ANDREW B. SHEETS
v.
COP BRANDON ANGELINI, INDIVIDUAL AND OFFICIAL CAPACITY; AND CITY OF PUNTA GORDA, MUNICIPALITY
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The district court held that the magistrate judge's order staying discovery was not clearly erroneous or contrary to law and denied the plaintiff's motion to vacate.
Plaintiff moved to vacate a magistrate judge's order staying discovery, arguing it was procedurally defective and lacked good cause. The magistrate ju…
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Before the Court is Plaintiff Andrew Sheets's motion to vacate United States Magistrate Judge Douglas Frazier's order staying discovery. (Doc. 31.) According to Plaintiff, the order is procedurally defective because it was issued before he had an opportunity to respond. (Id. at 1) [fn 1] And on the merits, Plaintiff argues there was no showing of good cause, as needed to stay discovery. (Id. at 2.)
Non-dispositive orders from a magistrate judge, like at issue here, are reviewed for clear error. The district court must “modify or set aside any part of the order that is clearly erroneous or is contrary to law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a). “A finding is clearly erroneous if the reviewing court, after assessing
the evidence in its entirety, is left with definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” A.R. by and through Root v. Dudek, 151 F. Supp. 3d 1309, 1312 (S.D. Fla. 2015). [fn 2] “A magistrate judge's order is contrary to law when it fails to apply or misapplies relevant statutes, case law, or rules of procedure.” Id.
Judge Frazier's order is not clearly erroneous or contrary to law. He applied the correct legal standard (Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)) and weighed the appropriate factors in reaching his decision to stay discovery. Likewise, it was not improper for Judge Frazier to act without hearing from Sheets under the circumstances. See, e.g., Jackson v. Astrue, No. 3:08-CV-461-J-33TEM, 2008 WL 2813096, at *1 (M.D. Fla. July 18, 2008).
The Court finds no reason to modify or set aside Judge Frazier's order under Rule 72(a), and thus Plaintiffs motion (Doc. 31) is DENIED. ORDERED in Fort Myers, Florida on October 10, 2025.
Kyle C. Dudek United States District Judge
[fn 1]: Plaintiff's motion is not paginated, so the Court cites the page numbers generated by its electronic filing system.
[fn 2]: Unless otherwise indicated, all internal quotation marks, citations, case history, and alterations have been omitted in this and later citations.