Opinion ID: 473618
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Prejudice to the Judicial System

Text: 20 We have recognized in the past that attorney misconduct that does not give rise to actual prejudice to the other party, or even a presumption of prejudice, may still put an intolerable burden on a district court by requiring the court to modify its own docket and operations in order to accommodate the delay. Where the delay or misconduct would require the court to expend considerable judicial resources in the future in addition to those it has already wasted, thereby inconveniencing many other innocent litigants in the presentation of their cases, our precedents have held that dismissal may be an appropriate exercise of discretion. As with the prejudice to the defendant inquiry, we have adopted various presumptions to guide our review here. 21 For example, where a party or counsel announces at the last minute that he cannot participate in a scheduled trial, the District Court is not required to disrupt its well-planned trial schedule to find a new date for the missed trial. Thus, district courts' decisions whether or not to grant a continuance are customarily accorded substantial deference. See 9 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 2352 at 141 (1971) ([t]hough there are limits on courts' discretion with regard to continuances, they are not exacting); Trakas, 759 F.2d at 189 (Scalia, J., dissenting). 22 Thus, in Automated Datatron, Inc. v. Woodcock, 659 F.2d 1168 (D.C.Cir.1981), this court affirmed the District Court's dismissal of part of a counterclaim where the defendant had, for more than six months, ignored a court order to join an indispensable party, and affording him still more time would have necessitated a continuance in the trial date. Although there may be cases where continuances would in fact not wreak havoc with the court's docket, see id. at 1171 (MacKinnon, J., dissenting), we as an appellate court have not seen fit to inquire into the actual status of the trial court's docket and the precise level of disruption that rescheduling would create. We have opted instead for a relatively bright line test according district courts wide discretion in determining how detrimentally their schedules need be altered for delinquent counsel. 4 23 Continuance of a trial date is not, of course, the only example of a situation where dismissal is frequently necessary to protect the efficient administration of judicial affairs and provide [] meaningful access for other prospective litigants to overcrowded courts. Lyell Theatre Corp., 682 F.2d at 42. A party's failure to comply with a rule or order of the court may not necessitate rescheduling of a trial but may nevertheless implicate the public's interest in expeditious resolution of litigation [and] the court's need to manage its docket. Henderson v. Duncan, 779 F.2d 1421, 1423 (9th Cir.1986). In Henderson the district court dismissed a suit with prejudice after plaintiff's counsel repeatedly failed to submit a pretrial order in accordance with a local rule. Although the reviewing court found no prejudice to the defendant, it affirmed the dismissal because inordinate delay in the expeditious resolution of litigation, and prejudice to the court's need to manage its docket were being exacerbated by counsel's actions. Id. at 1425. 24 As in the case of dismissal based on prejudice to the defendant, a dismissal based on prejudice to the judicial system need not turn on the level of the client's--as opposed to counsel's--complicity. But, even though we have not in some types of cases, such as continuances, tried to second-guess a trial court's determination that it would be overly burdensome on the system to take remedial action less drastic than outright dismissal, we caution that, as a general matter, it is still incumbent upon the trial court to consider such alternatives. When less drastic measures (such as sanctioning or replacing the errant attorney) would allow the court to proceed without placing an undue burden on its operation, they are preferable. 25 Although the repeated failure to attend status conferences in this case undoubtedly wasted the time of the District Court and opposing counsel, we do not think this case qualifies as one where the system suffered such a slight that a lesser sanction would not suffice. Proper action against the attorney or attorneys at fault might well have brought them into compliance with the court's need to move the case ahead. The District Court might even have disqualified counsel from the case and ordered them to so inform Mr. Shea so he could select new counsel. This is not one of those situations, such as scheduling of a trial, where we will not closely review the District Court's determination. Although the line is obviously a close one, rescheduling status calls does not, as a general matter, present so difficult a problem of accommodation that it justifies a presumption which results in denying a blameless litigant his day in court. As we point out in the next section, the District Court may well have had reason to take action against one or more of the attorneys here to deter future neglect of status calls. But we do not believe a dismissal can be justified as necessary to the integrity of the court system under the facts of this case.