Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc. v. Superior Court In and For County of Maricopa
| Decision Date | 23 November 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,CA-SA,1 |
| Citation | 863 P.2d 911,176 Ariz. 619 |
| Parties | MONTGOMERY WARD & CO., INC., a foreign corporation; General Tire, Inc., a foreign corporation, Petitioners, v. SUPERIOR COURT of the State of Arizona, In and For the COUNTY OF MARICOPA, The Honorable Elizabeth Stover, a judge thereof, Respondent Judge, Gustavo GARCIA and Soccorro Garcia, husband and wife; Juan Martinez, a single person; Jose Montijo, a single person; Frances Garcia, as the surviving spouse of Jose L. Garcia, decedent, Real Parties in Interest. 93-0237. |
| Court | Arizona Court of Appeals |
Montgomery Ward and General Tire (Defendants) filed this special action after the trial court resolved a discovery dispute by granting Plaintiffs' Motion to Strike Defendants' Answer for violation of Rule 26.1, Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure (Rule). We have jurisdiction pursuant to Arizona Revised Statutes Annotated (A.R.S.) section 12-120.21(A)(4). We accepted jurisdiction because Defendants have no speedy and adequate remedy by appeal and because this is a matter of statewide importance. See Jones v. Buchanan, --- Ariz. ----, --- P.2d ----, 146 Ariz.Adv.Rep. 52, 52 (App. Aug. 26, 1993). We granted relief and ordered a stay of trial court proceedings until this opinion issued. Because we conclude that the action of the trial court was an abuse of discretion and was procedurally defective, we reverse and remand with directions that the trial court conduct an appropriate hearing and issue appropriate orders and sanctions in the exercise of its discretion based on the facts of this case and the mandates of Rule 26.1(g) and Rule 16(f).
Plaintiffs' Complaint alleges that a defective tire manufactured by General Tire and sold by Montgomery Ward caused an auto accident that killed Jose Garcia and permanently injured Gustavo Garcia, Juan Martinez, and Jose Montijo. Defendants denied liability. The trial court's grant of Plaintiffs' Motion to Strike Defendants' Answer meant that Defendants were liable as a matter of law.
Although the course of pretrial discovery was complicated, we discuss only the problem that led directly to this special action. Necessary details begin with a minute entry dated July 8, 1993 (the July 8 order), which provided:
IT IS ORDERED that on or before July 29, 1993 Defendants produce all information regarding any claims against the defendants for the three years prior to the accident up to the present date, involving any similar model of tire involved in this case or tire bonded by the same process (passenger tires) manufactured by the defendants in which claims were made that the tread separated for any reason.
On July 29, Defendants filed a Response in Compliance with Order Dated July 8, 1993. The lawyers then argued in correspondence about the sufficiency of Defendants' compliance with the July 8 order. The bone of contention was the meaning of "similar model of tire." Plaintiffs argued that it meant every kind of steel-belted radial tire made by General Tire, regardless of size and specification. Defendants argued that it meant only those tires of the same size and specification as the one that allegedly injured Plaintiffs.
On August 16, Defendants filed a Motion for Clarification that asked the court to advise "what disclosure is necessary" regarding the July 8 order. The motion was accompanied by materials that supported Defendants' argument about the meaning of "similar model of tire." On August 26, Plaintiffs filed a Motion to Strike Defendants' Answer for Violating Rule 26.1. Plaintiffs argued that Defendants had not complied with the July 8 order, and that the non-compliance constituted "a purposeful pattern of deceit and concealment which has persisted over many months." The motion contained details in support of its allegations.
The court ruled on the Motion for Clarification in a minute entry dated September 7, 1993, but not filed until September 13, 1993, which provided:
IT IS ORDERED supplementing and/or amending the order of July 8, 1993 to require the defendants to produce all information regarding any claims against the defendants for the three years prior to the accident in which the plaintiffs were involved, up to the present time, involving any passenger tire manufactured by the defendant which was bonded by the same process in the manufacture of the tire on the plaintiffs' automobile and about which there was a claim of tread separation.
The order does not related [sic] or limit the information to any particular width of tire.
On September 17, the court heard argument on the Motion to Strike. At that argument, Defendants' lawyers avowed that they had not received the ruling on the Motion for Clarification until "roughly, the 10th" of September. After the argument, the court granted the Motion to Strike by stating:
This may be a good case to test [Rule 26.1] and the philosophy behind it. I don't think this is an egregious situation as the case that was cited down in Tucson. [Jones v. Buchanan, 146 Ariz.Adv.Rep. 52.] And I would like--I would hope that the Appellate Court can resolve it on a special action, but I'm not sure they will take a special action. I'm going to grant the motion and strike the answer on the defendants.
I don't like to do that. I would prefer to continue the case, additional discovery, but I know the plaintiffs will jump up and down and say they simply can't for various reasons. It's just a philosophical thing that we're all having to live with and adapt to. And it's just something different than we've ever had before. I think that's what they want. They want you to cough it up without being asked for it. I'm going to grant the motion.
In reviewing an order striking pleadings for discovery violations, this Court must uphold the trial court's order unless the record reflects a clear abuse of discretion. See Lenze v. Synthes, Ltd., 160 Ariz. 302, 305, 772 P.2d 1155, 1158 (App.1989). The trial court's discretion in entering a default for failure to comply with discovery orders "is more limited than when it employs lesser sanctions." Id.
Rule 26.1, which became effective July 1, 1992, was adopted "to make the judicial system in Arizona more efficient, more expeditious, less expensive, and more accessible to the people." Ariz.R.Civ.P. 26.1, ct. cmt.
The intent of the amendments [to Rule 26] was to limit the adversarial nature of proceedings to those areas where there is a true and legitimate dispute between the parties, and to preclude hostile, unprofessional, and unnecessarily adversarial conduct on the part of counsel. It was also the intent of the rules that the trial courts deal in a strong and forthright fashion with discovery abuse and discovery abusers.
The committee's comments advise that Ariz.R.Civ.P. 16(f), comm. cmt.
Under former Rule 26, the trial court could not impose "the ultimate sanction" of striking a party's pleading "without expressly finding" that the party had obstructed discovery. Nesmith v. Superior Ct., 164 Ariz. 70, 71, 790 P.2d 768, 769 (App.1990); see also Lenze, 160 Ariz. at 305, 772 P.2d at 1158 (). But see Robinson v. Higuera, 157 Ariz. 622, 624, 760 P.2d 622, 624 (App.1988) (). In addition, the record had to reflect that the trial court "thoroughly considered other, less severe, sanctions before resorting to the most extreme." Nesmith, 164 Ariz. at 72, 790 P.2d at 770; see also Birds Int'l Corp. v. Arizona...
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