Opinion ID: 2570487
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Berry v. Phillipsburg

Text: Boone represented the plaintiff, Trudy Berry, in an action against the City of Phillipsburg, Kansas. The case was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas on May 15, 1990, and rested on Berry's allegations of police misconduct. Federal Magistrate Judge Reid presided over the case. During the 4-month period set aside for discovery, Boone conducted no formal discovery and failed to comply with the City's requests for discovery. After the expiration of the discovery period, the City filed a motion to compel discovery. The federal judge granted the motion and entered an order to show cause as to why sanctions should not be assessed against Boone as a result of Boone's failure to reply to discovery and to the motion to compel. Boone did not respond to the show cause order. More than 2 months after the close of discovery, Boone filed a motion seeking additional time to conduct discovery. Magistrate Reid denied the motion to reopen discovery. In an order filed September 4, 1991, Magistrate Reid ordered Boone to pay the costs of the City's motion to compel discovery, in the amount of $545.56. An additional problem developed in the case because Boone failed to provide witness summaries to the City within the time deadline set in the scheduling order. On September 18, 1991, the City filed a motion to compel the production of the witness summaries. Without responding to the motion to compel and without filing a motion for additional time, Boone filed the witness summaries on September 20, 1991. Magistrate Reid found that Boone's failure to meet the deadline without a request for additional time was inexcusable, and costs were assessed against Boone in the amount of $391.10. Discovery was reopened to permit the City to depose witnesses who were named for the first time in September 1991. As a result, the City incurred additional expenses. On April 24, 1992, the court ordered Boone to pay $4,500 for costs incurred by the City by the delay in discovery. Boone paid $1,350 of the order pursuant to a payment plan set out in the order. The case was subsequently settled in a timely manner, and Magistrate Reid reduced the sanction to $2,500. At the disciplinary hearing, Boone admitted that he did not conduct any formal discovery in the Berry case but that he moved the court for an extension of time for discovery as a precaution in the event that formal discovery would be required. Boone explained his informal discovery methods: [I]n a practice like mine where I represent mostly exclusively plaintiffs in civil cases, although I do represent some criminal defendants in my practice, that I have to rely upon a lot of informal discovery, a lot of methods to save expenses and a very good example of that is what I did in the Berry case by interviewing the mayor of the city and a police officer of the city ex parte, which I was allowed to do as a former mayor and a former police officer.... The mayor gave me a story that was just very favorable to the plaintiff, so that's a good example of how [informal discovery] was useful in that case. The Summary Judgment in that case was denied because of that use of the tool of the informal discovery that I used and I will say this, if I may: We were able to settle the case for forty-five thousand dollars which was ten thousand more than Lawton Nuss told me he'd ever paid for a civil rights case. That does notI want the Court to know I take the full responsibility for everything I did, but I want the Court to know those things and I do want the Court to know that I believe that evidence is an example of my bona [fides] in relying upon informal discovery. If [informal discovery] were effective in such a situation to produce that type of settlement which, yes, I'll have to say is pretty high because she only had seven hundred dollars' worth of medical and bruises that only lasted for two weeks, no bleeding, no broken bones but if that were successful in that situation, surely there is no guarantee it would be successful in all subsequent situations, but I respectfully refer to that to indicate my bona [fides] in pursuing that route and in conceiving of that route for the purposes of preservation of and a deduction of evidence at the Summary Judgment stage to be able to survive a trial. I respectfully do refer to that for that reason and that is what I did tell Mr. Burris. I certainly did tell him that I've relied upon informal discovery and that I absolutely did tell him that I requested extensions of time when as a precautionary measure I thought perhaps if I want to doif something else should pop up that I hadn't contemplated then I would have some time to pursue it.... The Panel found that in Berry v. Phillipsburg, Boone intentionally disobeyed the court's scheduling order, failed to respond to an order to show cause, and filed a frivolous motion. Boone argues to this court, as he did to the Panel, that he did not file the motion to extend discovery without an intention to conduct discovery. He reiterates that although he was reasonably confident that formal discovery would not be necessary, he requested the additional time in the event that some of the informal discovery might lead to the necessity to conduct formal discovery. Boone asserts that his method of informal discovery was a conscientious choice made in an effort to save his client the expense of formal discovery. Boone also takes exception to the Panel's finding that he intentionally disobeyed the court's scheduling order. He characterized his conduct as negligent rather than intentional.