Opinion ID: 424928
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Woodruff Dismissal

Text: 77 In their cross-appeal, the plaintiffs contend that the district court improperly dismissed Plaintiff Woodruff for threatening to disrupt the trial. The plaintiff, while waiting to enter the courtroom, ripped off clothes provided to him and threatened to rip them off again in court. The district judge decided that he could not allow the plaintiff an opportunity to carry out that threat. 78 The sanction of involuntary dismissal with prejudice is severe, and should be used only when lesser sanctions are inappropriate or ineffective. See, e.g., McCargo v. Hedrick, 545 F.2d 393 (4th Cir.1976). In Botany v. Heeringa, 521 F.Supp. 1369 (E.D.Wis.1981), for example, the district court faced a pro se state prison inmate alleging under Section 1983 that his civil rights were violated. That plaintiff seriously disrupted the trial. The court, recognizing that the usual punishments for contempt would be ineffectual against a prisoner who sued in forma pauperis, dismissed the case with prejudice in order to preserve the orderly operation of the court. 79 The decision to dismiss the plaintiff's claims falls within the discretion of the district court, and absent an abuse of that discretion we will affirm its judgment. The record supports the court's finding that the plaintiff threatened to disrupt the proceedings. We think the court acted properly in the face of Plaintiff Woodruff's disruptive, contumacious, stubbornly defiant conduct. Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 343, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1060, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970). The court weighed the plaintiff's rights, the threat of disruption, and the consequences of declaring a mistrial in an action involving seven other plaintiffs and eighteen defendants if Plaintiff Woodruff misbehaved in front of the jury. Under the unusual circumstances of the case the district court's action was justified.