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# United States Court of Appeals

For the First C ircuit

No. 01-1885 EUGENE B. BOWLER, Plaintiff, Appellant,

v. STATE OF MAINE, ET AL., Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE [Hon. D. Brock Hornby, U.S. District Judge ]
Before Torruella, Circuit Judge , Stahl, Senior Circuit Judge , and Lynch, Circuit Judge .

Eugene B. Bowler on brief pro se. G. Steven Rowe , Attorney General, and William R. Fisher , Assistant Attorney General, on brief for appellees.

December 27, 2001-2- Per Curiam . Eugene Bowler filed this pro se action in a n ef fort to challenge the constitutionality of Maine's "stalking" statute. See 17-A Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 210-A. The action ended up bein g dismissed because of his noncompliance with a court order directing th at he respond to defendants' interrogatories (and their accompanying requests for production of documen ts) . See Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(C). Such a disposition is review ed only for abuse of discretion. See , e.g. , National Hockey League v. Metrop. Hockey Club, Inc. , 427 U.S. 639, 642 (1976) (per curiam). Finding none, we affirm.

There is no need for extended discussion, particularlysince Bowler has offered little in the way of pertinent argumentation on appeal. A number of factors support t he district court's decision. For example, the var iou s objections voiced by Bowler to the interrogatories prove to have been baseless. He protested that providing complete
answers would impose an intolerable burden andwould implicate Fifth Amendment concerns, but he never elaborated in either regard. He also complained that many of the questions were "not relevant"--overlooking, among other things, the fact that his as-applied constitutional challenges were necessarily factdependent. In any event, whatever the merit of his objections, Bowler persisted in his recalcitrance even after being ordered to furnish appropriate responses. As to other points, we note1 Th e cited factors would not have been dispositive in an y

event. See , e.g. , Velazquez-Rivera v. Sea-LandService, Inc. , 920 F.2d1072, 1078 n. 9 (1 st Cir. 1990) (stopping short of any suggestion that lack of prior warning was "controlling"). -3- that the interrogatories were limited in scope and number; that defendants undertook no other discovery; that Bowler was familiar with the judicial p rocess ; and that he likely would not have prevailed on his underlying constitutional claims.

To be sure, Bowler could retort that he was appearing pro se; that he had otherwise actedin prompt fashion; that the
case was relatively young; and t hat he had not been specificallywarned that dismissal might ensue. Yet he has not done so. 1 Instead, to excuse his noncompliance with the district court order, Bowl er points out that a challenge thereto was pending before this court by way of a "petition for writ of prohibition." This argument fails for several reasons. First, t hat petition was patently without merit, inasmuch as the discovery order was a garden-variety, discretionary ruling that was neither appealable nor subject to mandamus review. See , e.g. , Bennett v. City of Boston , 54 F.3d 18, 20-21 (1 s t Cir. 1995) (per curiam). Second, by the time the dismissal here occurred, Bowler's petition hadbeen denied bythis court andwas the subject of a request for en banc review--a frivolous filing. Finally, as the district court noted, Bowler-4-

never sought a stay of the discovery order pending his attempt to obtain appellate relief.

Affirmed.