Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Terry Mackey, a former state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, brought this civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against C. Rudd and other defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. The defendants moved to dismiss the case, seeking terminating sanctions under Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. They argued that Mackey had failed to attend his noticed deposition and had failed to fully respond to written discovery. Mackey did not file any opposition to the motion.
The assigned magistrate judge concluded that Mackey had abandoned the litigation, pointing to his failure to appear at his deposition and his failure to respond to the pending motion. The magistrate judge found that Mackey's conduct was willful and undertaken in bad faith. Applying the factors the Ninth Circuit set out in Henderson v. Duncan, 779 F.2d 1421 (9th Cir. 1986), the magistrate judge determined that terminating sanctions were appropriate and recommended that the district court grant the defendants' motion.
The magistrate judge issued formal Findings and Recommendations on September 27, 2026, and served them on Mackey. The service notice warned him, quoting Wilkerson v. Wheeler, 772 F.3d 834, 838-39 (9th Cir. 2014), that a failure to file objections within the specified time could result in waiver of the right to challenge the magistrate's factual findings on appeal. Mackey filed no objections, and the deadline to do so expired.
The Court’s Holding
Acting under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), the district court performed a de novo review of the case. After carefully reviewing the matter, the court concluded that the Findings and Recommendations were supported by the record and by proper analysis. The court therefore adopted the Findings and Recommendations in full.
The court granted the defendants' motion for terminating sanctions, dismissed the action with prejudice, and directed the Clerk of Court to close the case. The order was issued on October 26, 2026, and it resolved the case entirely in the defendants' favor without reaching the merits of Mackey's underlying civil rights claims.
Because the dismissal was with prejudice, Mackey cannot refile the same claims. The decision rested on his litigation conduct — the missed deposition, the incomplete discovery responses, the lack of opposition to the sanctions motion, and the absence of any objection to the magistrate judge's recommendation — rather than on any assessment of whether his constitutional claims had substance.
Key Takeaways
- Terminating sanctions under Rule 37 can end a case entirely when a party's discovery failures are found to be willful and in bad faith, even for a pro se litigant.
- The magistrate judge applied the Ninth Circuit's Henderson v. Duncan framework before recommending the severe step of dismissal, and the district judge independently confirmed that analysis on de novo review.
- Failing to oppose a sanctions motion and failing to object to a magistrate judge's findings and recommendations left the plaintiff with no preserved challenge and no obstacle to adoption of the recommendation.
- A dismissal with prejudice as a terminating sanction permanently bars the claims, making discovery compliance critical to keeping a case alive.
- The court's order expressly warned that skipping objections could waive the right to challenge the magistrate's factual findings on appeal, and the plaintiff let that deadline pass.
Why It Matters
This order illustrates how federal courts in the Ninth Circuit handle pro se prisoner civil rights cases that stall at the discovery stage. Even though courts often give unrepresented litigants some leeway, this case shows that leniency has limits: a complete failure to participate in court-ordered discovery, combined with silence in the face of a sanctions motion, can support the most severe sanction available — dismissal with prejudice.
The decision also underscores the procedural importance of the findings-and-recommendations process under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). By not objecting, the plaintiff risked waiving appellate review of the magistrate judge's factual findings, and the district court's de novo review found the recommendation sound on the record. For litigants and practitioners, the case is a straightforward reminder that discovery obligations are not optional and that ignoring a sanctions motion can be case-ending.