Whether the trial court abused its discretion by dismissing a complaint based upon Plaintiff's failure to comply with a court order, requiring Plaintiff to elaborate on its responses to Defendant's interrogatories.

No. It is within the trial court's proper scope of discretion to dismiss a case when Plaintiff's failure to comply with court orders frustrates the court's discovery scheme.

Plaintiff commenced an action for personal injuries arising from a one-car automobile. The court held a preliminary conference which produced an order fixing specific dates for discovery to be completed within six months and requiring Plaintiff to respond to Defendant's interrogatories within thirty days following receipt of same. That same day, Defendant served its first set of interrogatories on Plaintiff. When Plaintiff had not responded approximately five months beyond the response date fixed by the court's scheduling order, Defendant moved to strike the complaint or, in the alternative to compel Plaintiff's responses within ten days since Defendant could not adequately prepare its defense without specificity as to the claimed defect. Plaintiff opposed the motion that same day and almost three months later served responses to those interrogatories. Defendant, however, persisted in seeking dismissal of the complaint claiming that Plaintiff's responses were inadequate, unresponsive, and in clear violation of the court's discovery order. More than three months later, in March, 1997 the trial judge granted Defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint unless Plaintiff served further responses to the interrogatories that Defendant found insufficient.

An issue then arose as to the date the Defendant served the court's March order. Defendant's order with notice of entry, indicating service by mail to all parties, was dated June 6, 1997 and stamped filed by the county clerk on June 16, 1997, while the jurat on its affidavit of service read April 6, 1997. Despite the fact that Defendant wrote to Plaintiff several times, and referred to the trial judge's order, Plaintiff alleged that the trial judge's order was not actually served as represented and made no further responses to Defendant's interrogatories. The trial judge issued an order reserving decision on Defendant's motion to strike the complaint until it received an explanation of when Defendant served the court's order. Plaintiff's counsel submitted affidavits to the effect that they never received the order in the mail and Defendant's counsel submitted affidavits that the order was indeed mailed and the April date was a typographical error. Several months later, the trial judge granted Defendant's motion to strike the complaint, noting that the explanation for the discrepancy was reasonable. The Appellate Division affirmed, but two judges dissented claiming that a hearing was required to resolve the question of fact regarding service of the court's March order. According to N.Y. C.P.L.R. 5601(a), the double dissent on an issue of law brought the case before the Court of Appeals.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the complaint on three major grounds. First, pursuant to CPLR 2103[b][2], service of papers on an attorney is complete upon mailing. Further, a properly executed affidavit of service raises a presumption that a proper mailing has occurred, and mere denial of receipt is not enough to rebut that presumption. See Engel v. Lichterman, 62 N.Y.2d 943, 944-945. Finally, when a party fails to comply with a court order and frustrates the scheme of disclosure, it is within the trial judge's discretion to dismiss the complaint. See Zletz v. Wetanson, 67 N.Y.2d 711, 713.

The Court also noted that litigants cannot be allowed to ignore orders of a court if the credibility of the orders themselves, as well as the integrity of the judicial system are to be maintained. The Legislature also recognized this need by allowing courts to command compliance with their disclosure directives. See N.Y. C.P.L.R. 3126. Finally, the Court noted that compliance with discovery orders not only requires timely response, but also responses that evince a good-faith effort to address the requests meaningfully.