Aura Lamp & Lighting, Incorporated v. International Trading Corporation

325 F.3d 903 (7th Cir. 2003)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P sued D for breach of contract and patent claims. The district court ordered P to amend its complaint by May 19, 2000, to cure jurisdictional defects related to certain diversity jurisdiction allegations in the complaint. The date passed, and P did nothing. D moved to dismiss the complaint or to transfer the case. The district court set a briefing schedule, ordering P to reply by July 5, 2000. Again, the date passed without any action. D complied with the district court's scheduling order by filing its reply brief even though no responsive brief had been filed. P belatedly filed a response brief which the district court accepted over D's objection. The district court denied the motion to dismiss, reordered P to amend its complaint to cure the jurisdictional defect and threatened dismissal if P failed to amend the complaint. P amended, and discovery commenced. P missed discovery deadlines without any request for extensions. P then failed to meet two agreed extension dates. D moved to compel discovery and sought sanctions. The district court elected to grant one final extension, and the court threatened dismissal of the case if P failed to meet the deadline. On the very last day of April 2001, P served D with responses that D characterized as incomplete and defective. P failed to produce a single page of documents and filed specious objections to both the document and interrogatory requests. P filed no response to D's second request for the production of documents. D moved to dismiss the case for repeated violations of court orders, failure to comply with discovery, and failure to prosecute. The court once again listened to the travails of P and set a new deadline of July 11, 2001. P failed again, and the court dismissed for want of prosecution and denied all other motions. The judge held that wilful and wanton conduct was not required to dismiss. P appealed. P contends Rule 37 requires a finding of wilful and wanton misconduct, that dismissal under Rule 37 or Rule 41 requires specific warnings prior to dismissal and also requires that the court consider lesser sanctions before dismissing.