the remand order because she was disqualified from handling the case under the federal recusal statute. The Fifth Circuit agreed, explaining that, if the judge should have recused herself, any subsequent order must be vacated: Our vacatur of the remand order would therefore not constitute a review of the merits of that order, prohibited by 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d). Rather, we would be performing. an essentially ministerial task of vacating an order that the district court had no authority to enter for reasons unrelated to the order of remand itself. - Tramonte, 136 F.3d at 1028. Similar reasoning has been relied upon in vacating remand orders entered by magistrate judges acting without the parties’.consent. See, e.g., Vogel v. U.S. Office Prods. Co., 258 F.3d 509, 517-19 (6th Cir.2001) (<HOLDING>); In re U.S. Healthcare, 159 F.3d 142, 146-47
holding that a remand order entered by a magistrate judge was beyond his statutory authority and concluding that review was proper because the court of appeals was not reviewing the merits of the remand order itself holding that the trial court on remand erred when it adopted a new theory of damages contrary to the order of the court of appeals holding that while the remand order was confusing we conclude that our decision in merrimack precludes review of the remand order because the district court did not clearly and affirmatively state that it relied on a non1447c ground holding that the district courts order refusing to exercise jurisdiction and remanding to the magistrate court for trial was sufficiently final for purposes of appeal and then determining that the remand was in error holding that the fourth circuit has jurisdiction to review a district courts sua sponte remand order even when that remand order is styled as a remand for lack of subject matter jurisdiction if the order was in fact based on the procedural insufficiency of the notice of removal