Opinion ID: 165673
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: dismissal as a sanction for perjury

Text: 20 It has long been understood that `[c]ertain implied powers must necessarily result to our Courts of justice from the nature of their institution,' powers `which cannot be dispensed with in a Court, because they are necessary to the exercise of all others.' Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 43, 111 S.Ct. 2123, 2132 115 L.Ed.2d 27 (1991) (quoting United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch 32, 34, 3 L.Ed. 259 (1812)); see also Smith v. Northwest Financial Acceptance, Inc., 129 F.3d 1408, 1419 (10th Cir.1997). Among the multifarious manifestations of the courts' inherent powers is the authority to vacate a judgment when a fraud has been perpetrated on the court, Chambers, 501 U.S. at 44, 111 S.Ct. at 2132, such as when a party has perjured himself during the discovery process, Archibeque v. Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Co., 70 F.3d 1172, 1174 (10th Cir.1995). We review such a determination for abuse of discretion. Ashby v. McKenna, 331 F.3d 1148, 1149 (10th Cir.2003). 21 Although the district court has discretion to dismiss, it must be exercised with restraint. Because dismissal is such a harsh sanction, it is appropriate only in cases of `willfulness, bad faith, or [some] fault of petitioner.' Archibeque, 70 F.3d at 1174 (quoting National Hockey League v. Metropolitan Hockey Club, Inc., 427 U.S. 639, 640, 96 S.Ct. 2778, 2779, 49 L.Ed.2d 747 (1976)). We have articulated a number of factors that may inform the district court's discretion in determining whether dismissal is an appropriate sanction: 22 (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 noncompliance; and (5) the efficacy of lesser sanctions. 23 Ehrenhaus v. Reynolds, 965 F.2d 916, 921 (10th Cir.1992) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). This list is not exhaustive, nor are the factors necessarily equiponderant. See Archibeque, 70 F.3d at 1174; Ehrenhaus, 965 F.2d at 921. The district court cited and considered each of the Ehrenhaus factors in its Memorandum Opinion and Order of August 18, 2003. 2 We find its analysis persuasive, and Chávez's arguments on appeal do not convince us otherwise. 24 First, Chávez argues that Lehockey was not actually prejudiced by his perjury. Indeed, he posits that his fallacious testimony actually helped Lehockey's case by allowing him to impeach Chávez more effectively. Not only is this argument somewhat cavalier, as characterized by the district court (Aplt.App., Vol 2 at 540), it utterly misses the point of the qualified immunity doctrine. [T]he `entitlement [to qualified immunity] is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability; and like an absolute immunity, it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial.'  National Commodity and Barter Association v. Archer, 31 F.3d 1521, 1532 n. 8 (10th Cir.1994) (quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2815, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985)) (second alteration in Archer; emphasis in Mitchell ). Forcing a defendant entitled to invoke the defense to proceed to trial on the basis of a lie fundamentally undermines this important principle. 25 Chávez argues next that his conduct did not substantially interfere with the judicial process. In this regard, he points out that he never lied about the facts of the attack itself, and maintains that his lies regarding the events leading up to that encounter were not material. The law is to the contrary. Claims of excessive force are governed by a standard of objective reasonableness. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 395, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 1871, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). Under this standard, the determination whether excessive force was used turns on the totality of the circumstances of each particular case, including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight. Id. 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S.Ct. at 1872. Thus, the facts that Chávez was thought to be a violent gang member and possibly armed, that he fled even after being sprayed with mace, that he led police on a protracted chase through the city streets even after three of his car's tires were flattened, that he crashed through a fence, and that he invaded a nearby apartment just prior to his encounter with Lehockey were all relevant to the determination whether Lehockey's actions were objectively reasonable. Not only was Chávez's lack of candor about these events material, it was material to the determination of the central issue in the case. 26 The next factor the district court considered was Chávez's culpability in the fabrication. Chávez attempted to explain himself by claiming that 27 I was in prison at the time that you took this deposition. I was under guard. I was in — I didn't really know how to go about it right, you know? It was my — I have never really been involved in a lawsuit, and at the time, I was thinking, well, I didn't know if it was going to cause me more problems or what the whole situation — I was — I didn't answer the way I should have but I'm stating the truth today. 28 (Aplt.App., Vol. 4 at 409.) We fail to see how this self-interested justification diminishes Chávez's culpability even slightly. 29 With respect to the factor of whether a prior warning was necessary before the case was dismissed, Chávez admits that no such warning was warranted in these circumstances. Moreover, because the perjurious testimony was given under oath, an additional warning would have been superfluous at best. 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. See Webb v. Texas, 409 U.S. 95, 97 n. , 93 S.Ct. 351, 353 n. , 34 L.Ed.2d 330 (1972) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). 30 Finally, Chávez argues that the district court should have imposed lesser sanctions, again relying on his contentions that his lies were immaterial and did not prejudice the defense. These arguments fail along with the insupportable assumptions on which they are based. Chávez further contends that he had been punished already by the jury's failure to award him more than nominal damages. 3 The district court considered this argument, but found that [t]he fact that Plaintiff may have gained nothing as a result of his perjury does not mean that he should not be sanctioned for his conduct, particularly where analysis of the other Ehrenhaus factors calls for the imposition of severe consequences. (Aplt.App., Vol. 2 at 544-45.) We find no abuse of discretion in this conclusion, which is fully concordant with the law. See ABF Freight System, Inc. v. National Labor Relations Board, 510 U.S. 317, 329-30, 114 S.Ct. 835, 842, 127 L.Ed.2d 152 (1994) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment) (The principle that a perjurer should not be rewarded with a judgment — even a judgment otherwise deserved — where there is discretion to deny it, has a long and sensible tradition in the common law.) 31 Accordingly, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in exercising its inherent power to dismiss Chávez's case as a sanction for perjuring himself during discovery.