Defendant's Attorney: Jason S. Miyares, Attorney General, Charles H. Slemp, III, Chief Deputy Attorney General, M. Nicole Wittmann, Deputy Attorney General, Andrew N. Ferguson, Solicitor General, Kevin M. Gallagher, Deputy Solicitor
General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia,
for Appellees.

Description: 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.

Outcome: 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

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

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