Court Opinion

ID: 9448018
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:20:23.623568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:15.517607
License: Public Domain

SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I take as my text this 1952 pronouncement of the Supreme Court of New Jersey:
“The dismissal of a party’s cause of action is drastic punishment and should not be invoked except in those cases where the actions of the party show a deliberate and contumacious disregard of the court’s authority. * * * It seems to us that the plaintiff’s conduct here did not warrant such severe punishment, particularly in view of the fact that the defendant would have suffered no loss by a further short adjournment which very well might have been granted on terms.
“ * * * But courts exist for the sole purpose of rendering justice between parties according to law. While the expedition of business and the full utilization of their time is highly to be desired, the duty of administering justice in each individual case must not be lost sight of as their paramount objective. * * ” (Italics supplied). Allegro v. Afton Village Corp., 9 N.J. 156, 87 A.2d 430, 432.
In this case there was an absence of the usual grounds for the involuntary dismissal of a suit. For instance there cannot be a serious contention that plaintiff’s suit was vexatious or fictitious, 27 C.J.S. Dismissal and Nonsuit § 56, p. 403. We had already held in Link v. Wabash R. R. Co., 7 Cir., 237 F.2d 1, that his complaint stated a cause of action and we had remanded the case to the district court for trial. The United States Supreme Court denied certiorari, 352 U.S. 1003, 77 S.Ct. 563, 1 L.Ed.2d 548.
Defendant’s counsel makes no effort to rely upon want of prosecution as a ground for the involuntary dismissal. Obviously defendant is in no position to make such a contention, inasmuch as it caused the district court to vacate the order setting the case for trial on July 22, 1959, and continue the case. Even if it had not done so, it is clear that its acquiescence in the delay would bar a dismissal of plaintiff’s case for want of prosecution. 27 C.J.S. Dismissal and Nonsuit § 65(3), p. 445.
Therefore, there exists no basis for sustaining the dismissal order from which plaintiff has appealed, unless it is shown that there has been a disobedience by plaintiff of a court order. 27 C.J.S. Dismissal and Nonsuit § 59, p. 406. There is no such showing, because, first, there was no order commanding plaintiff to do anything and hence no possibility of his being disobedient, and, secondly, there is no evidence that the plaintiff even had any knowledge of the proceedings which the trial court described as its exercise of “its inherent power to dismiss this action” upon “failure of plaintiff’s counsel to appear at a pretrial # * *»
It is unnecessary to discuss the rationale of the holding that a pretrial conference was called in accordance with rules and that plaintiff’s counsel did not appear. Certainly there is no suggestion that plaintiff was ever ordered or even requested to appear at such a conference. His counsel was requested to do so and did not appear because, as he informed the judge’s secretary, he was engaged in some activity in connection with business before the Indiana Supreme Court, at which time he requested a delay of a *548.day or two for the conference. This message was conveyed to the trial judge. It further appears that plaintiff’s counsel had informed defendant’s counsel the preceding morning of his absence at Indianapolis.
On this showing the court dismissed plaintiff’s case.
If one accedes to the proposition that plaintiff’s counsel, despite his commitment at Indianapolis, should have been in attendance at the pretrial conference, and that his absence from the conference was inexcusable and made him amenable to discipline as an officer of the court, it is impossible to logically bridge the gap and to inflict disciplinary punishment upon his client rather than upon the attorney. The cause of action of the plaintiff for serious and permanent personal injuries and loss of earnings has been by the action of the court dismissed, not for any violation of any order by the plaintiff, but for an alleged dereliction by a lawyer who was held out to the plaintiff as one to whom he could entrust the handling of his case in the federal courts. It must be remembered that the attorney had been practicing for years in both the district court and this court of appeals.
The order now affirmed has inflicted a serious injury upon an injured man and his family, who are innocent of any wrongdoing. Plaintiff’s cause of action, bearing the stamp of approval of this court, was his property. It has been destroyed.1 The district court, to punish a lawyer, has confiscated another’s property without process of law, which offends the constitution. A district court does not lack disciplinary authority over an attorney and there is no justification, moral or legal, for its punishment of an innocent litigant for the personal conduct of his counsel. Because it was neither necessary nor proper to visit the sin of the lawyer upon his client, I would reverse.

. 28 U.S.C.A. rule 41(b).