Preclusion Proper Remedy for Failure to Comply with Discovery Deadlines and Requests

The Second Department determined the failure to comply with discovery deadlines and provide good faith responses to discovery requests justified the preclusion of evidence:

“The failure to comply with deadlines and provide good-faith responses to discovery demands impairs the efficient functioning of the courts and the adjudication of claims’”… . The nature and degree of the penalty to be imposed pursuant to CPLR 3126 lies within the sound discretion of the trial court…. Here, the plaintiff made a clear showing that the defendants failed to comply with the compliance conference order …. Which required them to respond to certain requests made in the plaintiff’s supplemental notice of demand for production of documents …, since the defendants did not provide meaningful responses to those demands (see CPLR 3126[3];…). Further, the defendants’ willful and contumacious conduct in failing to meaningfully respond to those demands was reasonably inferred from the defendants’ repeated failures to respond to the plaintiff’s demands and the court’s compliance conference order without a reasonable excuse…. Accordingly, the Supreme Court providently exercised its discretion in granting that branch of the plaintiff’s cross motion which was pursuant to CPLR 3126 to preclude the defendants from presenting evidence at trial with respect to those items … .  HR Prince, Inc v Elite Envtl Sys, Inc, 2013 NY Slip Op 04576, 2nd Dept, 6-19-13