Court Opinion

ID: 2965257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2015-09-21 21:37:58.025471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:37:26.961205
License: Public Domain

USCA1 Opinion

	

                         [NOT FOR PUBLICATION]

                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                         FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

                         ____________________

No. 97-1892

                              JUDY CHENG,

                         Plaintiff, Appellant,

                                  v.

          IDEASSOCIATES, INC., GAUTAM GUPTA AND DAVID HUNTER,

                        Defendants, Appellees.

                                   
                         ____________________

             APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

                   FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

           [Hon. Edward F. Harrington, U.S. District Judge]

                         ____________________

                                Before

                        Torruella, Chief Judge,
                   Selya and Stahl, Circuit Judges.

                         ____________________

    Judy Cheng on brief pro se.
    Lynne Alix Morrison, Adrienne M. Markham and Goulston & Storrs on
brief for appellees.

                         ____________________

                             April 9, 1998
                          ____________________

           Per Curiam.   In this employment discrimination
    action, plaintiff appeals the dismissal of her complaint as a
    sanction for failure to comply with a discovery order. 
    Plaintiff allegedly failed to comply with the court's March 31,
    1997 order by withholding from her document production
    approximately 5,000 pages of diary and calendar entries.  The
    diary and calendars were kept by plaintiff for her personal use
    and contain, inter alia, a running commentary on things that
    plaintiff thought, saw, heard, and did during the employment
    period.
             Having carefully reviewed the record leading to the
    dismissal, it appears that the March 31 order does not
    specifically command the production of these documents, but
    generally directs plaintiff to respond to defendants' document
    request.  The document request, in turn, generally requests
    documents about subjects relevant to the issues in suit, but
    does not specifically designate these diary and calendar pages. 
           Plaintiff produced documents in response to the March
    31 order, and defendants' demands, including, significantly,
    many pages from the personal diary and calendars.  She argues
    here, as below, that this production exhausted all documents in
    her possession that are "relevant" to the subjects in suit. 
    Defendants did not refute plaintiff's assertion; rather they
    urged that the withheld pages seem "reasonably calculated" to
    lead to admissible evidence.  
             We tred lightly here so as not to intrude on the
    district court's broad discretion to manage evolving discovery
    demands under Fed. R. Civ. P. 34, nor to substitute our own
    view as to any management orders.  This dismissal, however,
    cannot stand because it is not authorized by Fed. R. Civ. P.
    37(b)(2).  The sanction of dismissal under Rule 37(b)(2) is
    authorized only if the order allegedly violated gave notice
    that the withholding of the specific material would constitute
    a defiance of the order.  R.W. Int'l Corp. v. Welch Foods,
    Inc., 937 F.2d 11 (1st Cir. 1991).  
        [W]hen a court issues a broad-form discovery order,
        and the party to whom it is addressed complies with
        it somewhat less than fully, withholding documents
        arguably outside the order's scope, the district
        court cannot dismiss without first entering an order
        commanding production of the specific materials.
    
    Id. at 16.
             The March 31 order did not unarguably command
    production of the specific documents withheld, so the sanction
    of dismissal was not authorized.  Plaintiff's arguments at the
    June 12, 1997 hearing, where the issue was aired for the first
    time, cannot be construed (on the basis of the "cold"
    transcript alone) as expressing a determination to violate a
    specific production order.
             We also find no support for defendant's re-
    characterization of the dismissal as one based on a "pattern of
    discovery abuses" by the plaintiff.  This ground was not urged
    in the district court, and there were no express findings to
    that effect.  We cannot readily infer from this record that the
    discovery events listed in defendants' brief, even
    cumulatively, involved an "abuse" of the process.  See Robsonv. Hallenbeck, 81 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 1996).  Nothing that we say
    here, of course, precludes the district court from considering
    any motion based on a supportable pattern of discovery abuse. 
    Id. at 3.    
             Plaintiff's remaining assignments of error, most
    significantly the denial of her motions seeking to reinstate
    her Equal Pay Act claim, are not properly before us at this
    time.  Where the reason for the denial of an amendment is not
    obvious from the record, however, we urge the district court to
    enter specific, reviewable findings.  
             Although we do not consider plaintiff's allegation of
    judicial bias because it was not raised, ab initio, in the
    district court, we think it prudent that, on remand, the case
    be reassigned to a judge other than the district court judge to
    whom it was originally assigned.  See D. Mass. R. 40.1(i). 
             The judgment of dismissal is vacated and this case is
    remanded to the district court for further proceedings
    consistent with this decision.  No costs.