Kihl v. Pfeffer

In Kihl v Pfeffer, 94 N.Y.2d 118 (1999), the parties consented to a Nassau County Supreme Court discovery order at a March 18, 1996 P. C. Discovery was ordered to be completed within six months, and plaintiff was to respond to interrogatories of defendant Honda Motor Company within 30 days of receipt of the interrogatories. Later, on March 18, 1996, Honda served plaintiff with interrogatories. After not receiving any response, on September 13, 1996, almost five months after the court-mandated deadline, Honda moved to strike plaintiff's complaint or compel a response. Plaintiff opposed Honda's motion and served responses on December 10, 1996. Honda continued to seek dismissal on the grounds that the responses were "inadequate and totally unresponsive in clear violation of the Court's Order," (Kihl, at 121.) On March 31, 1997, the trial judge granted Honda's motion to dismiss for failure to comply with the P. C order, unless plaintiff adequately responded within 20 days after the second discovery order was served on plaintiff's counsel. Honda claimed it served the new order on June 6, 1997. An issue, not germane to the instant case, arose with respect to whether plaintiff was properly served. The trial judge struck the complaint on February 9, 1998. The Second Department affirmed, with two dis-sents on the issue of service of the second order. This brought Kihl to the Court of Appeals as of right, pur-suant to CPLR 5601 (a). Putting aside the service issue, in which the Court of Appeals ruled for Honda, Judge Kaye, at 122, affirmed the striking of the complaint by instructing that: when a party fails to comply with a court order and frustrates the disclosure scheme set forth in the CPLR, it is well within the Trial Judge's discretion to dismiss the complaint ( Zletz v. Wetanson, 67 N.Y.2d 711). The Court of Appeals cautioned "if the credibility of court orders and the integrity of our judicial system are to be maintained, a litigant cannot ignore court orders with impunity." Furthermore, the court underscored "that compliance with a disclosure order requires both a timely response and one that evinces a good-faith effort to address the requests meaningfully." (Kihl v. Pfeffer, supra, at p. 123, quoting CPLR 3126).