Court Opinion

ID: 9470626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:11:26.040102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:01.137037
License: Public Domain

MacMAHON, District Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result.
The ultimate teaching of the cases cited in Judge Kearse’s opinion is that the safe and sure course for a district judge to follow when attorneys fail to observe time limits, whether set by the rules or by court orders, is to grant all requests for extensions of time and continuances. A request for only three more days in which to file an amended complaint seems so reasonable on its face that it is hard to imagine why any judge would deny it, much less impose the sanction of dismissal for noncompliance with the court’s order or for the failure to prosecute. Yet, if multiplied over and over for one reason or another in one case after another, as it surely is and would be once the bar realizes that deadlines mean nothing, the net result is the build-up of a paralyzing backlog of pending cases. Ultimately, the congestion becomes so great that aggrieved citizens are denied effective access to the courts.
Judge Brieant should be commended for not taking the easy course and for attempting, albeit futilely, to manage his docket, not just to accommodate one bungling attorney but to serve the public interest in the just, speedy and inexpensive disposition of all of the cases on his docket. This experienced, conscientious, and able judge takes seriously the truism that justice delayed is justice denied. This case had been pending for almost a year, yet the pleadings were not finally closed. True, plaintiff had belatedly submitted to a deposition, but not until after defendant had moved for sanctions and after plaintiff’s attorney had failed to appear in opposition to the motion. More of the same calendar clutter was clearly predictable, for an amended complaint makes new claims requiring an amended answer and still more discovery and other pretrial proceedings. We might well inquire what the state of the docket would be in the nation’s busiest and largest district court if every case on the court’s docket had a history of this one, with its “several derelictions,” “procedural mistakes,” and general misuse and waste of the court’s time. Under the circumstances, Judge Brieant, I think, was compelled to do something to put an end to further missteps and delays. Nevertheless, I must concur because I agree that he erred in failing to give due regard to lesser remedies and also in his appraisal of the merits of plaintiff’s claims.
As noted above, I agree with Judge Brieant’s conclusion that the case had “not got off the ground,” but for that very reason less drastic remedies than dismissal could easily have solved his calendar problems. More importantly, for the same reason Judge Brieant was simply in no position to make an accurate assessment of the merits of plaintiff’s claims. Nevertheless, in characteristic kindness and concern with plaintiff’s plight, he attempted to soften *53the blow by explaining that it really did not matter because, in his view, there was no merit to the claims anyway.
Racial discrimination nowadays is apt to be so subtle that it cannot be seen in its stark reality without a full exposition of the facts in a plenary trial. However wise the instincts and assumptions of this seasoned judge, his recollection and analysis of plaintiff’s claims, knowledge of the facts respecting them, and comprehension of the applicable law were necessarily superficial, incomplete, and flawed, and as a result, I think, plaintiff was denied his due process right of a fair chance to be heard.
Accordingly, I concur in the result.