MEMORANDUM OPINION

RICHARD ROBERTS, District Judge

Plaintiff Betty Williams filed this action against the defendant District of Columbia Water Authority, alleging that while employed by the defendant, she was denied overtime in retaliation for filing discrimination complaints. Defendant filed a renewed motion to dismiss plaintiff's claims, based on plaintiff's repeated failures to comply with the Court's orders and pursuant to Rule 41(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for lack of prosecution. Plaintiff has not filed an opposition to this motion. Because plaintiff has failed to engage in any discovery in the three and one-half years since filing her complaint in this case, despite repeated warnings from the Court, plaintiff's claims will be dismissed.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff filed this case on October 10, 2001. It was assigned to the Electronic Case Filing ("ECF") system on the same day. Her counsel, John W. Davis, Esq., listed on the complaint his address of record as 1003 K Street, N.W., Suite 505, Washington, D.C. 20001, and that address was entered on the court's docket. An order scheduling an initial scheduling conference for August 2, 2002 was issued on July 3, 2002 and transmitted electronically to defendant's counsel. Since Davis had failed to provide the Clerk with an electronic mail address by then, the Clerk mailed a copy of the order to counsel for plaintiff at his address of record. Davis failed to appear for the August 2, 2002 scheduling conference.

On August 6, 2002, the Court entered two orders. One was a scheduling order which, among other things, set a deadline of December 2, 2002 for concluding all discovery, and scheduled a post-discovery status conference for December 6, 2002 at 9:00 a.m. The other order directed Davis to show cause in writing by August 19, 2002 why he should not be sanctioned for failing to appear at the August 2, 2002 scheduling conference. Both orders were transmitted to counsel in the same fashion as was the Court's July 3, 2002 order.

Davis timely responded in writing to the show cause order, acknowledging that he received it. He claimed that he had never been notified by the Clerk that this case was assigned to the ECF system and that he never received any electronic notices since he had not equipped his office to receive them. He also claimed that he moved his office in late January or early February of 2002, and if he had received a copy of any document from the Clerk, it might have gotten lost in the move. Lastly, he proclaimed his diligence in checking the court schedules regularly since some court mail was not being delivered to his new address despite the fact that he had filed praecipes reflecting his change of address "in almost all of his cases." Davis filed no praecipe reflecting any change of address in this case until January 29, 2003, in response to a January 8, 2003 order of the Court that he do so.

Davis failed to appear for the December 6, 2002 conference. At the conference, defendant's counsel, Julia Perkins, Esq., reported that Davis had propounded no discovery requests, and that neither she nor her co-counsel, Mary Pivec, Esq., had heard from Davis for months. On December 6, 2002, the Court entered another order directing Davis to show cause by December 20, 2002 why he should not be sanctioned for failing to appear in court on December 6, 2002 and why the case should not be dismissed for his failure to prosecute it. Copies of this order were mailed both to Davis and to the plaintiff. Davis responded to the show cause order on December 23, 2002. In his response, he claimed that he "had extreme difficulty maintaining his personal and professional equilibrium" due to health problems suffered by family members. He also claimed that he was unaware that his motion to opt out of electronic filing had been denied; that he had failed to maintain consistency in his office staff, resulting in "some gaps in [his] scheduling and work proficiency"; and that he could not find the Scheduling Order in this case. Davis admitted that sufficient grounds existed to sanction him but asked that the case not be dismissed.

On January 8, 2003, the Court ordered Davis to pay $250.00 as a sanction for his failure to appear at the December 6, 2002 hearing. The Court also ordered that plaintiff's deadline for any motion to extend discovery was January 23, 2003, and warned plaintiff that failure to file such a motion timely could result in dismissal of the case for failure to prosecute. Copies of this order were mailed both to Davis and to the plaintiff. Despite plaintiff's failure to seek an extension of the discovery period before the deadline imposed by the January 8, 2003 order, the Court granted plaintiff's untimely January 29, 2003 motion for an extension of the discovery period to April 21, 2003.

On December 20, 2004, the Court ordered each party to file a joint status report cataloging the date and nature of every discovery activity engaged in by each party, and scheduled a status conference for January 25, 2005. Plaintiff did not file a status report in response to the Court's order. Defendant's status report stated that plaintiff had still failed to engage in any discovery in this case. Defendant also filed the currently pending motion to dismiss for lack of prosecution. At the January 25, 2005 status conference, Davis appeared and confirmed that he had taken no discovery in this case, citing various personal problems as the reason for his failure to do so. On oral motion from Davis, the Court granted plaintiff leave until January 26, 2005 to file an opposition to the defendant's motion to dismiss. Plaintiff has filed no opposition.

DISCUSSION

The defendant has moved to dismiss for plaintiff's failures to comply with court orders and for lack of prosecution. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b) provides that "[f]or failure of the plaintiff to prosecute or to comply with these rules or any order of court, a defendant may move for dismissal of an action or of any claim against the defendant." Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(b). "A Rule 41(b) dismissal is proper if, in view of the entire procedural history of the case, the litigant has not manifested reasonable diligence in pursuing the cause." Bomate v. Ford Motor Co., 761 F.2d 713, 714 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (per curiam) (finding that where the plaintiff continuously refused to cooperate with her lawyers and failed to comply with the pretrial order, and where the trial court repeatedly warned plaintiff and her counsel of the consequences of further delays in the pretrial process, dismissal for want of prosecution was not an abuse of discretion). "Whereas a single act of misconduct does not usually warrant a dismissal, dismissal is justified where . . . despite the Court's warnings, the plaintiff has followed a pattern of `protracted neglect.'"Ford v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth., 131 F.R.D. 12, 13 (D.D.C. 1990) (citation omitted) (quoting Jackson v. Wash. Monthly Co., 569 F.2d 119, 121 (D.C. Cir. 1977) (dismissal appropriate where plaintiff repeatedly failed to comply with discovery).

Plaintiff's counsel initiated no discovery in this case before the first discovery deadline of December 2, 2002. He then failed to move for a discovery extension by the January 23, 2003 deadline imposed by the Court. Despite the Court's warning that failure to file a timely motion to extend the discovery period could result in dismissal of the case for failure to prosecute, and despite the Court's extension of the discovery deadline to April 21, 2003 notwithstanding plaintiff's untimely motion, plaintiff's counsel confirmed at the January 25, 2005 status hearing in this case that he still had not taken any discovery. Ordinarily, the sins of a lawyer should not be visited upon the client. But the plaintiff in this case could not have been wholly unaware of her lawyer's failures, since the court sent copies to her of two orders outlining her lawyer's inactivity and failures to appear in court, and containing warnings regarding dismissal for want of prosecution.

Furthermore, the defendant fairly consistently raised complaints about the opposing counsel's inactivity and failure to engage in any discovery. At the December 6, 2002 status conference, defense counsel reported that Davis had propounded no discovery and that they had not heard from him for months. On December 30, 2002, defendant filed its first motion to dismiss for lack of prosecution pursuant to Rule 41(b). The defendant also opposed the plaintiff's motion to extend the discovery deadline because plaintiff failed to comply with the Court's order and Local Rule 7(m). Defendant then renewed its motion to dismiss for lack of prosecution on January 10, 2005.

At a certain point, a defendant ought to be freed of the anxiety of litigation that a plaintiff has failed to diligently pursue. Although there may not be a magic number reflecting the period of time that a defendant should be made to wait, the three and one-half year period that has passed since the complaint was filed in this case is certainly long enough.

CONCLUSION

Plaintiff has repeatedly failed to comply with court orders in this case and, since the filing of this action over three and one-half years ago, has engaged in no discovery. Therefore, the defendant's motion to dismiss will be granted and the complaint will be dismissed in its entirety. A final order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.