Deadlines: Failure To Object To Magistrate’s Fee-Fixing Decision, Appealing To Circuit Court Rather Than Objecting In Front Of District Judge, Means The Deadline Was Blown And The Objections Waived.

Although Unsettled, District Found That The Ruling Involved a Dispositive Issue, Which Still Did Not Excuse The Failure To Object.

            In LCS Group, LLC v. Shire LLC, Case No. 18-cv-2688 (S.D.N.Y. June 22, 2020), U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres determined that plaintiff and its attorneys, who were sanctioned earlier in attorney’s fees in the amount of $133,803.75 in favor defendants, failed to timely object to a magistrate’s decision fixing the fees.  What the plaintiff side did was to move for reconsideration and then appeal the ruling to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.  The federal appellate court much later decided that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal because the ruling was either a report and recommendation by a magistrate on a dispositive issue or a ruling on a non-dispositive issue, neither of which could be appealed. Instead, District Judge Torres found that the proper course was for plaintiff/its attorneys to object to the magistrate’s ruling within 14 days under F.R.Civ.P. 72.  That deadline had long passed, so the fee award had to stand.  The district judge determined that the motion for fees did pose “dispositive questions” (even though the Second Circuit found the issue was unsettled), but that still did not excuse the failure to make timely objections under Rule 72.