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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 18-15280
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 5:17-cv-01178-LCB
ANDREA LYLE,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
BASF CHEMISTRY, INC.,
a Corporation,
KELLY SERVICES, INC.,
a Corporation,
Defendants - Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
________________________
(February 5, 2020)
Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, GRANT, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Andrea Lyle appeals the district court’s dismissal with prejudice of her
complaint against BASF Chemistry, Inc. and Kelly Services, Inc., for failure to
comply with the district court’s orders. We affirm.
I.
Plaintiff-Appellant Andrea Lyle sued Defendant-Appellees BASF
Chemistry, Inc. and Kelly Services, Inc. for sexual harassment and retaliation in
violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et
seq. After the defendants answered, the district court entered a scheduling order
that, among other things, set May 2, 2018, as the deadline for party depositions and
July 2, 2018, as the deadline for the completion of all discovery.
On April 16 Kelly filed what would become the first of several motions
about Lyle’s discovery conduct. Kelly sought a discovery conference to address
what it characterized as Lyle’s failure to respond to its discovery requests,
including its interrogatories, its requests for production, and its requests to
schedule depositions. The district court granted Kelly’s motion, held a telephone
conference on April 18, and issued an order the same day. In the order, the district
court ordered Lyle to respond to both Kelly’s and BASF’s discovery requests by
April 27, scheduled Lyle’s deposition for May 8, and extended the discovery
deadline to May 31.
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On April 30 Lyle’s attorney filed a “Notice” stating that he had been unable
to contact Lyle via telephone or email. Four days later, on May 4, the defendants
jointly filed a motion to dismiss Lyle’s complaint under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 41(b) for failure to prosecute and failure to comply with the district
court’s order. In the alternative, they sought an order postponing Lyle’s deposition
and again directing her to fully respond to their discovery requests. The district
court issued an order postponing Lyle’s deposition, ordering Lyle and all attorneys
to appear at a telephone conference on May 10, and informing Lyle that it would
dismiss her case for failure to prosecute if she did not appear.
Lyle appeared on the call, and after the call the district court entered another
order modifying the discovery deadlines to account for Lyle’s delays. The court
ordered Lyle to respond to the defendants’ discovery requests by May 24, set
Lyle’s deposition for June 21, and extended the discovery deadline to September 3.
On May 25, the day after Lyle’s deadline to respond to the defendants’
discovery requests, the defendants again jointly moved to dismiss her complaint
for lack of prosecution, stating that neither defendant had “received any discovery
responses from Lyle” by the May 24 deadline. The district court ordered Lyle to
show cause by June 5 why her case shouldn’t be dismissed.
Lyle did so, asserting that she had responded to the defendants’ discovery
requests in writing on June 2 (one week after the May 24 deadline). She also said
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that she had been sick with a cold, an upper respiratory infection, and a chronic
illness, and that she had a busy work schedule. She argued that dismissal wasn’t
warranted because the defendants still had 10 days to prepare for her deposition,
and “had the benefit of their own internal investigation, an EEOC investigation[,]
and the EEOC file,” so her late discovery responses wouldn’t prejudice them.
Kelly and BASF each responded and stated that Lyle had not, in fact, fully
responded to their discovery requests and that her inadequate responses had
prejudiced both of them. They each attached Lyle’s discovery responses and
discussed specific deficiencies in her responses, including that Lyle began her
responses by asserting 15 general objections and made boilerplate objections to
every interrogatory and every request for production. BASF also attached a “Table
of Deficiencies” discussing each of Lyle’s discovery responses and detailing the
ways in which her responses were inadequate.
On June 19 the district court held another telephone conference addressing
the defendants’ second motion to dismiss. On June 28 the court struck all of
Lyle’s objections as untimely and ordered Lyle to provide complete discovery
responses within 14 days of its order.
On July 20 the defendants jointly moved — for the third time — to dismiss
Lyle’s complaint for failure to prosecute and failure to comply with the district
court’s orders. They stated that Lyle had never responded to their interrogatories
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without objections and had never served written responses to BASF’s requests for
production. They attached to their motion a copy of Lyle’s most recent discovery
responses.
The court ordered Lyle — for the second time — to show cause why her
case shouldn’t be dismissed with prejudice. Lyle filed a response that was largely
the same as the one she had filed in response to the district court’s first order to
show cause. It did not address the defendants’ assertions that her most recent
discovery responses were inadequate. She attached copies of her responses to each
defendant’s interrogatories and requests for production.
On November 19 the district court held an in-person hearing addressing the
defendants’ third motion to dismiss. At the hearing, Lyle’s attorney admitted that
some discovery responses were inadequate and that he had no excuse for failing to
fully respond to the defendants’ discovery requests. He also stated that he was
approximately 60% at fault and Lyle was 40% at fault for the discovery failures.
And he said that Lyle had told him she would continue to withhold responses to
discovery requests about her medical history, despite the district court’s order that
she fully respond to the discovery requests.
One week later, the district court issued a memorandum opinion and order
granting the defendants’ motion and dismissing Lyle’s complaint with prejudice.
The court found that Lyle’s “repeated discovery failures” were attributable to both
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Lyle and her attorney, that Lyle had failed to make herself reasonably available to
her attorney to respond to discovery requests, and that her attorney had failed to
ensure that his discovery responses complied with the court’s orders. It found that
this “pattern of conduct” had been ongoing for several months despite repeated
warnings by the court, and that Lyle’s “continued failures” could “only be
considered a pattern of willful or bad faith conduct.” The court was unconvinced
that “anything would change going forward.” It found that neither giving Lyle
additional time to respond to the discovery requests nor imposing monetary
sanctions would correct her behavior and dismissed her complaint with prejudice.
Lyle appealed.
II.
It is not entirely clear whether the district court dismissed Lyle’s complaint
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) or Rule 37(b)(2)(A). But the
distinction doesn’t matter here. We review a district court’s dismissal under either
Rule 41(b) or Rule 37(b)(2)(A) for abuse of discretion. Goforth v. Owens, 766
F.2d 1533, 1535 (11th Cir. 1985) (Rule 41(b)); BankAtlantic v. Blythe Eastman
Paine Webber, Inc., 12 F.3d 1045, 1048 (11th Cir. 1994) (Rule 37(b)(2)(A)).
Under Rule 41(b), a district court may dismiss a complaint with prejudice when:
“(1) a party engages in a clear pattern of delay or willful contempt (contumacious
conduct); and (2) the district court specifically finds that lesser sanctions would not
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suffice.” Betty K Agencies, Ltd. v. M/V MONADA, 432 F.3d 1333, 1338 (11th
Cir. 2005) (quotation marks omitted). Under Rule 37(b)(2)(A), a district court may
dismiss a complaint with prejudice when: (1) a party’s failure to comply with a
court order is a result of willfulness or bad faith; and (2) the district court finds that
lesser sanctions would not suffice. Malautea v. Suzuki Motor Co., Ltd., 987 F.2d
1536, 1542 (11th Cir. 1993).
III.
The district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing Lyle’s complaint
with prejudice — whether it dismissed it under Rule 41(b) or Rule 37(b)(2)(A).
The district court had amended its discovery deadlines three times to give Lyle
more time to respond, and each time, she failed to submit complete and adequate
responses to the defendants’ discovery requests. At the in-person hearing her
attorney admitted that her responses were not adequate and also told the court that,
at least as to discovery about her medical history, Lyle intended to continue
providing inadequate responses. The district court found that this behavior
amounted to a pattern of willful and bad faith conduct. The court also considered
the lesser sanctions of either once again extending her discovery deadline or
imposing monetary sanctions and concluded that neither would be effective at
prompting Lyle to comply with its orders and her discovery obligations. Under
either Rule 41(b) or 37(b)(2)(A), that was sufficient and the district court acted
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well within its range of discretion. See Betty K, 432 F.3d at 1338; Malautea, 987
F.2d at 1542.
AFFIRMED.
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Andrea Lyle v. BASF Chemistry, Inc.
Combined Opinion