IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA
No. 80 / 00-1385
Filed July 17, 2002
BEVERLY BALTZLEY and C.P.A.L.S. CORPORATION,
Appellees,
vs.
RAY SULLINS,
Appellant.
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.
PER CURIAM.
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.
