Airlines Reporting Corp. v. Grecian Travel, Inc.

170 F.R.D. 351, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21409, 1995 WL 912386
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. New York
DecidedOctober 23, 1995
DocketNo. 93-CV-5472 (JRB)
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 170 F.R.D. 351 (Airlines Reporting Corp. v. Grecian Travel, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Airlines Reporting Corp. v. Grecian Travel, Inc., 170 F.R.D. 351, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21409, 1995 WL 912386 (E.D.N.Y. 1995).

Opinion

BARTELS, District Judge.

MEMORANDUM-DECISION AND ORDER

Plaintiff Airlines Reporting Corporation (“ARC”) moves to strike defendant George Tsapelas’s (“Tsapelas”) answer, pursuant to Rules 16(f) and 37(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“Federal Rules”), for failure to appear at a deposition, failure to respond to a request for document production, and failure to respond to interrogatories before December 12, 1994 as required by this Court’s pretrial scheduling order dated October 28,1994.

Background

ARC instituted the above-captioned action seeking to recover over $1,500,000 in monies allegedly owed under an agreement entered into with defendant Grecian Travel, Inc. (“Grecian”), Tsapelas, and defendant Mannan Bepari (“Bepari”). After Grecian failed to answer the complaint, by order dated October 27, 1994, this Court entered a default judgment against Grecian. The judgment ordered Grecian to pay damages, including interest, costs, and attorneys’ fees, and referred the matter to Magistrate Judge Gold to conduct an inquest on the amount of damages. After reviewing evidence in support of damages submitted by ARC and unopposed by Grecian, Magistrate Gold, by report and recommendation dated July 7, 1995, recommended that this Court enter judgment in favor of ARC in the amount of $1,538,848. On July 31, 1995, after neither party filed, any objections to the recommendations contained in Magistrate Gold’s report, this Court ordered recovery for ARC from Grecian, in the amount of $1,538,848, plus interest. At that time, the Court reserved judgment on the issue of plaintiff costs and attorneys’ fees, pending proof evidencing the amount expended by ARC in prosecuting this action. By letter dated September 8, 1995 ARC’s attorney advised the Court that ARC will not pursue the award of attorney fees against Grecian and thus the Court need not address this issue.

The Court issued an October 28, 1994 pretrial scheduling order requiring discovery to be completed by December 12, 1994. On November 8,1994 ARC served Tsapelas with interrogatories, a request for document production, and notice of deposition. ARC requested Tsapelas to respond to the interrogatories and request for document production within thirty days, or by December 8, 1994, and scheduled Tsapelas’s deposition for December 9, 1994. On January 6, 1995, after Tsapelas failed to respond or attend the scheduled deposition, ARC submitted the instant motion, complete with supporting memorandum, to strike Tsapelas’s answer pursuant to Federal Rules 16(f) and 37(b)(2), or in the alternative, to preclude Tsapelas from testifying at trial, as well as cite Tsapelas for contempt and assess attorneys’ fees and costs of this motion. After this Court granted extensions, Tsapelas filed an affirmation in opposition to ARC’s motion dated January 25, 1995, though it submitted no memorandum of law in support of the opposition.

Tsapelas attached responses to the November 8, 1995 interrogatories and request for production of documents to his affirmation in opposition. Neither response was signed. The affirmation, signed by Tsape-las’s attorney, Jerome Ginsberg, asserted that the delay in responding to ARC’s discovery requests was not “intentional or contemptuous” because “[my] office had much difficulty contacting the defendant in that said defendant was the client of my former partner, KERRY KATSORHIS, who has left this firm to become Sheriff of the City of New York. Once we could communicate with Mr. Tsapelas we were able to respond to the discovery requests.” (Affirmation in Opposition at 1-2)

The affirmation also states, somewhat tautologically, that if Tsapelas’s attorneys’ office had received notice of the deposition, someone would have placed a notation in the daily calendar and because no notation was in the calendar, they must not have received the notice. Additionally, Tsapelas’s attorney states that if ARC’s attorney had called to confirm the deposition, the mistake would have been discovered.

ARC’s reply affidavit alleges several material deficiencies in Tsapelas’s late responses to discovery, including, in 117 et seq., that the [353]*353information supplied is incomplete and untruthful.

Discussion

I. The Papers

The contentions contained in Tsapelas’s affirmation in opposition to the motion signed by Jerome Ginsberg strain the Court’s credulity. An examination of the New York Times reveals that Mayor Giuliani appointed Mr. Katsorhis sheriff on June 2, 1994 (Jesse McKinley, F.Y.I., N.Y. Times, Nov. 27, 1994 § 13, at 2) and that Mr. Katsorhis resigned as sheriff on April 27,1995 (Disaffected, Official to Quit, N.Y. Times, Apr. 28, 1995, at B5).

The papers in this case show that Tsapelas filed his answer on February 28, 1994, more than three months before Mr. Katsorhis’s appointment as sheriff, but that a partner in the firm, Linda F. Fedrizzi, and not Mr. Katsorhis, signed this submission. In fact, Mr. Katsorhis’s name does not appear on any of the papers in this case, and Ms. Fedrizzi’s appears on all but the opposition to the instant motion. Additionally, Ms. Fedrizzi, not Mr. Katsorhis, appeared at a status conference before this Court and wrote letters to the Court relating to this case, in addition to receiving extensive copies from ARC. In light of these facts, the Court finds Mr. Ginsberg’s contentions insincere at best.

II. The Motion for Sanctions

Federal Rules 16(f)1 and 37(b)(2)2 provide for sanctions when a party fails to comply with, inter alia, a scheduling order or a discovery order. ARC argues that Tsapelas violated the Court’s October 28,1994 pretrial scheduling order requiring discovery to be completed by December 12,1994 by failing to respond to the interrogatories and request for document production before December 12, 1994 and failing to attend his deposition on December 9, 1994. For these failures, ARC argues that this Court should impose sanctions pursuant to Federal Rules 16(f) and 37(b)(2), most significantly by striking Tsapelas’s February 28, 1994 answer to ARC’S initial complaint.

Tsapelas, in response to the motion for sanctions, attaches the unsigned responses to the interrogatories and request for document production referred to above, both dated January 25, 1995. Additionally, Tsapelas’s attorney makes the tautological argument referred to above.

Both Federal Rules 16(f) and 37(b)(2) enable, but do not require, this Court to impose sanctions, including those sanctions which ARC seeks. National Hockey League v. Metropolitan Hockey Club Inc., 427 U.S. 639, 642, 96 S.Ct. 2778, 2780, 49 L.Ed.2d 747 (1976) (per curiam); Luft v. Crown Publishers Inc., 906 F.2d 862, 865 (2d Cir.1990); Salahuddin v. Harris, 782 F.2d 1127, 1133 (2d Cir.1986); Machleder v. Diaz, 618 F.Supp. 1367, 1377 (S.D.N.Y.1985) modified on other grounds, 801 F.2d 46 (2d Cir.1986) cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1088, 107 S.Ct.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
170 F.R.D. 351, 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21409, 1995 WL 912386, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/airlines-reporting-corp-v-grecian-travel-inc-nyed-1995.