Igidi v. Connecticut Department of Correction

Filing 108

ORDER DISMISSING CASE with prejudice. See attached order for details. Signed by Judge Robert N. Chatigny on 11/20/15. (Samuels, J)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
EMANUEL IGIDI,
Plaintiff,
v.
STATE OF CONNECTICUT
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION,
Defendant.

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Case No. 3:13-CV-1338(RNC)

ORDER OF DISMISSAL
Defendant has filed a notice informing the Court that
plaintiff and his counsel have failed to comply with the Court's
order of September 30, 2015.

ECF No. 102.

That order provided

as follows:
Plaintiff will comply with all outstanding
discovery requests as detailed in defendant's
objection to the recommended ruling no later than
October 31, 2015. In addition, plaintiff's
counsel will meet and confer with defense counsel
regarding attorney's fees and costs as directed in
the recommended ruling. This meeting will occur
no later than October 31, 2015. Compliance with
this Order is expected. In the event of
noncompliance, the case will be dismissed without
further notice.
Id.
Defendant's notice informs the Court that plaintiff has
failed to respond to outstanding discovery requests and
plaintiff's counsel has failed to make any effort to meet and
confer as directed.

In the notice, defendant renews its request

that the case be dismissed with prejudice.
responded in any way.

Plaintiff has not

The Court agrees that dismissal with

prejudice is now warranted.

I.

Background
Defendant previously moved to dismiss this case with

prejudice under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 37(b) and 41(b)
as a sanction for plaintiff's failure to comply with an order
granting a motion to compel.

ECF No. 79.

Defendant urged that

dismissal with prejudice was warranted
in light of the long and well-documented history of
problematic conduct by Plaintiff in this case,
including failure to obey court orders, failure to
appear for a conference . . . , failure to respond to
numerous motions (including dispositive motions),
failure to conduct any discovery or to respond to
Defendant's discovery requests, failure to meet
deadlines, failure to timely seek extensions, failure
to confer as required and to respond to conferral
attempts, and failure to follow the local and federal
rules of procedure that govern this action.
Id. at 1-2.

The motion to dismiss was referred to Magistrate

Judge Martinez.
After a hearing at which the plaintiff, Emanuel Igidi, was
ordered to appear, Judge Martinez recommended that the motion to
dismiss be denied but that monetary sanctions be imposed on
plaintiff's counsel, Josephine S. Miller.
(ECF No. 93) at 13-14.

Recommended Ruling

Applying the Agiwal factors, Judge

Martinez found that although the plaintiff's failure to comply
with the order compelling discovery was willful, the plaintiff
himself was without fault, and Attorney Miller's disregard of the
order was not strategically designed to disadvantage the
defendant.

Id. at 8-12.

Judge Martinez concluded that Attorney
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Miller should be required to pay the costs and fees incurred by
the defendant in making the motion to dismiss and that the
parties should be required to meet and confer in a good faith
effort to reach agreement regarding the fees.

Id. at 12-13.

The

Magistrate Judge warned that further noncompliance could result
in dismissal.
After review, and over both parties' objections, the
recommended ruling was approved.
II.

Discussion
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 provides that if a party

"fails to obey an order to provide . . . discovery . . . the
court where the action is pending may issue further just orders,"
including "dismissing the action or proceeding in whole or in
part."

Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(A)(v).

"A district court has

wide discretion to impose sanctions," Design Strategy, Inc. V.
Davis, 469 F.3d 284, 294 (2d Cir. 2006), but the sanction "must
be commensurate with the non-compliance," Shcherbakovskiy v. Da
Capo Al Fine, Ltd., 490 F.3d 130, 140 (2d Cir. 2007).
In determining whether dismissal under Rule 37 is
appropriate, a court must consider four factors: "(1) the
willfulness of the non-compliant party or the reason for
noncompliance; (2) the efficacy of lesser sanctions; (3) the
duration of the period of noncompliance, and (4) whether the
non-compliant party had been warned of the consequences of . . .

3

noncompliance."

Agiwal v. Mid Island Mortg. Corp., 555 F.3d 298,

302 (2d Cir. 2009) (quoting Nieves v. City of New York, 208
F.R.D. 531, 535 (S.D.N.Y. 2002)).

After considering these four

factors, the Court concludes that dismissal is now unavoidable.
The record establishes that Attorney Miller has repeatedly
failed to comply with court orders over a lengthy period of time
without good cause.

See Handwerker v. AT & T Corp., 211 F.R.D.

203, 209 (S.D.N.Y. 2002), aff'd, 93 F. App'x 328 (2d Cir. 2004)
("'[A] party's persistent refusal to comply with a discovery
order' presents sufficient evidence of willfulness, bad faith or
fault." (quoting Monaghan v. SZS 33 Associates, L.P., 148 F.R.D.
500, 509 (S.D.N.Y. 1993))).1

In adopting the recommended ruling

over the defendant's objection that dismissal was required, I
agreed with Judge Martinez that dismissal was too drastic a
sanction to impose on Mr. Igidi at that time.

But the reported

noncompliance with this Court's order adopting the recommended
ruling changes the situation significantly.
In light of what transpired at the hearing on the motion to
dismiss conducted by Magistrate Judge Martinez, it was incumbent
on Mr. Igidi to prudently monitor the case and make sure his
counsel did not once again put the case in jeopardy.

1

Indeed,

As Judge Martinez stated in the recommended ruling,
Attorney Miller "has offered no satisfactory explanation for her
lack of diligence and inattention to deadlines." Recommended
Ruling (ECF No. 93) at 14.
4

Judge Martinez explicitly warned both Mr. Igidi and Attorney
Miller that continued noncompliance could result in dismissal.
Recommended Ruling (ECF No. 93) at 14 ("Plaintiff and his
attorney are on notice that, in light of the track record in this
case, any further noncompliance with court orders may result in
the imposition of sanctions, including potentially casedispositive ones.").

And this Court was even more direct.

Order

Approving Recommended Ruling (ECF No. 102) ("Compliance with this
Order is expected.

In the event of noncompliance, the case will

be dismissed without further notice.").

Yet, plaintiff still has

not responded to eighteen of thirty requests for production –requests made over a year ago –- notwithstanding this Court's
order requiring compliance with all outstanding discovery
requests by no later than October 31.

Id.

Viewed in the context

of the full history of this case and the recent hearing, this
latest instance of serious noncompliance with an unambiguous
court order is fairly chargeable to Mr. Igidi, not just Attorney
Miller.
Dismissal with prejudice is a harsh sanction.

In this

instance, however, plaintiff and his counsel have invited
dismissal by failing to comply with this Court's order in the
face of an explicit warning that noncompliance would result in
dismissal "without further notice."

In the absence of any

response to the defendant's notice of the plaintiff's seemingly

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total noncompliance with the order, the action must be dismissed.
Otherwise, the Court would signal that its plainly worded orders
actually have little meaning.
The Court notes that a putative class action has been filed
by Attorney Miller on behalf of Mr. Igidi and others, which
appears to be duplicative of the only remaining claim in this
See Williams v. Semple, 3:15-CV-465(RNC).2

case.

Perhaps Mr.

Igidi and Attorney Miller have decided to abandon this case in
light of the

class action.

Even if that is not so, dismissal

with prejudice is required, lesser sanctions having been tried
without success, fair warning having been given, and no response
to the defendant's notice having been filed.3
III.

Conclusion
Accordingly, the case is hereby dismissed with prejudice.
So ordered this 20th day of November 2015.

/s/ RNC
Robert N. Chatigny
United States District Judge

2

The only remaining claim in the present case is a Title
VII race discrimination claim based on an allegedly unfair
evaluation of the plaintiff in 2013 that resulted in a denial of
promotion. See Ruling and Order (ECF No. 66) at 10. The
complaint in the class action seeks relief on the basis of the
same allegedly unfair evaluation. See Compl. (ECF No. 1) ¶ 8(d).
3

The Court also notes that dismissal of Mr. Igidi's case
does not absolve Attorney Miller of her obligations under the
order of September 30. That matter will be addressed separately.
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