Opinion ID: 541989
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: 24 After considering that brief outline of the procedural history and plaintiff's conduct of her own case little more should be needed to justify what a very patient trial judge, experienced on both the state and federal benches, felt compelled to do. Plaintiff left him no alternative but to dismiss her suit. Plaintiff's recalcitrance and obstruction of the case she initiated cannot be tolerated particularly from one who should know better. 25 For this appeal plaintiff did secure counsel who well represented his client in a difficult situation. Plaintiff's counsel sets forth the basic sanction law. 4 Whether to sanction and the sanction to be imposed are decisions entrusted to the discretion of the district court, Patterson v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 852 F.2d 280, 283 (7th Cir.1988) (per curiam). The discretion given to the district court is broad, Tamari v. Bache & Co., 729 F.2d 469, 472 (7th Cir.1984). That discretion, however, is not unfettered. Schilling v. Walworth County Park & Planning Comm'n, 805 F.2d 272, 275 (7th Cir.1986). The sanction must be just and specifically related to the particular claim at issue in the discovery order. Insurance Corp. of Ireland, Ltd., v. Compagnie des Bauxites, 456 U.S. 694, 707, 102 S.Ct. 2099, 2106, 72 L.Ed.2d 492 (1984). It must also be remembered that unexcused and willful violations justify harsh sanctions up to and including dismissal with prejudice. National Hockey League v. Metropolitan Hockey Club, Inc., 427 U.S. 639, 643, 96 S.Ct. 2778, 2781, 49 L.Ed.2d 747 (1976) (per curiam). It is plaintiff's position against that legal backdrop, though it is conceded that she failed to comply with the court's discovery orders, that the most severe sanction--the draconian sanction of dismissal--was not justified. We view the district court's decision to impose rule 37 sanctions under an abuse of discretion standard. Magnus Elec. v. Masco Corp., 871 F.2d 626, 631 (7th Cir.1989). 26 To support that position plaintiff raises several arguments. It is implied in plaintiff's briefs that since her trial court actions were pro se that circumstance should be considered. Ordinarily, we treat the efforts of pro se applicants gently, but a pro se lawyer is entitled to no special consideration. 27 Plaintiff argues that her refusal to comply with the discovery orders was not made in a fit of intransigence, but resulted from her heartfelt belief that her compliance would violate duties imposed on her by the Rules of Professional Conduct governing members of the Indiana bar and would result in a waiver of the work product doctrine and the attorney-client privilege. Plaintiff undertook to make those decisions for the court. She refused to afford the court the ordered opportunity for in camera examination or to submit a list of what she claimed were work product materials. Plaintiff need not further concern herself with those doctrines as for her they are no longer at risk. It was the district court, not plaintiff, that had the responsibility to make those discovery production determinations on the merits. 28 Plaintiff also complains she was sanctioned without benefit of a hearing. Plaintiff had ample opportunity to respond to the court's orders, and her refusals were clear. No other hearing was needed to go over once again the discovery impasse caused by plaintiff. Whether to hold a hearing before imposing sanctions is a matter of the sound discretion of the trial court. There was nothing left for the court to do at a formal hearing except waste more time of the court and defendants. There was no abuse of discretion. Margoles v. Johnson, 587 F.2d 885, 888-89 (7th Cir.1978). We decline plaintiff's invitation to revisit that decision. 29 Plaintiff had been amply warned about the increasing likelihood of sanctions. She should have foreseen the possibility of dismissal. In the second request for rule 37 relief filed on April 14, 1989, defendants specifically asked for dismissal with prejudice. Any last minute change of mind by plaintiff to partially comply, to the limited extent she saw fit, with the court's order was too little too late. Plaintiff can not dictate her own terms of compliance with the court's order. Plaintiff may compromise with the defendant but not with the court. Her inadequate last minute compliance attempt was properly rejected. 30 Plaintiff claims that the district court should have experimented with some lesser sanction before dismissal. Plaintiff overlooks that an earlier monetary sanction was imposed but she promptly notified the court she would not pay until after she had taken an appeal. The first sanction obviously had no curative impact on her. She continued to be obstructive. There is no reason to believe that some other sanction would have been effective in causing plaintiff to progress in an orderly fashion with this litigation. The district judge is not to be faulted now for his patient efforts with plaintiff, nor will we be drawn into quibbling about a phrase or two of the district judge taken out of context which plaintiff now claims misled her in some way to expect something less than dismissal. 31 After our own examination of the entire record, it would be impossible to come to any other conclusion than that plaintiff willfully and deliberately chose to ignore and refuse to obey the court's orders. Societe Internationale v. Rogers, 357 U.S. 197, 212, 78 S.Ct. 1087, 1095, 2 L.Ed.2d 1255 (1957), limits sanctions to situations where the noncompliance is willful and not due to inability of the party to comply. We see nothing but willfulness in this record. Plaintiff does not dispute her noncompliance was deliberate. Her excuse is only that she knew better than the district judge what response she should make. The district court concluded that after more than eighteen months of intransigence, resistance, and disregard of court orders that no other sanction could be meaningful. We see no factual findings by the district court which could reasonably be considered clearly erroneous. Hindmon v. National-Ben Franklin Life Ins. Corp., 677 F.2d 617, 621 (7th Cir.1982). The facts justifying dismissal are vividly apparent on the face of the record. 32 This court has recognized that the choice of sanctions is primarily the responsibility of the district judge, Patterson, 852 F.2d at 283. Sanctions are reviewed under a differential standard. No matter the standard of review, in this case, even under the strict de novo standard of review, we could not but approve the imposition of the dismissal sanction. National Hockey League, 427 U.S. at 640-41, 96 S.Ct. at 2779-80. The district court could have abused its discretion only in declining to impose the dismissal sanction with prejudice to bring an end to plaintiff's attempt to manipulate the progress of her case to suit herself. This is not a case as in our recent case of Diehl v. H.J. Heinz Co., 901 F.2d 73 (7th Cir.1990) in which this court determined that the condition imposed by the district court was so unreasonable that it could not be complied with and therefore failure to comply did not justify sanctions. 33 The district court's decision under rule 37 to sanction plaintiff by dismissing her case with prejudice is affirmed. We remand to the district court for such further proceedings as may be necessary in relation to costs. 34 AFFIRMED.