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Baltzley v. Sullins

Supreme Court of Iowa
Jul 17, 2002
No. 80 / 00-1385 (Iowa Jul. 17, 2002)

Opinion

No. 80 / 00-1385.

Filed July 17, 2002.

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, ARTIS I. REIS, Judge.

Appeal challenges district court's entry of default judgment and order for sanctions for failure to cooperate in discovery efforts. AFFIRMED.

Ray Sullins, pro se, Clive, for appellant.

Lawrence L. Marcucci and John C. Conger of Marcucci Conger, West Des Moines, for appellees.


These plaintiffs filed a legal malpractice action against Ray Sullins and served an original notice on him. He failed to respond within the required time, and the court entered a default judgment against him. We affirmed that judgment in a case reported at 641 N.W.2d 791 (Iowa 2002). Most of the issues were disposed of in that appeal, but one remains: did the district court abuse its discretion by ordering sanctions for Sullins' failure to comply with discovery orders?

The district court found that Sullins had failed to provide discovery documents to the plaintiffs and that his failure has been careless and in disregard for Plaintiff's rights [and] has caused Plaintiff to incur attorney fees in attempts to deal with the missing documents. Defendant's actions in filing duplicate pleadings have caused Plaintiff to incur excessive attorney fees.

Under the court's order,

Defendant is to pay to Plaintiff the amount of $6,096.24 in attorney fees and costs as a sanction for his willful and wanton disregard for the legitimate discovery attempts by Plaintiff in regard to collecting this judgment.

Although the court's ruling is not extensive, we believe it is sufficient to demonstrate that the defendant's actions justify the imposition of the sanction, and we therefore affirm.

AFFIRMED.

This is not a published opinion.


Summaries of

Baltzley v. Sullins

Supreme Court of Iowa
Jul 17, 2002
No. 80 / 00-1385 (Iowa Jul. 17, 2002)
Case details for

Baltzley v. Sullins

Case Details

Full title:BEVERLY BALTZLEY and C.P.A.L.S. CORPORATION, Appellees, v. RAY SULLINS…

Court:Supreme Court of Iowa

Date published: Jul 17, 2002

Citations

No. 80 / 00-1385 (Iowa Jul. 17, 2002)