Court Opinion

ID: 9446980
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:22:57.781812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:51.783664
License: Public Domain

JAMES ALGER FEE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in failing to permit dismissal after answer had been filed simply because counsel had changed his theory and believed he had a better chance to win in the federal court in Washington. The court had the right to consider the disadvantages arising to defendants by such action. This Court refused to issue a preliminary writ of mandamus upon the ground that discretion had not been abused but required appellant to go to trial in the action in Oregon.
Appellant continued to fence for advantage. After the mandamus proceeding had been dismissed, the trial court, by order dated May 19, 1958, set the case for formal pretrial conference on July 21, 1958. On July 17, appellant filed a motion where it declined to proceed further in the above action. The trial court dismissed the action with prejudice under Rule 17 of the Oregon District Court, which provides:
“All actions filed must be prosecuted with due diligence, and any action not so prosecuted may be dismissed for want of prosecution.”
Irrespective of the question of abuse of discretion, the trial court had a right to dismiss the cause under this Rule because of the positive defiance of the order of the court setting the case for pretrial conference. All questions could have been raised at the pretrial conference, including that of the effect of an adjudication of this case upon the subsequent ease which appellant had brought in the Eastern District of Washington.
The judgment of dismissal should be affirmed.