Sanctions - Flagrant discovery violations support dismissal sanction.

Byline: North Carolina Lawyers Weekly Staff

The failure of a nurse practitioner to produce thousands of email messages in her suits against a hospital, and who submitted, after a day-long deposition, a 54-page declaration that rendered her deposition useless, supported the district court's decision to dismiss three suits as a sanction.

Background

Mitra Rangarajan, who claims that she was constructively discharged as a nurse practitioner at the School of Medicine of Johns Hopkins University commenced four separate actions against the university arising out of the same course of events and alleging state torts of defamation and interference with prospective advantage, as well as violations of the False Claims Act, the Maryland False Health Claims Act, Title VII and 42 U.S.C. 1981.

The district court dismissed one action for failure to prosecute and the remaining three actions as the sanction for Rangarajan's "flagrant and unremitting" violations of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, especially with respect to discovery and summary judgment practice. On appeal, Rangarajan contends that the district court abused its discretion by failing to give her adequate warning of the sanction and failing to show required restraint by imposing lesser sanctions.

Notice

Rangarajan first argues that prior warning of sanctions was required and that she did not receive prior warning. We reject both arguments.

First, as a factual matter, Rangarajan did receive notice that dismissal of her actions was a potential sanction when the district court, in response to Johns Hopkins' motion for sanctions, alerted her that the motion "raised some serious issues" regarding her failure to comply with rules relating to discovery and summary judgment. Johns Hopkins' motion itself detailed the alleged failures and soughtdismissalof the first and second actions as a sanction.

The gravity of the issues was also conveyed to Rangarajan by the district court's order staying proceedings in not only the first and second actions, but also in the fourth action. Moreover, Rangarajan conceded in her response that she knew that the sanction of dismissal was on the table, as she fully addressed the sanction of dismissal, arguing that it was "not warranted" and that Johns Hopkins' motion was only an effort at distracting the court from the truth. She also argued that she had not received clear notice of potential dismissal, yet, in making that argument itselfbeforeany sanction was...