation motion

and recommended entering judgment against him on all claims and counterclaims. The

district court substantially adopted the magistrate judge's recommendations without

explicitly addressing Wall's objections to the order denying spoliation sanctions. We hold

that the district court abused its discretion by implicitly overruling Wall's spoliation

objections when several critical issues were left unresolved by the magistrate judge.1





In reviewing nondispositive written orders issued by a magistrate judge, a district

court "must consider timely objections and modify or set aside any part of the order that is

clearly erroneous or is contrary to law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a). Both parties categorize the

magistrate judge's denial of Wall's motion for spoliation sanctions as a nondispositive

motion under Rule 72(a). We review the district court's ruling on spoliation issues for an

abuse of discretion. Turner v. United States, 736 F.3d 274, 281–82 (4th Cir. 2013) (citing

Cole v. Keller Indus., 132 F.3d 1044, 1046–47 (4th Cir. 1998)).



Here, however, the district court did not explicitly rule on Wall's objections to the

magistrate judge's order denying spoliation sanctions. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a) (stating that

"[t]he district judge in the case must consider timely objections” to the magistrate judge's

order on a nondispositive matter (emphasis added)). Despite this failure, Defendants

contend that the district court did not abuse its discretion for two primary reasons. First,

Defendants assert that Wall's objections to the order were not properly preserved, either

because the objections were not properly before the district court, or because Wall did not

file a post-judgment motion. Second, they suggest that, even if Wall's spoliation objections

were preserved, we may read the district court's order to implicitly overrule those

objections. This implicit decision, Defendants insist, is not an abuse of discretion based on

the record before the district court.

For the aforementioned reasons, we vacate the order of the district court entering

judgment to Defendants and remand for a hearing on Wall’s objections to the denial of

spoliation sanctions, and for any other proceedings the district court deems appropriate.

VACATED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS