Court Opinion

ID: 9674540
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:30:20.685117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:28.036454
License: Public Domain

BRADY, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The sanction imposed below — striking appellant’s answer and rendering a default judgment — is clearly authorized by Rule 215. However, I believe that, given the facts in this case, the trial court abused its discretion when it chose to impose the most severe sanctions possible under Rule 215.
In evaluating whether the trial court abused its discretion in this matter, we must, as the majority has already pointed out, determine whether the actions of the trial court were "... arbitrary or unreasonable.” Downer v. Aquamarine Operators, Inc., 701 S.W.2d 238, 241-42 (Tex. 1985), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1159,106 S.Ct. 2279, 90 L.Ed.2d 721 (1986).
In reviewing the reasonableness of the trial court’s decision we will first review the chronology of events which led to the imposition of the sanctions. Appellant failed to answer the interrogatories propounded by appellee within the thirty days specified. Appellee moved for sanctions, based on this failure to answer, seven days after the answers were due. Appellant’s counsel, Risley, received notice of appel-lee’s Motion for Sanctions and contacted appellee’s attorney to explain that the due date for answers to the interrogatories had inadvertently been omitted from Risley’s docket calendar. According to Risley’s affidavit, attached to his Motion for New Trial, Risley assured appellee’s counsel the answers were forthcoming and it was Ris-ley’s understanding that upon receipt of the answers, the hearing would not be held. Appellant signed the verification cover sheet to the interrogatories on August 29, 1986 and Risley mailed the answers on September 2, 1986. The answers were filed with the trial court on September 4, 1986. A total of twenty-nine days had elapsed from the day the answers were originally due to the day they were received by the court.
Rule 215 provides for a wide range of possible sanctions, of which striking one’s pleadings and entry of a default judgment is the most severe and should be used most sparingly. Pole & Hittner, Judgments By Default, 37 Sw.L.J. 4, 33 (1983). The penalty should only be imposed where clearly authorized. Sears & Roebuck v. Hollingsworth, 156 Tex. 176, 293 S.W.2d 639, 642 (1956). In those cases where striking of the pleadings has been upheld, the fact situations are uniformly far more egregious than in the case at bar.
In Pena v. Williams, 547 S.W.2d 671 (Tex.Civ.App.1977, no writ), appellees brought suit to cancel a written lease agreement. Appellant failed to answer interrogatories filed by appellees. The appellant’s pleadings were struck shortly before the case was set for trial, but only after two separate hearings were held on appel-lees’ motion to compel appellant to answer and appellant was given an opportunity after each hearing to complete his answers to the interrogatories. Id. at 673. In Pena the case went to trial and appellant still had the opportunity to cross-examine appel-lees’ witness and call his own witnesses. Despite Pena’s repeated failure to comply with discovery, Pena’s cause was not completely terminated. In the case at bar, this Court would extinguish Drozd’s cause because of a single failure to answer interrogatories.
*225Only the most aggravating circumstances would warrant a default judgment on the merits for failure to comply with a discovery order. Phillips v. Vinson Supply Co., 581 S.W.2d 789, 792 (Tex.Civ.App. 1979, no writ). For instance, in Rainwater v. Haddox, 544 S.W.2d 729, 730 (Tex.Civ. App.1976, no writ), the trial court struck defendant’s answer and rendered default judgment only when she failed to answer interrogatories for five months and then ignored an order to compel answers to the interrogatories for another two and one-half months. In City of Houston v. Arney, 680 S.W.2d 867, 870 (Tex.App.1984, no writ), the City’s pleadings were struck and an interlocutory default judgment entered after the City failed to answer interrogatories, ignored for nine weeks after the due date an order to compel answers to the interrogatories and then did not appear at the hearing set on the motion for sanctions.
Rule 215(2)(b) gives the court the discretion to make such orders in regard to the failure [to comply with proper discovery] as are just. Tex.R.Civ.P. 215(2)(b) (emphasis added). To be “just” the sanction should bear a reasonable relationship to the acts/omissions that provide the impetus for the sanction. The striking of appellant’s pleadings and the rendition of a default judgment extinguishes the appellant’s lawsuit. We are imposing the penalty on the client for the sins of his attorney, for which the victim may have no reparation or redress. I believe that under these circumstances, imposition of such a harsh penalty was not “just” within the meaning of Rule 215. The actions of the trial court were unreasonable and therefore an abuse of discretion. I would reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand the matter for a new trial.