Opinion ID: 656567
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Too Tough a Sanction?

Text: 17 A district court has the power to dismiss a complaint when a plaintiff fails to comply with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including Rule 8(a)(2)'s short and plain statement requirement. Vakalis v. Shawmut Corp., 925 F.2d 34, 36 (1st Cir.1991); Mangan v. Weinberger, 848 F.2d 909, 911 (8th Cir.1988). See Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(b). Its decision to do so is reviewable only for abuse of discretion. Mangan, 848 F.2d at 911; HMG Property Investors v. Parque Indus. Rio Canas, 847 F.2d 908, 916-17 (1st Cir.1988). 18 Plaintiffs now acknowledge a technical violation of Rule 8(a), conceding that their complaint is excessively long and unnecessarily redundant. They claim, however, that dismissal with prejudice is too drastic a sanction because this was unintentional error on the part of plaintiffs' attorney, who believed that it was essential to plead in detail in light of the magistrate's stated expectation that many defendants and some claims would be dismissed. By drafting counts in numerous, short, separate paragraphs, plaintiffs explain, they sought to permit any dismissed counts to be excised without affecting the remainder of the claims or the complaint as a whole. 19 Were plaintiffs' confessed overdrafting their only sin, we would be inclined to agree that dismissal was an overly harsh penalty. Our federal rules promote the disposition of claims on the merits rather than on the basis of technicalities, see Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 181-82, 83 S.Ct. 227, 230, 9 L.Ed.2d 222 (1962), and courts should be reluctant to impose a dismissal with prejudice for a rules violation that is neither persistent nor vexatious, particularly without some review of the merits. 20 These plaintiffs are culpable for more than simply an overwritten complaint, however. Their faulty pleading was not their first, but an amended version that had changed only superficially from the state court complaint, despite an order that it conform to the concise pleading requirements of Rule 8(a). Additionally, the magistrate judge had fairly explicitly telegraphed that the number of defendants should be considerably reduced. Instead, plaintiffs added two more. When plaintiffs finally attempted six weeks after the magistrate's decision to file a motion to amend, they failed to follow local rules. At no time did they properly offer the court a proposed amended complaint to cure the deficiencies. 21 Thus, by the time the district court acted on the magistrate judge's recommendation, it had before it a flouted order and no indication that plaintiffs were ready to conform to Rule 8(a)'s requirements. Their one apparent attempt to comply--the motion that ran afoul of Local Rule 11--had been abandoned. And defendants already had expended considerable time and expense responding to the defective complaint. See Newman v. Commonwealth of Mass., 115 F.R.D. 341, 344 (D.Mass.1987) (recognizing role of  'pragmatic matters,'  such as time and expense for defendants and court, in deciding whether complaint should be dismissed). 22 In these circumstances, the district court's decision to dismiss, though very severe, does not strike us as beyond the pale. It is well settled that the question on review is not whether we would have imposed a more lenient penalty had we been sitting in the trial judge's place, but whether the trial judge abused his discretion in imposing the penalty he did. Spiller v. U.S.V. Laboratories, Inc., 842 F.2d 535, 537 (1st Cir.1988). We believe this decision was within the wide boundaries of the court's discretion. See 5 Charles A. Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1217, at 178 (1990) ([I]n some circumstances if a party fails or refuses to file an amended and simplified pleading or does not exercise good faith in purporting to do so, the severe sanction of a dismissal on the merits may be warranted.); see also Jones v. Winnepesaukee Realty, 990 F.2d 1, 5 (1st Cir.1993) (Trial judges enjoy great latitude in carrying out case-management functions.) 23 The order of dismissal is therefore affirmed.