Opinion ID: 172259
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The District Court's Dismissal of Ms. Garcia's Claim as a Sanction

Text: A district court has inherent equitable powers to impose the sanction of dismissal with prejudice because of abusive litigation practices during discovery. See TeleVideo Sys., Inc. v. Heidenthal, 826 F.2d 915 (9th Cir.1987); cf. Archibeque v. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. Co., 70 F.3d 1172, 1174 (10th Cir.1995); Fed. R.Civ.P. 37(b)(2)(A). Because of the harshness of dismissal, however, due process requires that the violation be predicated upon willfulness, bad faith, or [some] fault of petitioner rather than inability to comply. Archibeque, 70 F.3d at 1174 (internal quotation omitted). While recognizing that there is no rigid test for determining when such a sanction is appropriate, we have suggested that a district court ought to evaluate five factors before imposing a dismissal sanction: (1) the degree of actual prejudice to the defendant; (2) the amount of interference with the judicial process; (3) the culpability of the litigant; (4) whether the court warned the party in advance that dismissal of the action would be a likely sanction for non-compliance; and (5) the efficacy of lesser sanctions. See Ehrenhaus v. Reynolds, 965 F.2d 916, 920-21 (10th Cir.1992). We review a district court's decision to impose such a sanction for abuse of discretion. See Archibeque, 70 F.3d at 1174. The district court concluded that almost all of these factors counseled in favor of the sanction of dismissal with prejudice. [1] The court first determined that the prejudice to Berkshire was overwhelming because it had been forced to defend a lawsuit pervaded by false evidence. As the court noted, [t]he defendants have been put to enormous additional effort and expense to ferret out plaintiff's lies and to double check every piece of information. Mag. Op. 16. The court further concluded that it had absolutely no confidence that [Ms. Garcia] would not attempt to offer additional false evidence at a trial. Id. The court next found that Ms. Garcia had interfered egregiously with the court's administration of justice and that Ms. Garcia was culpable for the fabrications. See id. at 17-18. Specifically, the court determined that Ms. Garcia acted willfully, knowingly, intentionally, after careful contemplation, for self-serving purposes, and with a full understanding of the impropriety involved. Id. at 15. Although the court acknowledged that it had not warned Ms. Garcia of the possible sanction of dismissal, it nevertheless concluded that Ms. Garcia's misconduct required dismissalreasoning that imposition of a monetary sanction, exclusion of falsified evidence, and exclusion of testimony would have been insufficient to deter those who would manufacture evidence and attempt to cover it up. Id. at 18. In her appellate briefs, Ms. Garcia contended that the district court erred in concluding that she was clearly and convincingly culpable as to the claimed fabrications. Aplt. Br. 45-52. Accordingly, this court devoted significant time prior to oral argument to an examination of the factual record. At oral argument, however, Ms. Garcia's counsel abruptly abandoned any attempt to contest the factual findings regarding culpability, indicating that Ms. Garcia was not going to challenge the trial court's findings that those documents were fabricated. While we appreciate counsel's candor during oral argument, we regard this switch in position as unfortunately typical of Ms. Garcia's behavior throughout this case. Ms. Garcia seems inclined to raise factual smoke screens only to assert, after the facts are revealed, that the truth of the matter was irrelevant. Having closely examined the arguments of the parties, we cannot find that the district court has abused its discretion by concluding that the severe sanction of dismissal was warranted. The submission of falsified evidence substantially prejudices an opposing party by casting doubt on the veracity of all of the culpable party's submissions throughout litigation. The prejudiced party is forced either to attempt independent corroboration of each submission, at substantial expense of time and money, or to accept the real possibility that those discovery documents submitted by the opposing party are inaccurate. Nor is the exclusion of the fabricated evidence always enough to deter discovery misconduct. Litigants would infer that they have everything to gain, and nothing to lose, if manufactured evidence merely is excluded while their lawsuit continues. Pope v. Federal Express Corp., 138 F.R.D. 675, 683 (W.D.Mo.1990). Although Ms. Garcia did not receive an explicit warning that dismissal would be a likely sanction for fabricating evidence, this is not a prerequisite to the imposition of dismissal sanctions. See, e.g., Archibeque, 70 F.3d at 1175 (upholding dismissal even though no warning given). In addition, we have noted that where false answers are given under oath, as was the case with the responses to interrogatories here, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(b)(3), additional warnings are superfluous at best. Chavez v. City of Albuquerque, 402 F.3d 1039, 1045 (10th Cir.2005). Once a witness swears to give truthful answers, there is no requirement to warn him not to commit perjury or, conversely to direct him to tell the truth. It would render the sanctity of the oath quite meaningless to require admonition to adhere to it. Id. (citation omitted). We have previously authorized the imposition of dismissal sanctions in cases involving discovery violations arguably less egregious than this one. In Ehrenhaus, for instance, the district court dismissed Mr. Ehrenhaus's case for failure to appear at a scheduled deposition, when Mr. Ehrenhaus had asserted that it was essential that the deposition be delayed so that he could attend a business meeting in New York in order to save his business from bankruptcy. 964 F.2d at 919. In that case, there was no suggestion that the party against whom the sanction was imposed had intentionally submitted false evidence or deceived the court. Nevertheless, we upheld the sanction. The facts of Archibeque are closer to this case. In Archibeque, Ms. Archibeque sought damages from a railway company for personal injuries allegedly sustained while working for the company. In her responses to discovery questions seeking her complete medical records, Ms. Archibeque withheld information about prior injuries that would have weakened her claim for damages. Archibeque, 70 F.3d at 1173. Although she denied any intent to conceal her prior injuries, and explained her failure to provide the records as a mere oversight, the district court granted the railway company's motion for dismissal as a sanction. Id. at 1175. We again affirmed. If the omission of discovery evidence was sufficient to justify the sanction of dismissal in Archibeque, it seems clear that the affirmative fabrication of evidence is likewise sufficient to justify dismissal here. Ample evidence supported the conclusion that Ms. Garcia was herself culpable for the fabrications submitted in this case. Numerous inauthentic documents were submitted over a several year period, counseling against an explanation of mistake. Moreover, the fabrications were carefully constructed to look like authentic documents. Letters were made to look as though they were printed on authentic letterhead; emails were carefully spliced together so as to appear accurate; fax banners were added to documents to disguise their origin. See Mag. Op. 14-15; see also Aple. Br. 15-28. Finally, Ms. Garcia's evasive, inconsistent answers and inability to provide an explanation for the fabrications during the hearing cast further doubt on her accounting of events. See, e.g., Mag. Op. 10-13. We give the district court's determinations regarding the credibility of witnesses great deference. Wessel v. City of Albuquerque, 463 F.3d 1138, 1145 (10th Cir.2006). Accordingly, the district court was well within its discretion to determine that the evidence clearly and convincingly supported the conclusion that Ms. Garcia intentionally fabricated the documents. Ms. Garcia, however, attempts to argue that a dismissal sanction here is inappropriate for a variety of reasons. Ms. Garcia first argues that even if the documents were fabrications, they cannot provide a basis for a dismissal sanction, because they had absolutely no materiality or relevance to the substantive issues of [this] case. Aplt. Br. 55. As an initial matter, even accepting her factual premise, it is hard to see why her legal conclusion follows. A party's willingness to fabricate evidence bears on character and credibility, which often is broadly at issue in a given case. In addition, when a party wilfully submits false evidence, it imposes substantial burdens not only on the opposing party, but also on the judicial system itself, as the extent and relevance of the fabrication are investigated. The lack of materiality or relevance is often not apparent until the later in the litigation, when the plaintiff's legal theory is clarified. By then, however, costs will have already been inflicted and the damage done. Moreover, when false evidence or testimony is provided under oath, knowingly and with intent to deceive, a party commits a fraud on the court. It would be odd, therefore, if a court's power to impose the admittedly severe sanction of dismissal depended only on the falsehood's relevance to the parties' claims, and failed to account for the act's interference with the judicial process. Neither of the cases Ms. Garcia relies on, Fjelstad v. Am. Honda Motor Co., Inc., 762 F.2d 1334 (9th Cir.1985) or Phoceene Sous-Marine, S.A. v. U.S. Phosmarine, Inc., 682 F.2d 802 (9th Cir.1982), support her contention that wilful production of false evidence is insufficient to justify a dismissal sanction unless the evidence is particularly material. In both those cases, the Ninth Circuit found that outright dismissal was an inappropriate sanction where the litigant's alleged misconduct was wholly unrelated to the matters in controversy, Phoceene Sous-Marine, S.A., 682 F.2d at 806, but simply facilitated the delay of trial or discovery. See id. ([The litigant's] deception related not to the merits of the controversy but rather to a peripheral matter: whether [the litigant] was in fact to ill to attend trial on October 10.); Fjelstad, 762 F.2d at 1338 (noting that Honda Limited's refusal to disclose discovery information before its parent company was joined as a party did not deceive the court about the issues in controversy). Here, in contrast, Ms. Garcia's deceptions concerned the issues in controversy, rather than an attempt to delay discovery or trial as in Phoceene Sous-Marine, S.A. or Fjelstad. Nevertheless, we need not decide the question in this case, because we agree with the district court that at least two of Ms. Garcia's fabrications were directly relevant to her claims. The fabricated Renfro report supported Ms. Garcia's claim that she was totally disableda central issue in the litigation. Meanwhile, Mr. Schoenborn's letter purported to expose unfair business practices by which Berkshire intentionally sought to delay or avoid the payment of earned benefitsprecisely Ms. Garcia's theory of the case. In fact, despite initially maintaining that all of the asserted fabrications have absolutely nothing to do with her merits claims, Aplt. Br. 57, Ms. Garcia's counsel conceded at oral argument that the Schoenborn letter was relevant to the merits. Ms. Garcia next suggests that her alleged disabilities could explain the fabrications. Indeed, Ms. Garcia's counsel spent substantial time at the sanctions hearing attempting to develop expert testimony on whether the fabrications could have been the result of impulse spurred by Ms. Garcia's disability, hypothetically assuming her involvement. See, e.g., Aple. Supp. App. 59-60. But the district court explicitly addressed and rejected the suggestion that Ms. Garcia's actions were the product of her disability and found that the suggestion that the fabrications and plaintiff's willingness to lie are irrational acts of uncontrollable impulse are belied by the facts. Mag. Op. 14. Even Ms. Garcia's own expert testified that, assuming her disability would have led her to fabricate the document, it would not have prevented her from appreciating the difference between the propriety or impropriety of those actions by the time of the hearing. Aple. Supp.App. 57-58. Ms. Garcia's unwillingness to take responsibility for the fabrications leading up to or at the hearing therefore makes less likely that they were the product of a temporary, disability-induced, impulse. Instead, we think the district court was within its discretion to conclude that the fabrications were the product of an intentional act, performed after careful contemplation. Mag. Op. 15. Finally, Ms. Garcia argues that Berkshire must prove all of the elements of common law fraud in order to prevail on its motion for sanctions. But we have never required such findings in order to sustain a court's imposition of dismissal sanctions. See, e.g., Ehrenhaus, 965 F.2d 916. Moreover, we note that the affirmative submission of false evidence is, at minimum, akin to a fraud on the court, which other courts have found may justify the sanction of dismissal. See Allen v. Chi. Transit Auth., 317 F.3d 696, 703 (7th Cir.2003). For all these reasons, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that the severe sanction of dismissal was warranted in this case.