Court Opinion

ID: 9870943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 20:12:02.215355+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:46:12.036800
License: Public Domain

Mazzarelli, J.P.,
concurs in a separate memorandum as follows: I agree with the majority that it was error for the court to strike defendant Casilla’s answer without first finding that his conduct was willful, contumacious or in bad faith. However, I disagree with the majority’s statement that the record contains “insufficient evidence of willful or contumacious conduct on Casilla’s part.” “Willful and contumacious behavior can be inferred by a failure to comply with court orders, in the absence of adequate excuses” (Henderson-Jones v City of New York, 87 AD3d 498, 504 [1st Dept 2011]). Here, Casilla not only lacked an adequate excuse for not producing the memo book he carried on the day of the incident, despite having been ordered to do so on no less than four occasions over the span of six years, he made a veritable mockery of the proceedings by purporting to have “discovered” it on the literal eve of his own testimony. It simply defies credibility that a file cabinet with Casilla’s own name on it appeared in a hallway in the precinct house at just the right time for Casilla to avoid the consequences of having lost it. Further, it throws grave doubt on Casilla’s prior averment, in an affidavit responding to plaintiff’s initial motion to strike defendants’ answer, that he “conducted several searches” for the notebook in question.
Nevertheless, without actually determining that Casilla acted willfully, the court prematurely struck his answer. Further, the fact that the memo book turned out not to inculpate Casilla suggests that striking of the answer would ultimately have been too harsh a sanction. In addition, to order a new trial now, with a lesser sanction, such as an adverse inference in favor of plaintiff, would be to ignore the fact that, in voluntarily calling Casilla as a witness and submitting him to hostile questioning about the circumstances surrounding the sudden appearance of the memo book, plaintiff effectively *608selected his own remedy. It would not be appropriate for this Court to reverse course and remand the matter under these circumstances.
Incidentally, it was also plaintiff who requested a verdict sheet that instructed the jury to calculate plaintiff’s damages even if it found, as it did, that Casilla did not push plaintiff out the window. It was error for the court to grant this request, as it could possibly have sowed great confusion among the jurors. Nevertheless, this error was harmless as the jury was able to deduce that plaintiff was entitled to no damages upon its conclusion that defendants had no liability.