Court Opinion

ID: 9473930
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:43:55.03568+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:49.581917
License: Public Domain

BOOCHEVER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part.
While I believe that Danon and his counsel’s conduct warranted sanctions, I respectfully dissent from the affirmance of the extreme sanction of dismissal.
In Fjelstad v. American Honda Motor Co., 762 F.2d 1334 (9th Cir.1985), this court reversed a Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(b)(2)(C) default judgment which had been entered by the district court under circumstances similar to, or more egregious than, those present in our case. On August 8, 1983, the district court amended a prior order of July 29 to require that defendant American Honda (AH) answer all of plaintiffs’ interrogatories “fully and completely” by August 29. Id. at 1336. After AH failed to do so, the court levied a $50,000 sanction against it and its co-defendant on March 1, 1984 and again ordered compliance. Id. at 1337.1 By March 19, 1984, AH had still not supplemented one incomplete response to interrogatories that it had filed on August 8, 1983. See id. at 1337, 1342. Plaintiffs moved for a default judgment upon the ground that AH had failed to comply with the court’s March 1, 1984 order and had failed to answer outstanding interrogatories. The motion was granted.
This court concluded that AH “deliberately failed to supplement its answer to the interrogatory concerning potential witnesses,” id. at 1342, but held that “allowing [AH] to suffer partial default judgment because of its single willful violation of the July 29 order would be unjust,” id. at 1343.
In our case, Danon’s failure to supplement interrogatories was due to the rigors of his business schedule and cannot be labelled “deliberate.” His failure raises no inference that the allegations in his pleadings were untrue, the other factor discussed by the Fjelstad court. See id. at 1342-43.
Although I believe that imposition of a sanction was justified, I conclude that it was an abuse of discretion to impose the extreme sanction of dismissal.

. Although the district court did not explicitly state that AH’s failure to comply with the July 29 order was the basis for the fine, this was the ground upon which plaintiff moved for sanctions.