In Follors v TI Ozone Park Storage, LLC, the plaintiff, Yolanda Follors, appealed an order from the Supreme Court, Queens County, which denied her motion to vacate a previous order that dismissed her personal injury complaint. The dismissal was due to her failure to comply with discovery demands from the defendant, TI Ozone Park Storage, LLC. The timeline of events began in May 2018, when Follors filed her complaint after tripping on an uneven sidewalk outside the defendant's premises. The defendant answered and served discovery demands in February 2019, while Follors' law firm sought to withdraw as her counsel in May 2019. In August 2020, the defendant moved to dismiss the complaint based on Follors' non-compliance with discovery, to which she did not respond. The court granted the dismissal in November 2020. Follors subsequently filed a motion to vacate the dismissal, claiming her attorneys believed their motion to withdraw automatically stayed proceedings, despite no such provision in the order. The court found that Follors failed to demonstrate a potentially meritorious opposition to the dismissal. The Appellate Division affirmed the lower court's order, emphasizing that vacating a default requires both a reasonable excuse for the default and a potentially meritorious opposition.
A court can impose sanctions, including dismissal of an action, if a party fails to comply with disclosure orders as mandated by CPLR Article 31. Under CPLR 3126, a pleading may be struck if there is clear evidence of willful, contumacious, or bad faith non-compliance with discovery demands. In the case cited, the defendant established that the plaintiff did not respond to discovery demands for over 17 months, leading to a presumption of willful failure. Despite the plaintiff's claims that her non-compliance was not willful, she provided no valid explanation for her inaction. As a result, the court found that the plaintiff failed to show a potentially meritorious opposition to the defendant's motion to dismiss. Consequently, the Supreme Court denied the plaintiff’s motion to vacate the dismissal order and her request for an extension to submit opposition papers. The decision was supported by all concurring justices.
