Williams v. Chicago Bd. of Educ.

• Citation: 155 F.3d 853
• Decision Date: 31 August 1998
• Docket Number: No. 98-1362,98-1362
• Parties: Gail B. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHICAGO BOARD OF EDUCATION, Steve Newton, Jr., individually and as principal of Marshall Metro High School, and Quinella Miller, individually and as chair of the guidance and counseling department at Marshall Metro High School, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 853

155 F.3d 853

41 Fed.R.Serv.3d 433

Gail B. WILLIAMS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHICAGO BOARD OF EDUCATION, Steve Newton, Jr., individually and as principal of Marshall Metro High School, and Quinella

Miller, individually and as chair of the guidance and

counseling department at Marshall Metro High School,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 98-1362.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued July 8, 1998.

Decided Aug. 31, 1998.

LaOuida Glover, Paul A. Brady (argued), Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Sunil Kumar, James J. Seaberry, Jr. (argued), Ronald S. Samuels, Samuels & Associates, Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before ESCHBACH, FLAUM and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Gail B. Williams filed a complaint under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101, against the Chicago Board of Education ("Board") and Steve Newton, the principal of Marshall Metro High School. ¹ After Williams failed on numerous occasions to abide by the district court's orders and scheduled deadlines, the court dismissed Williams' case with prejudice for want of prosecution. Williams appeals the dismissal of her suit, arguing that the district court abused its discretion. We affirm.

Facts

For some twenty-five years, Williams worked as a guidance counselor at Marshall Metro High School in Chicago, Illinois. In September of 1993, Williams' new supervisor, Principal Steve Newton, hired Williams to work in the Homebound Program, a federally-funded after-school program for children unable to attend classes. After just three days with the Homebound Program, Newton fired Williams. Williams claims that Newton fired her because of her medical problems, which include acute sinusitis, chronic bronchitis, and arthritis, and his refusal to accommodate her special needs.

Williams filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). After receiving a right-to-sue letter from the EEOC, Williams filed suit in district court on February 14, 1997 against the Board and Steve Newton. Attorneys Paul Brady and LaOuida Glover appeared as Williams' counsel of record, and on March 27, 1997, the district court issued an order setting the case's first status hearing for April 10, 1997. By April 10, however, Williams had not yet served either defendant, thereby forcing the court to continue the status hearing to May 8, 1997. By May 8, Williams still had not served the defendants, necessitating yet another rescheduling of the status hearing, this time for May 13, 1997. By May 13, the same lack of service necessitated yet another rescheduling, this time for June 10, 1997. On June 10, attorneys finally filed appearances on behalf of both defendants, enabling the status hearing to proceed. The same day, the court issued a scheduling order that established the following deadlines: mandatory disclosures under Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure completed by July 10, 1997; disclosure of all experts by November 10, 1997; discovery completed by December 10, 1997; Williams' draft pretrial order and proposed jury instructions submitted to the defendants by December 16, 1997; and appearance of all parties in court on December 23, 1997 to submit a joint pretrial order and agreed jury instructions. The case was set for trial in January of 1998, and the court informed the parties that these dates were firm.

On June 19, 1997, the district court granted Williams leave to file a second amended complaint. In its order granting the motion, the district court stated that "all previously set dates stand." The court also reiterated this point on July 1, 1997 when it granted the defendants additional time to answer Williams' second amended complaint.

July of 1997 brought about very little progress in the case. None of the parties made any Rule 26 disclosures, and, despite the Board's agreement with Williams to propound discovery by July 11, 1997, it did not actually deliver any discovery requests to Williams until August 4, 1997. Williams' attorneys, for their part, promised the Board they would attempt to secure the names of Williams' treating physicians by July 7, 1997, but they failed to produce any such information. The Board filed a motion to dismiss the second amended complaint two days later, which the court took under advisement and ordered Williams to respond to by July 29, 1997. Williams missed the deadline by two days "due to a glitch in counsel's technology" but was given leave to file an untimely response. The court ultimately granted the motion in part and denied it in part.

On August 12, 1997, Steve Newton's attorneys filed a motion to withdraw as counsel for Newton, citing as the cause for their motion Newton's lack of cooperation with the defense. The court granted the motion and subsequently entered a technical default against Newton for failure to answer the second amended complaint or to otherwise plead. ²

On September 4, 1997, one of the Board's attorneys, James Seaberry, phoned LaOuida Glover to inquire whether the Board could soon expect responses to its discovery. Ms. Glover responded that she had never received any of the Board's discovery requests. Mr. Seaberry therefore handdelivered a new set of discovery requests the same day. Notwithstanding the confusion caused by the mis-delivery of the discovery requests and the resultant loss of time, the month of September threatened to pass by without Williams' provision of so much as the name of a single health care provider, witness, or other person possessing discoverable, relevant information. Accordingly, on September 29, 1997, the Board filed a motion seeking leave to subpoena Williams' medical records and to compel Rule 26 disclosures. The Board agreed to withdraw the motion a few days later following Williams' agreement to comply with the Board's discovery requests.

Meanwhile, despite a discovery deadline looming only a few months away, not a single deposition had been conducted. The Board first noticed Williams' deposition for September 24, 1997 but was forced to reschedule the deposition for October 14, 1997 when it became apparent that Williams would not provide discovery responses in advance of the deposition. On October 14, Williams' attorneys canceled the deposition without explanation.

On October 24, 1997, the Board filed a motion to compel responses to its discovery and to request that Williams be produced for her deposition. The court granted the motion and ordered Williams to provide answers to all outstanding written discovery by October 31, 1997, as well as to be available for a deposition on November 10, 1997. The court also expressed its displeasure with the situation, stating: "Quite frankly, I wish [defense] counsel had come in a lot earlier with this motion, but I do not want there to be any misunderstanding that consequences will flow under Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure if the plaintiff does not comply." ³

The court ordered Williams to comply with the Board's outstanding discovery requests by October 31, 1997. Williams, however, simply mailed her responses to the Board's discovery requests on October 31. The responses did not arrive until November 4, 1997, and the answers themselves largely were unresponsive--Williams not only failed to identify witnesses and treating physicians, but she also neglected to specify her damages or her method of computing damages. Moreover, to most of the requests Williams simply responded "investigation continues" or "see production request response." Augmenting Williams' counsel's evident lack of respect for the court and its rules was the last-minute cancellation of Williams' court-scheduled deposition because one of her two attorneys had a bad cold. No explanation was offered as to why the other attorney could not defend the deposition. The Board then correspondingly refused to produce two of its employees for their depositions.

As result of Williams' late and uninformative discovery responses, the Board moved to bar all evidence not within its possession by October 31, 1997. Williams argued in opposition to the Board's motion that such a sanction was "draconian" because she had made a good faith effort to respond to the Board's discovery, had not willfully disregarded the court's discovery schedule, and had been hampered by the Board's equally dilatory behavior. The district court granted the Board's motion, however, and barred Williams from using any evidence not physically within the Board's possession by October 31, 1997. The court rejected Williams' equal culpability argument, noting that Williams had never filed a motion to compel against the Board, and also opined that the sanction was not draconian in light of Williams' counsel's conduct. "Williams' counsel," the court stated, "ha[s] a single client and a case that [is] relatively simple to prepare. Given these circumstances, Williams' failure to provide responsive answers at this late stage of discovery was inappropriate and sanctions are plainly warranted." Finally, the court admonished both parties, warning:

One message that both parties should not take from this opinion is that they may rely on each other's irresponsible behavior to justify further contumacious conduct and dilatory tactics, resting comfortably on the (mistaken) belief no sanctions will be imposed and the discovery deadline will be extended. Let there be no mistake: further dilatory tactics or bad faith responses on the part of either party will result in further sanctions under Rule 37.

The district court's June 10, 1997 standing order required Williams' counsel to submit a draft pretrial order and jury instructions to the defendants by December 16, 1997, and for all parties to appear in court on December 23, 1997 to submit a final joint pretrial order and agreed jury instructions. Although the Board appeared in court on December 23, Williams' counsel neither submitted a draft pretrial order or jury...