Opinion ID: 781170
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Willful and Bad Faith Conduct

Text: 21 The District Court addressed the third and fourth Poulis factors independently — and found that both supported sanctions — but WCI addresses them as a single concept on appeal. As to dilatoriness, the District Court noted that after WCI's counsel failed to respond to Rodale's June 8, 2000 Request for Production of Documents and Interrogatories, Rodale had to file a Motion to Compel a month and a half after responses were due. WCI did not respond to the discovery requests nor answer the motion to compel. The District Court entered an Order on September 19, 2000, directing WCI to respond within fifteen days. As noted, WCI once more failed to respond timely. The parties agreed to a Stipulation, which included the threat of exclusion of evidence should WCI provide incomplete information, but WCI proceeded to answer that it had not completed its determination of damages. Concluded the District Court: Therefore, by October of 2000, eight months since the lawsuit commenced in this Court, and five years after the breach of contract action was originally brought before a court of this District, Plaintiff still had not completed its determination of damages. Id. at . As to willfulness and bad faith, the District Court pointed to many of the same violations by WCI, and also noted that [n]o excuse has been proffered for the excessive procrastination of Plaintiff's counsel. Id. at . 22 Nor is any excuse to be found in WCI's brief on appeal. Its argument may be reduced to the proposition that the delays were the result of a paper war between two parties equally at fault. Again, this overlooks that, as the plaintiff in this matter, WCI bore the responsibility for providing a damages calculation. It failed repeatedly to satisfy this requirement in anything close to a timely and thorough fashion. That the parties may have fought over ancillary matters — a point which Rodale contests and is not entirely clear from the record — does not support a conclusion by us that the District Court abused its discretion in finding a history of dilatoriness and bad faith by WCI.