Daryl K. Washington, et al. v. Kellwood Company

This case asks the Court to consider questions left open in several previous cases: whether it is unconstitutional to permit U.S. judge magistrates to issue final judgments, unchecked by Article III district courts, that create legal precedent not unlike that of article III judges; whether consent is valid under 28 U.S.C. § 636 when obtained through coercive trial delays; whether 28 U.S.C. § 636 requires that a magistrate overseeing a trial possess a trial skill level comparable to that of an article III judge. In addition, this case presents equally important—but distinct—factual and legal questions whether a magistrate’s vacatur of a jury verdict, despite the presence of undisputed industry evidence; and blanket exclusion of all expert and business owner testimony is erroneous when the rulings conflict with decisions in virtually every other circuit. This case involves the second circuit’s dramatic expansion of the powers of a non-article III magistrate judge, with little or no trial experience in a judicial capacity, to vacate a valid jury verdict by a wholesale exclusion of a previously vetted expert and categories of evidence that are admissible in virtually every other circuit. It also involves a scenario where the alleged consent by the parties was less than ideally obtained and the magistrate did not allow the article III district court to decide a motion to vacate her assignment or to review the final judgment. Although this Court has referred to consent authority on occasions, it has not addressed directly the questions of (i) the