Task: songer_direct1

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Your task is to determine the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision, coded as "liberal" or "conservative". Consider liberal to be for government tax claim; for person claiming patent or copyright infringement; for the plaintiff alleging the injury; for economic underdog if one party is clearly an underdog in comparison to the other, neither party is clearly an economic underdog; in cases pitting an individual against a business, the individual is presumed to be the economic underdog unless there is a clear indication in the opinion to the contrary; for debtor or bankrupt; for government or private party raising claim of violation of antitrust laws, or party opposing merger; for the economic underdog in private conflict over securities; for individual claiming a benefit from government; for government in disputes over government contracts and government seizure of property; for government regulation in government regulation of business; for greater protection of the environment or greater consumer protection (even if anti-government); for the injured party in admiralty - personal injury; for economic underdog in admiralty and miscellaneous economic cases. Consider the directionality to be "mixed" if the directionality of the decision was intermediate to the extremes defined above or if the decision was mixed (e.g., the conviction of defendant in a criminal trial was affirmed on one count but reversed on a second count or if the conviction was afirmed but the sentence was reduced). Consider "not ascertained" if the directionality could not be determined or if the outcome could not be classified according to any conventional outcome standards.

PER CURIAM.
Plaintiff appellant sued the defendants for malicious interference with his contract rights, and on this appeal challenges four rulings of the district court: (1) denial of plaintiff’s motion for a jury trial, (2) denial of his motion for a continuance, (3) dismissal of the action for lack of prosecution, and (4) denial of plaintiff’s motion for a new trial.
Although the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure preserve the right of trial by jury, Fed.R.Civ.P. 38(a), a timely demand for a jury trial must be filed. Fed.R.Civ.P. 38(b), (d). Since the plaintiff failed to file such a demand, the district court properly denied the motion for a jury trial.
The granting of a continuance is a matter which lies within the sound discretion of the trial court, and the district court’s ruling on such motion will not be disturbed absent a showing of abuse of discretion. Montgomery v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 367 F.2d 917 (9 Cir. 1966). The plaintiff sought a continuance to enable him to contact material witnesses, but the record reveals that he had neither interviewed nor subpoenaed any of these individuals. The record further indicates that plaintiff knew nothing of the testimony he expected to elicit from these witnesses, and under these circumstances it is manifestly clear that the district judge did not abuse his discretion in denying the motion for a continuance.
District courts have “sound judicial discretion” to dismiss an action for “plaintiff’s failure to prosecute it with reasonable diligence * * Timmons v. United States, 194 F.2d 357 (4 Cir. 1952). The plaintiff had ample opportunity to develop evidence in support of his case, but he neither interviewed not subpoenaed witnesses whose whereabouts he knew. Furthermore, the plaintiff himself declined to testify. The district court’s dismissal of the action finds strong support in the record and was well within the court’s discretion.
The decision whether to grant or deny a new trial is also a discretionary matter with the trial court. Hopkins v. Coen, 431 F.2d 1055 (6 Cir. 1970); United States for Use and Benefit of Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Bucon Construction Company, 430 F.2d 420 (5 Cir. 1970). In his motion for a new trial the plaintiff asserted that he had discovered new evidence and that he had been prejudiced by reason of bias on the part of the trial judge. However, the plaintiff refused to disclose his newly discovered evidence to the court, implying that he feared such disclosure might result in intimidation of his material witnesses. This conduct on the part of the plaintiff made it impossible for the district court to appraise the alleged new evidence as a ground for granting a new trial. The plaintiff’s contention that the trial court was biased finds no support whatever in the record. Accordingly, we find that the district court acted properly in denying the motion for a new trial.
Finding no error in the challenged rulings, the action of the district court is affirmed.
Affirmed.

Question: What is the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision?
A. conservative
B. liberal
C. mixed
D. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: D