Court Opinion

ID: 9484055
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 09:39:06.584431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:49:56.726064
License: Public Domain

A. LEON HIGGINBOTHAM, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority has written a very thoughtful, carefully reasoned and meticulously cited opinion. But regretfully I must dissent.
Normally I would agree with the court’s conclusion that:
As no reasonable trier of fact could find that VanHaaren acted in good faith in refusing to comply with State Farm’s December 16 IME request, and [that] VanHaaren inexplicably refrained from raising the prejudice issue below, summary judgment for State Farm was proper.
In this case, however, there is no evidence in the record to support the conclusion that VanHaaren failed to act in good faith in refusing to comply with State Farm’s repeated IME requests. All that the record thus far reveals is that VanHaaren’s counsel, rather than VanHaaren himself, failed to act in good faith.
In Dunbar v. Triangle Lumber and Supply Co., 816 F.2d 126 (3d Cir.1987), the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, considered the appeal of a plaintiff whose complaint had been dismissed pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(b) for failure to prosecute and comply with an order of the court. Plaintiff’s counsel had failed to enter an appearance and had failed to attend a pretrial conference in blatant disregard of numerous orders from the district court. The court finally dismissed plaintiff’s complaint on the ground that plaintiff had failed to prosecute. The Court of Appeals reversed the district court and remanded the case for further proceedings. The court reasoned that dismissal in this context is a “drastic tool” which may appropriately be invoked after careful analysis of several factors:
(1) the extent of the party’s personal responsibility; (2) the prejudice to the adversary caused by the failure to meet the scheduling orders and respond to discovery; (3) a history of dilatoriness; (4) whether the conduct of the party or the attorney was willful or in bad faith; (5) the effectiveness of sanctions other than dismissal, which entails an analysis of alternative sanctions; and (6) the meritoriousness of the claim or defense.
Dunbar, 816 F.2d at 128 (emphasis in original). In plaintiff’s case, the Third Circuit determined that there was no evidence in the record that plaintiff “bore some responsibility for the flagrant actions of her counsel.” Id. at 129. Accordingly, the court concluded that the case should be remanded to permit a hearing based on all the above factors after notice to plaintiff and her counsel. Id. As an example to the district court about the “alternative sanctions”, other than the dismissal, which might be considered, the court of appeals assessed costs personally against plaintiff’s counsel. Id.
Similarly in Velazquez-Rivera v. Sea-Land Service, Inc., 920 F.2d 1072 (1st Cir.1990), this circuit considered the appeal of plaintiffs whose case had been dismissed due to counsel’s failure to attend pre-trial conferences and comply with other orders of the district court. Before the district court, plaintiffs’ counsel, in an extraordinary act of contrition, “requested that sanctions be imposed against himself as attorney, but that, the plaintiffs not being at fault, the dismissal of the action be set *9aside.” Velazquez-Rivera, 920 F.2d at 1074. The district court denied counsel’s requests and dismissed the action. This court reversed the district court and remanded the ease for further proceedings. Id. at 1079. We reasoned that “dismissal should be employed only if the district court has determined that it could not fashion an ‘equally effective but less drastic remedy.’ ” Id. at 1076. We also reasoned that it was significant that the failure to follow the district court’s orders was due to counsel’s mistakes rather to any bad faith on the part of plaintiffs. Id.
Here, thus far the record reveals that VanHaaren’s counsel, rather than Van-Haaren himself, acted in bad faith in refusing State Farm’s repeated IME requests. It seems to me a rather drastic and tragic remedy to dispose adversely of VanHaaren’s claim because of the conduct of his attorney. Of course, it may very well be that VanHaaren himself knew of the IME requests, and himself refused to comply with them. If that is the case, then summary judgment in favor of State Farm would be appropriate. But, at the very least, the district court ought to hold a hearing to determine whether VanHaaren bears personal responsibility for the actions of his counsel. If VanHaaren does not bear personal responsibility, and if failure to respond to the IME requests was due simply to dereliction on the part of his counsel, then the court ought to consider a less drastic remedy than to dispose adversely of his action. One such remedy, pursuant to Velazquez and Dunbar might be in the form of sanctions imposed or personal costs assessed against VanHaaren’s counsel.
For the foregoing reasons I respectfully dissent from the judgment of the court.