Ontiveros v. Dominguez
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:19-cv-07496
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
Ontiveros v. Dominguez was reassigned to a district judge because dismissal was possible and not all parties had consented, ordered by Judge Demarchi.
Israel Ontiveros and the defendants in the case were affected by the reassignment; the order did not decide the underlying claims.
What happened
In Ontiveros v. Dominguez, Israel Ontiveros, a state prisoner without a lawyer, sued prison defendants under a federal civil-rights law. The court had dismissed his original complaint with permission to amend, but he did not file an amended complaint by the deadline.
The order did not dismiss the case. Instead, it explained that a magistrate judge could not decide a dismissal because all parties, including defendants who had not been served, had not consented to magistrate-judge jurisdiction.
The court ordered the clerk to reassign the case to a district judge. United States Magistrate Judge Virginia K. Demarchi signed the order on June 8, 2020.
The detailed version
- Ontiveros v. Dominguez · No. 4:19-cv-07496
- Haywood Gilliam
- June 8, 2020
Background
Israel Ontiveros, a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a civil-rights complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against defendants at Salinas Valley State Prison. After an initial screening, the court dismissed the complaint with permission to amend. The court directed Ontiveros to file an amended complaint by April 15, 2020, but he did not do so. The order stated that the action was therefore subject to dismissal.
Reason for Reassignment
The court explained that all named parties, including defendants who had not been served, must consent before a magistrate judge may hear and decide the case. Because the case appeared to require a decision that could dispose of claims against some or all defendants, and because not all parties had consented, a district judge had to handle the matter.
Disposition
The court ordered the clerk to reassign the case to a district judge under the court’s assignment plan. This order reassigned the case; it did not itself dismiss the complaint or resolve the underlying civil-rights claims.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.