Opinion ID: 2736344
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Adequacy of the District Court’s Reasoning

Text: If the district court weighed the factors dictated by our case law before it dismissed Baptiste’s case, its order does not disclose its deliberative path. As in LeSane, the “record contains no indication that the district court considered any of [the required] factors in reaching its decision to dismiss plaintiff’s case for failure to prosecute.” Id. at 209. We do not expect district courts to make exhaustive factual findings or to utter what, in the sentencing context, we have called “robotic incantations.” United States v. Crosby, 397 F.3d 103, 113 (2d Cir. 2005). But just as we require a court to “explain enough about [a] sentence for a reviewing court both to understand it and to assure itself that the judge considered the [relevant law]” United States v. Corsey, 723 F.3d 366, 374 (2d Cir. 9 2013), “a decision to dismiss stands a better chance on appeal if the appellate court has the benefit of the district court’s reasoning,” Lucas, 84 F.3d at 535. The district court’s order does not refer to any of the factors relevant to a Rule 41(b) dismissal. Instead, the court dismissed the case because it was unpersuaded that Baptiste had a meritorious case or that he had a good reason for his past delay. A failure “to show cause” as to those two factors, however, is not a substitute for assessing the appropriateness of dismissal by balancing the prescribed criteria: the duration of the plaintiff’s failure, the nature and timing of the court’s notice to the plaintiff of possible dismissal, any prejudice to the defendant, the court’s own interest in managing its docket, and the possibility of imposing a lesser sanction. As we explained in Mitchell, even when a court issues a notice of a possible dismissal and a plaintiff fails to comply with the court’s directive, the court must still make a finding of “willfulness, bad faith, or reasonably serious fault” by evaluating those criteria. 708 F.3d at 467. Given the court’s silence, we can only assume that the district court overlooked that requirement, and we therefore cannot say that its decision to dismiss was a reasonable one. 10