Vaccaro v. Loscalzo

Citations

• 201 Conn. App. 606

Syllabus

The plaintiffs, V and E, sought to recover damages for, inter alia, the allegedly wrongful death of the decedent, M, as a result of the defendants' negli- gence. The plaintiffs commenced the action in May, 2016. Despite various pleadings and motions filed by the defendants, the plaintiffs did not serve any discovery, take any depositions, close the pleadings, disclose any experts, or respond to outstanding discovery requests. Additionally, E died in May, 2016, and his estate was never substituted as the proper party in the case. Eventually, in February, 2018, the plaintiffs' counsel relayed to the trial court personal reasons why deadlines and discovery compliance were not met and represented that he needed to withdraw. Following more continuances, V was not able to obtain new counsel, and objected to the plaintiffs' counsel withdrawing from the case. In March, 2019, the court denied the motion to withdraw filed by the plaintiffs' counsel and, in April, 2019, granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute with due diligence. On appeal to this court, the plaintiffs claimed that the court abused its discretion in rendering a judgment of dismissal. Held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the plaintiffs' complaint for failure to prosecute with due diligence; under the factors articulated in Ridgaway v. Mount Vernon Fire Ins. Co. (328 Conn. 60), the court's sanction of dismissal was proportional to the plaintiffs' misconduct in that the court carefully set forth a pattern of misconduct by the plaintiffs over the course of three years, the plaintiffs were clearly on notice of the possibil- ity of a sanction as the defendants began requesting a judgment of dismissal as a sanction in November, 2017, and the court repeatedly notified the plaintiffs that a dismissal would be forthcoming if they continued their pattern of delays, the court demonstrated the use of alternatives to dismissal by issuing new orders and warnings of di