Flanagan v. Blair

• Decision Date: 26 August 2005
• Docket Number: No. 2004-179-Appeal.,2004-179-Appeal.
• Citation: 882 A.2d 569
• Parties: William J. FLANAGAN et al. v. Marcia BLAIR et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

882 A.2d 569

William J. FLANAGAN et al. v. Marcia BLAIR et al.

No. 2004-179-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

August 26, 2005.

Paul V. Jabour, Providence, for Plaintiff.

Jonathan Mark Silverstein, Boston, MA, for Defendant, Anna Prager.

Present: WILLIAMS, C.J., FLAHERTY, SUTTELL, and ROBINSON, JJ.

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

On January 14, 2004, the Superior Court granted the motion of the defendant Anna F. Prager for entry of final judgment in her favor.¹ The Superior Court granted that motion because of the plaintiff's failure to have complied with his discovery obligations that were referred to in the Superior Court's October 31, 2003 conditional order of dismissal.

In accordance with the court's ruling of January 14, 2004, judgment was entered pursuant to Rule 54(b) of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure, dismissing all of plaintiff's claims against Ms. Prager with prejudice. The plaintiff subsequently filed a motion for reconsideration, which was denied. He now appeals from the Superior Court's denial of that motion, arguing that the motion justice abused his discretion under Rule 37(b)(2)(C) of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure.

This case came before the Supreme Court for oral argument on April 5, 2005, pursuant to an order directing the parties to appear and show cause why the issues raised in this appeal should not be summarily decided. After hearing the arguments of counsel and examining the memoranda submitted by the parties, we are of the opinion that cause has not been shown and that this case should be summarily decided. It is our opinion that the motion justice did not abuse his discretion in granting defendant's motion for entry of final judgment, and we therefore affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.

FACTS AND TRAVEL

William J. Flanagan (plaintiff) and Mary Ellen Pierel filed an action on August 2, 1999 against Marcia Blair and seventeen other defendants — including Anna F. Prager (defendant). The complaint alleged that defendant Prager (and several other defendants) had interfered with plaintiffs' employment and contractual relations and caused them reputational injury and emotional distress in connection with the termination of their employment relationship with the Rhode Island Substance Abuse Prevention Task Force Association, of which defendant Prager was one of several members of the board of directors.²

On December 27, 2002 defendant's attorney served plaintiff with discovery requests, which consisted of interrogatories and requests for production of documents.³ Having failed to receive the information and data that were the object of his discovery requests, defendant's attorney filed a motion to compel responses to those discovery requests on July 23, 2003, which motion the Superior Court granted on August 18, 2003. The court ordered plaintiff to serve his responses on defendant within thirty days. After the expiration of the thirty-day period, and with plaintiff still not having complied with his discovery obligations, defendant filed a motion to dismiss on September 22, 2003, to which motion plaintiff objected. The motion to dismiss was scheduled to be heard on October 1, 2003; but, on September 30, 2003, plaintiff's attorney filed a motion to withdraw from the case, and he requested that the court stay all discovery for sixty days so that plaintiff could obtain a new attorney or enter his appearance pro se.⁴

On October 23, 2003, the Superior Court heard both the motion to dismiss that had been filed on behalf of defendant and the motion to withdraw that had been filed by plaintiff's attorney. On October 31, 2003, the court issued a conditional order of dismissal, indicating that plaintiff's discovery responses would be due "on or before December 8, 2003." (Emphasis added.) On November 19, 2003, the motion justice issued another order directing plaintiff's attorney to assist plaintiff in preparing responses to defendant's discovery requests. The court also granted the motion to withdraw that had been filed by plaintiff's attorney, which withdrawal would become effective without further order of the court at such time as discovery responses were filed with the court.⁵

On January 5, 2004, defendant filed a motion for entry of final judgment, which motion was scheduled to be heard on January 14, 2004. Then, on January 13, 2004, plaintiff's attorney proceeded to serve defendant with answers to defendant's interrogatories and responses to defendant's request for production of documents. Copies of same were filed with the Superior Court on January 14, 2004.

At the January 14, 2004 hearing on defendant's motion for entry of final judgment, an associate of plaintiff's attorney appeared on behalf of plaintiff.⁶ At the hearing, the associate conceded that plaintiff had not filed discovery responses by the December 8, 2003 date that had been specified in the court's previous conditional order of dismissal.⁷ The fact that plaintiff's attorney had been court-excused since the previous September was not raised by the associate at the hearing on January 14, 2004.

The Superior Court found that plaintiff had failed to comply with the court's October 31, 2003 conditional order of dismissal, which had explicitly required plaintiff to comply with his discovery obligations by December 8, 2003. In addition, the court indicated that it could not find "any exigent circumstances that existed that would have been some reason for [it] to consider why the responses were not timely filed by certainly the 8th of December." Accordingly, the court granted defendant's motion for entry of final judgment, and it dismissed all of the claims of William J. Flanagan against defendant Anna F. Prager.

Shortly thereafter, on January 20, 2004, plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration, which was heard on January 29, 2004. This time, plaintiff's attorney himself appeared, and he raised for the first time the fact that he had been court-excused from September 2003 until January 15, 2004. The plaintiff's attorney argued that, because of his own court excused-status, the defendant's motion for entry of final judgment against plaintiff should not have been heard on January 14, 2004.

Analysis

The plaintiff's first argument on appeal is that defendant's motion for entry of final judgment was moot at the time it was heard because plaintiff had responded to defendant's discovery requests prior to the January 14, 2004 hearing on that motion. For that reason, according to plaintiff, the motion should have been denied.

Although it is undisputed that plaintiff provided defendant with discovery responses before the hearing on January 14, 2004, he nevertheless had failed to abide by the court's utterly clear October 31, 2003 conditional order of dismissal. That conditional order of dismissal explicitly required plaintiff to serve discovery responses on or before December 8, 2003. Therefore, the issue of plaintiff's compliance with the court's conditional order of dismissal was properly before the motion justice.⁸

Rule 37(b)(2) provides the court with a variety of sanctions that may be imposed on a party who has failed to comply with an order to provide discovery.⁹ One of the sanctions that is available to the court in appropriate circumstances is an order directing the entry of final judgment. The decision whether or not to invoke that ultimate sanction is confided to the sound discretion of the motion justice. Goulet v. OfficeMax, Inc., 843 A.2d 494, 496 (R.I.2004) (mem.); Mumford v. Lewiss, 681 A.2d 914, 916 (R.I.1996). Nothing in Rule 37(b)(2) states or suggests that that sanction can only be imposed after the court has considered or tried other less severe sanctions. See Rule 37(b)(2); see also Damiani v. Rhode Island Hospital, 704 F.2d 12, 13 (1st Cir.1983)

.

This Court will not reverse a motion justice's decision to impose a Rule 37 sanction for noncompliance with a discovery order absent a showing of an abuse of discretion. Goulet, 843 A.2d at 496; Mumford, 681 A.2d at 916. We will find an abuse of discretion only when a motion justice has dismissed an action "in the absence of evidence demonstrating persistent refusal, defiance or bad faith." Travelers Insurance Co. v. Builders Resource Corp., 785 A.2d 568, 569 (R.I.2001) (mem.) (emphasis added).

In this case, the record supports the motion justice's finding that plaintiff failed to comply with the court's conditional order of dismissal which mandated that he provide discovery responses to defendant by December 8, 2003. The plaintiff's failure to comply in a timely manner with such an explicit and clear order constituted "defiance" on the part of plaintiff. See id.¹⁰ For this reason, we hold that the motion justice did not abuse his discretion in granting defendant's motion for entry of final judgment.¹¹

Finally, plaintiff argues that the court erred in denying that aspect of his motion for reconsideration in which he argued that the January 14, 2004 hearing should not have been held because he was court-excused at that point in time. We treat motions for "reconsideration" (which are not mentioned as such in the Rules of Civil Procedure) as the equivalent of motions to vacate under Rule 60(b) of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure. Keystone Elevator Co. v. Johnson & Wales University, 850 A.2d 912, 916 (R.I.2004).

Without suggesting that a court's unawareness of the court-excused status of an attorney could never be grist for a Rule 60(b) motion, we need not enter into any extended Rule 60(b) discussion in this case. The plain fact is that, at the various court hearings that occurred during the discovery phase of this case, an attorney associated with the plaintiff's principal attorney appeared in court to represent Mr....