Roell v. Withrow

Summary

Justice Souter, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O'Connor, Ginsburg, and Breyer, held that consent to a full-time magistrate judge's exercise of civil jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1) may be inferred when a party knows of the need for consent and the right to refuse, yet voluntarily participates before the magistrate judge. Failure to follow the prescribed written-consent procedures does not defeat that authority when actual voluntary consent exists. The Court reversed and remanded, leaving unresolved whether postjudgment consent alone suffices or whether an actual absence of consent is a jurisdictional defect. Justice Thomas, joined by Justices Stevens, Scalia, and Kennedy, dissented, arguing that express consent must precede the exercise of dispositive authority and that its absence defeats appellate jurisdiction; he would have vacated and remanded with instructions to dismiss the appeal.