Harris v. Soley

• Decision Date: 28 July 2000
• Citation: 2000 ME 150,756 A.2d 499
• Parties: Andrea HARRIS et al. v. Joseph SOLEY et al.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

756 A.2d 499

2000 ME 150

Andrea HARRIS et al. v. Joseph SOLEY et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued April 5, 2000.

Decided July 28, 2000.

Gregory P. Hansel, Esq., (orally), John P. McVeigh, Esq., Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau, Pachios & Haley, LLC, Portland, for plaintiffs.

Peter J. Rubin, Esq., (orally), Glenn Israel, Esq., Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer & Nelson, P.A., Portland, for defendants.

Panel WATHEN, C.J., and CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, SAUFLEY, ALEXANDER, and CALKINS, JJ.

SAUFLEY, J.

[¶ 1] Joseph Soley, Monopoly, Inc., Jobar, Inc., Seamen's Club, Inc., Christopher Stafiej, and Preston Wilkin¹ appeal from a judgment entered against them by the Superior Court (Cumberland County, Mills, J.) on a complaint filed by former tenants. The defendants appeal both from the default judgment on liability, entered by the court as a sanction for discovery violations, and from the judgment entered on the jury's verdict on damages. We affirm the judgments.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

[¶ 2] Near Labor Day of 1997, Andrea Harris, Kimberly Nightingale, Karen Simard, and Michelle Dussault² moved into a large apartment that was located in the Old Port area of Portland and owned by Joseph Soley. Soley had promised the tenants that the apartment, which had previously been condemned by the City of Portland, would be repaired by the time they moved in. When they arrived, the condemnation notice was still on the door. Upon entering the apartment, they found it in an uninhabitable condition. They spoke to Soley's property manager who indicated that if the tenants were willing to clean the apartment themselves, she would credit them with $750 of their $1000 monthly rent for the month of September. They rented a steam cleaner, bought various cleaning supplies, and cleaned the apartment themselves. Soley's property manager also suggested that they buy a new refrigerator and deduct it from the rent because the one in the apartment did not work.

[¶ 3] Despite their efforts to clean the apartment, the tenants continued to have problems with infestations of mice and cockroaches, as well as a persistent odor of cat urine. A dead cat was eventually found beneath the floorboards. The apartment had no heat during the month of October. One tenant slept with blankets over her head, not only because of the cold, but also to keep bugs away from her. These problems persisted into November, and the tenants submitted to Soley a list of complaints including a broken skylight, a broken toilet, a broken garbage disposal, a leaking roof, and cockroach infestation. As winter arrived, snow would fall into the living room through the broken skylight. When Soley did not make the needed repairs, the tenants stopped paying rent. During this period, Soley telephoned them on several occasions regarding the rent and spoke to the tenants in a rude and abrasive manner. In February, the property manager told the tenants that Soley had begun eviction proceedings against them.

[¶ 4] The tenants eventually found another place to live and had begun moving out by April 1, 1998.³ While the tenants were in the process of moving out, but were away from the apartment, Soley's agents broke into the apartment and took many of the tenants' remaining belongings. Upon confrontation with the returning tenants and police officers who had been called to the scene, Soley's agents indicated that Soley had directed their actions. Eventually, the officers and one of the tenants went to an apartment nearby and recovered some, but not all, of the missing property.

[¶ 5] The tenants then sought out Soley to request that he return their remaining possessions. They located him at his restaurant, the Seamen's Club. According to one of the tenants, he replied that he would return their property only after they paid him $3000.⁴ He then ordered them to leave and threatened to call the police and have them forcibly removed. Soley told the tenants that he knew where they were moving and where their families lived, a statement that the tenants took as a threat.

B. Procedural Background

[¶ 6] On June 18, 1998, the tenants brought suit against the defendants in a complaint that included claims for conversion, intentional infliction of emotional distress, punitive damages, breach of contract, wrongful eviction, and wrongful retention of a security deposit. The court set a discovery deadline of February 1, 1999. As discovery proceeded, Soley repeatedly failed to comply with appropriate discovery requests, failed to make the apartment available for inspection, and, later, failed to make witnesses available for deposition. Eventually, the tenants filed a motion to compel discovery. The parties reached agreement on certain aspects of discovery and the court entered an order compelling the delivery of documentary discovery by December 20. When the defendants did not comply with that order, the court sanctioned the defendants by entering judgment against them on all counts, leaving only the matter of damages for trial. When Soley again failed to comply with damage-related discovery requests, the court precluded him from offering certain evidence in the trial on damages.

[¶ 7] At the two-day jury trial on the issue of the tenants' damages, the trial judge read the complaint to the jury and explained that they were to accept those facts as true and would only be required to address the question of damages.⁵ After hearing the evidence, the jury awarded each of the tenants $15,000 for intentional infliction of emotional distress, $110 for breach of contract, and damages varying from $250 to $1060 on their claims for conversion. They also awarded a total of $1 million in punitive damages against Joseph Soley, Monopoly, Inc., Seamen's Club, Baker's Table, Inc., and Jobar, Inc., and $4000 against Christopher Stafiej. The court entered its judgment in accordance with the jury's determinations of damages, along with additional damages determined by the court and those agreed to by the parties on the claims for wrongful eviction, wrongful retention of a security deposit, and breach of implied warranty of fitness for human habitation.⁶ This appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Entry of Judgment as a Discovery Sanction

[¶ 8] Soley first challenges the court's imposition of a judgment against all defendants on all claims of liability as a sanction, pursuant to M.R. Civ.P. 37(b)(2)(C),⁷ for discovery related conduct. Soley argues that the court abused its discretion by imposing the ultimate sanction without providing the defendants another chance to comply with the discovery order, and without issuing a warning that the court was contemplating the entry of judgment as a sanction.⁸

[¶ 9] We review the imposition of sanctions for discovery violations for an abuse of discretion, but will more closely scrutinize sanctions such as dismissal or default. See Saucier v. State Tax Assessor, 1998 ME 61, ¶ 6, 708 A.2d 281, 283. Nevertheless, "[a]lthough we recognize the constitutional implications of dismissal and give greater scrutiny to the decision to dismiss than we would give to a lesser sanction, we will not lightly overrule the trial court's decision." Orlandella v. O'Brien, 637 A.2d 105, 106 (Me.1994) (citing Fallon v. Casco-Northern Corp., 462 A.2d 53, 56 (Me.1983); Reeves v. Travelers Ins. Cos., 421 A.2d 47, 50 (Me.1980)); see also Pelletier v. Pathiraja, 519 A.2d 187, 190 (Me.1986).⁹

[¶ 10] A court that is called upon to determine an appropriate sanction for a discovery violation must understand the facts at issue, the factors and the law material to its decision, and must weigh the factors accordingly. The factors to be weighed when the court considers imposing sanctions for discovery violations include, but are not limited to, "the purpose of the specific rule at issue, the party's conduct throughout the proceedings, the party's bona fides in its failure to comply, prejudice to other parties, and the need for the orderly administration of justice."¹⁰Baker's Table, Inc. v. City of Portland, 2000 ME 7, ¶ 17, 743 A.2d 237, 243. The court must also consider the purposes to be served by imposing sanctions, including penalizing the noncompliant party, remedying the effects of the noncompliance, and deterring similar conduct by the offending party, as well as by others. See Pelletier, 519 A.2d at 190; Reeves, 421 A.2d at 50.

[¶ 11] When the court has determined the facts without error and has understood the factors and law material to the decision at hand, we defer to the trial court and will find an abuse of discretion only where the court makes a "serious mistake" in weighing the applicable factors. See West Point-Pepperell, Inc. v. State Tax Assessor, 1997 ME 58, ¶ 7, 691 A.2d 1211, 1213.

[¶ 12] In the matter before us, the court had before it evidence that Soley failed at every turn to comply with Rule 26, failed to cooperate in good faith in providing access to the apartment, failed to make witnesses reasonably available for deposition, and ultimately failed to comply with the court's order compelling compliance with the rules. By the date first scheduled for hearing on the tenants' motion for discovery sanctions — over seven months after the service of the complaint and first request for documents, two days short of the close of discovery, and more than a month after the date by which compliance had been ordered by the court — Soley had produced not a single document, the apartment had not been made available for inspection, and only one deposition had been taken.¹¹

[¶ 13] As a result of the delay occasioned by Soley's conduct, discovery had barely begun on the day that the court had set for the close of discovery. The tenants and their attorneys were required to spend unnecessary time and money setting up and canceling depositions, writing letters, scheduling conferences with the court, and attending hearings. The tenants were effectively prevented from preparing their case and on the...