Court Opinion

ID: 9847202
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:55:45.563266+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:03.024972
License: Public Domain

Stafford, C.J.
(concurring)—I agree with the majority opinion reached on the merits. Nevertheless, I am convinced that the expenditure of appellate resources was an unnecessary waste of judicial time. The consolidated appeal should have been dismissed pursuant to ROA 1-51.
An appellate court has the inherent power to dismiss an appeal when a party disobeys the orders of a trial court. Arnold v. National Union of Marine Cooks & Stewards Ass’n, 42 Wn.2d 648, 257 P.2d 629 (1953), aff’d, 348 U.S. 37, 99 L. Ed. 46, 75 S. Ct. 92 (1954); Pike v. Pike, 24 Wn.2d 735, 740-43, 167 P.2d 401, 163 A.L.R. 1314 (1946). Whether considered singularly or collectively, this consolidated appeal and the contempt action filed in today’s accompanying opinion, State v. Ralph Williams’ North West Chrysler Plymouth, Inc., 87 Wn.2d 327, 553 P.2d 442 (1976), represent the most flagrant disregard and contemptuous disobedience of a trial court’s orders that I have witnessed. The actions which caused us to dismiss the appeal in Arnold are pale by comparison.
*326Appellants have paid no part of the civil penalties or attorneys’ fees assessed against them by the trial court. They have willfully refused to comply with orders pertaining to ancillary proceedings, restitution, and the establishment of a trust account to protect citizens of this state who were victims of appellants’ unfair and deceptive acts and practices.
Appellants have made no attempt to explain their failure to comply with the court’s orders. They have secreted and manipulated assets to keep them out of the jurisdiction of the courts of this state. Further, they have flaunted the directions of the trial court by refusing to participate in ordered discovery proceedings and to produce documents needed to discover assets. In contrast, the trial court has given appellants additional time to comply with its orders and to purge themselves of contempt. Appellants’ response to these periods of grace has been only contemptuous refusal to comply.
At no time have the appellants attempted to supersede the trial court’s orders, as authorized by court rule. As a result, they are obliged to comply. Ryan v. Plath, 18 Wn.2d 839, 855, 140 P.2d 968 (1943); Sewell v. Sewell, 28 Wn.2d 394, 396-97, 184 P.2d 76 (1947). Because appellants have willfully delayed and refused to comply with the prior orders of the trial court, it is now time for us to punish them for their constant and flagrant disobedience by dismissing their appeal without considering the merits, as we did in Arnold v. National Union of Marine Cooks & Stewards Ass’n, supra.
Dismissal is a strong sanction, but appellants’ willful and continuously contemptuous actions call for strong measures. I would have dismissed the matter without further waste of judicial time and effort.
Wright, J., concurs with Stafford, C. J.
Petition for rehearing denied September 16, 1976.