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Enriquez v. Cochran7/30/1998
taken a few hours to perform and could have been done in August when Interrogatory #12 was received;
14. BSA, through Mr. Vesel, made no effort to gather information requested in Interrogatory #12 as written; and
15. When he discovered the computer could provide data on all claims, but would not differentiate between volunteers, employees, and scouts, a choice was made not to provide any of the claims information.
(37} The trial court did not change its mind following Mr. Vesel's testimony, and we perceive no reason to disagree with the trial court. We hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in imposing sanctions against BSA, nor in imposing the specific sanctions it did.
{38} First, it is clear from the record that BSA did not provide timely responses to Plaintiff's discovery. To dispute the lack of timeliness is merely to cavil. The interrogatories and requests for production in dispute were served in August and September 1995. Eight months later in May 1996, on the eve of trial, there were still significant portions of the discovery responses dealing with the central issues in the case against BSA which were incomplete. This time frame is unreasonable from any standpoint, even taking into account the practical difficulties and vicissitudes of the practice of law today. The delays cannot be attributed to any failure of the trial court to deal with objections. The great majority of BSA's objections were dealt with and resolved against it at the pretrial conference in October 1995. The remaining few were dealt with and resolved against BSA at the next pretrial conference in early March 1996. And, BSA never posed any objection to interrogatory 12. BSA's delay in providing discovery adversely affected Plaintiff's ability to adequately depose BSA's witnesses and representatives. For example, after a three-month delay in resuming the deposition of BSA's designated Rule 1-030(B)(7) NMRA 1998 witness, BSA appeared with no new documents at all, thereby forcing yet another delay and eventually requiring that other BSA personnel be deposed.
{39} Second, we find no reason to disagree with the trial court's decision that BSA's response to certain discovery was inadequate. Although BSA argues it actually provided reasonable, if partial, production and that any shortcomings were not material, we agree with the trial court that, given the course of discovery in this case, BSA's responses were both inadequate and inaccurate, and that the shortcomings were material. In particular, Plaintiff demonstrated that BSA failed to adequately respond to long set request numbers 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, and 24, as well as short set request numbers 5, 6, and 9, and interrogatory 12. The formal responses provided five months after the hearing on Plaintiff's first motion to compel were clearly inadequate. The formal responses were at least partially inaccurate since Plaintiff was able to independently uncover some documents responsive to long set number 11, and BSA later provided other documents when their existence was revealed during the deposition of BSA employees. BSA simply never answered long set requests numbers 9 and 10. Finally, their responses did not identify what materials were responsive to them, and did not state that there were no other documents which were responsive. In combination, these shortcomings in BSA's responses make them inadequate.
{40} Perhaps the most egregious example of inadequacy was BSA's failure to respond to interrogatory 12. As we outlined above, Plaintiff clearly demonstrated that BSA made essentially no effort to gather the information requested in interrogatory 12. Even the information provided as to New Mexico was grossly
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