Court Opinion

ID: 9461235
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:09:13.79102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:57.464204
License: Public Domain

GIBBONS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Rule 37(b)(2) Fed.R.Civ.Proc. provides four separate sanctions for the failure of a party to obey a court order to provide or permit discovery. These sanctions are:
“(A) An order that the matters regarding which the order was made or any other designated facts shall be taken to be established . . . .”
“(B) An order refusing to allow the disobedient party to support or oppose designated claims or defenses, or prohibiting him from introducing designated matters in evidence; ”
“(C) An order striking out pleadings or parts thereof, or staying further proceedings ... or rendering a judgment by default against the disobedient party; ”
“(D) [A]n order treating as a contempt of court the failure to obey any orders . . . .”
Facially, the Rule imposes on the district court an obligation to exercise some reasoned discretion with respect to the alternative sanctions. In this case the district court did not consider alternatives (A), (B) or (D). It acted on the motion seeking relief only under Rule 37(b)(2)(C). Even under subsection (2)(C) the Court was obliged to exercise some reasoned discretion between the alternatives of striking out a pleading or part thereof, staying the proceedings, or rendering a default judgment. Without discussing the alternatives, and thus apparently without considering them, it chose to grant the defendant’s motion for the most severe sanction available under the Rule, dismissal with prejudice. I have no doubt that some sanction was appropriate, but I cannot vote to affirm when the exercise of reasoned discretion plainly required by the Rule is not disclosed in the district court’s opinion. Moreover, I doubt if on the present record the court, had it discussed the alternatives and chosen the ultimate sanction, could be affirmed.
The Rule 37(b)(2)(C) sanction is available in two cases only; where the party refuses to obey an order to provide or to permit discovery. Thus failure to obey an order to make discovery in a certain form, as by retyping the interrogatories and the answers on the same paper, does not even fall within the Rule though other santions might be appropriate. *790Nor does Rule 37(b) apply by its terms to the disobedience of an order to pay counsel fees within a certain time to the successful attorney directly rather than to the Clerk. In this case there is no contention that the order deals with permitting discovery. The workmen’s compensation file which is said to contain additional information could have been discovered by other means which were not availed of. The attorney for the defendant did not want to discover the file himself; he wanted the plaintiff to examine it and answer interrogatories. We are dealing, then, with a failure of the party to provide discovery by examining that file and answering interrogatories based on the information contained therein.
In Societe Internationale Pour Participations Industrielles et Commerciales, S.A. v. Rogers, 357 U.S. 197, 78 S.Ct. 1087, 2 L.Ed.2d 1255 (1958), the Supreme Court draws a clear distinction between all the other sanctions set forth in Rule 37(b) and the ultimate sanction of dismissal with prejudice. The Court said:
“The provisions of Rule 37 which are here involved must be read in light of the provisions of the Fifth Amendment that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law, and more particularly against the opinions of this Court in Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U.S. 409, 17 S.Ct. 841, 42 L.Ed. 215, and Hammond Packing Co. v. State of Arkansas, 212 U.S. 322, 29 S.Ct. 370, 53 L.Ed. 530. These decisions establish that there are constitutional limitations upon the power of courts, even in aid of their own valid processes, to dismiss an action without affording the party the opportunity for a hearing on the merits of his cause.” 357 U.S. at 209, 78 S.Ct. at 1094.
Mindful of the due process limitations, the Rogers Court construed Rule 37(b)(2)(C) as requiring willfulness, bad faith, or fault of the party before the ultimate sanction of dismissal with prejudice could be imposed. Since Rogers, Rule 37(b)(2)(C) has generally been interpreted as requiring a finding of willfulness or conscious disregard of the order. See cases collected in 4A J. Moore, Federal Practice, ¶ 37.03[2.-5] at 37-67 to 37-70 (1974 ed.); Federal Rules Digest, § 37b.244 at 272 (1973). Where counsel in a sincere, though mistaken belief has withheld his client’s papers, or where there has been a refusal to answer questions upon a claim of privilege that has been rejected, appellate courts have refrained from applying the ultimate sanction of a default judgment. See, e. g., Haney v. Woodward & Lothrop, Inc., 330 F.2d 940 (4th Cir. 1964). See also United States v. Costello, 222 F.2d 656 (2d Cir. 1955). This circuit has predicated such a sanction only upon a finding of inexcusable failure to comply with the order. Mangano v. American Radiator & Standard San. Corp., 438 F.2d 1187 (3d Cir. 1971).
The district court concluded that plaintiff had failed to make a good faith effort to secure the additional information required by its order because the additional information, though not within plaintiff’s personal knowledge, could have been obtained by examination of a workmen’s compensation claim file which was available to her attorney. There is no question but that a party cannot refuse to provide discovery with respect to information not in his personal knowledge but reasonably available to him. But the refusal to provide this information appears on this record to have been based upon her attorney’s legal advice that if she were to undertake discovery by viewing the workmen’s compensation file she would, under Pennsylvania law in a wrongful death action, open the door to proof of contributory negligence on the decedent’s part which would otherwise be barred by that State’s Dead Man’s Statute. (Appendix at 163a). The court found this explanation “incomprehensible.” (Appendix at 212a). The court did not find that the plaintiff’s attorney asserted this belief on the effect of Pennsylvania Law, or that plaintiff followed his advice in this respect, in bad faith. I, too, find the view of the plaintiff’s attorney as to the effect of *791the Pennsylvania Dead Man’s Statute “incomprehensible.”1 But that is not the standard of Rule 37(b)(2)(C), as interpreted in Rogers, for the imposition of the sanction of dismissal. Plaintiff’s attorney based his actions on an apparently mistaken legal position in an effort to protect his client’s cause of action from a defense of contributory negligence. His poor judgment seems to have been compounded by a breakdown in communications between Philadelphia and Wilmington counsel. The record does not support the kind of finding required by Rogers, which in any event was not made.
I would vacate the judgment dismissing the complaint and remand for consideration of the alternative sanctions available under Rule 37(b)(2).

. Assuming application of the Pennsylvania Dead Man’s Statute, 28 P.S. §§ 322, 325 to a diversity case tried in Delaware, the attorney’s contention would seem to be foreclosed by Dennick v. Schweiwer, 381 Pa. 200, 113 A.2d 318 (1955).