Quhshi v. Hartford Underwriters Ins. Co.

25-2511 Quhshi v. Hartford Underwriters Ins. Co. UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 4th day of November, two thousand twenty-six. Present: SUSAN L. CARNEY, MICHAEL H. PARK, SARAH A. L. MERRIAM, Circuit Judges. ________________________________________ NAGI QUHSHI, Plaintiff-Appellant, 25-2511 v. HARTFORD UNDERWRITERS INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. ________________________________________ FOR PLAINTFIFF-APPELLANT: JOSEPH A. ALTMAN, Joseph A. Altman, PC, Fleetwood, NY. FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLEE: MELISSA K. DRISCOLL (Michael Stephen Komar, on the brief), Menz Bonner Komar & Koenigsberg LLP, Rye Brook, NY.  Appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Ho, J.). UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the order of the district court is AFFIRMED. Plaintiff-Appellant Nagi Quhshi appeals from the district court’s order under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 dismissing his complaint with prejudice and directing his counsel, Joseph A. Altman, to pay attorney’s fees. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal, to which we refer only as necessary to explain our decision to affirm. “We review a district court’s imposition of sanctions pursuant to Rule 37 for abuse of discretion.” J.C. v. Zimmerman, 150 F.4th 136, 145 (2d Cir. 2025). “An abuse of discretion occurs when a district court bases its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on a clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence, or renders a decision that cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions.” Huebner v. Midland Credit Mgmt., Inc., 897 F.3d 42, 53 (2d Cir. 2018) (cleaned up). I. Dismissal When imposing Rule 37 sanctions, “courts properly consider various factors, including (1) the willfulness of the non-compliant party or the reason for noncompliance; (2) the efficacy of lesser sanctions; (3) the duration of the period of noncompliance; and (4) whether the non- compliant party had been warned of the consequences of noncompliance.” Funk v. Belneftekhim, 861 F.3d 354, 366 (2d Cir. 2017) (cleaned up). These factors “are not exclusive, and they need not each be resolved against the party challenging the district court’s sanctions … to conclude that those sanctions were within the court’s discretion.” S. New England Tel. Co. v. Glob. NAPs Inc., 624 F.3d 123, 144 (2d Cir. 2010). Quhshi argues that the district court erred in concluding that these factors favored dismissal. We disagree. First, the record supports the district court’s finding that Quhshi acted willfully. The district court found that, on at least seven occasions, Quhshi “untimely complied, halfheartedly complied, or simply failed to comply” with its discovery orders. Quhshi v. The Hartford Underwriters Insurance Co., No. 1:23CV07935 (DEH), 2025 WL 2773987, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 29, 2025). Quhshi does not address most of those failures. Instead, he argues that he complied with, or reasonably misread, the March 28 Order, and that he “misunderstood” the April 10 Order. Neither argument is persuasive. The March 28 Order directed Quhshi to amend his written discovery responses, certify which documents were responsive to each of Hartford’s requests for production, and certify that he had produced all responsive information and documents in his possession. Quhshi responded by supplementing his responses to only seven of Hartford’s document requests and by serving unsigned and unverified interrogatory responses. As to the April 10 Order, Quhshi himself concedes he did not comply, and we conclude that the district court did not err in rejecting as “unbelievable” his claim to have misunderstood an order that was plain and unambiguous. Quhshi, 2025 WL 2773987, at *6. Second, the district court properly considered the efficacy of lesser sanctions. It found that, given Quhshi’s “pattern of willful noncompliance” and his disregard of its direct warnings, a sanction short of dismissal would neither ensure future compliance nor serve the goals of Rule 37. Id. at *7. Although dismissal is a “drastic remedy,” a district court need not “exhaust possible lesser sanctions before imposing dismissal … if such a sanction is appropriate on the overall record.” S. New England Tel. Co., 624 F.3d at 144, 148. It was appropriate here: Quhshi violated a series of discovery orders and let four consecutive court-ordered deadlines pass without producing discovery responses compliant with the court’s orders. Third, the record supports the district court’s finding that Quhshi’s noncompliance lasted approximately five months. Quhshi contends that any noncompliance should be measured from the April 17, 2024 deadline set by the April 10 Order because he was compliant before then. The record is to the contrary. In January, the district court found Quhshi had offered no justification for failing to meet the discovery deadline. In February, it found that he had not adequately responded to Hartford’s demands. In March, the court once again found his responses insufficient. The April 10 Order was thus the fourth order directing him to provide adequate discovery responses, so the district court did not err by measuring the period of noncompliance from January 2024. We have affirmed dismissal after comparable periods of noncompliance. See Agiwal v. Mid Island Mortg. Corp., 555 F.3d 298, 303 (2d Cir. 2009) (affirming dismissal following six months of noncompliance). In any event, Quhshi does not address that he disregarded three orders after April 10, including one that expressly warned of dismissal, and we have “never held that a district court, confronted with willful defiance of its discovery orders, must wait any particular time before imposing a sanction,” Funk, 861 F.3d at 368. Fourth, Quhshi was adequately warned. “Due process requires that courts provide notice and an opportunity to be heard before imposing any kind of sanctions.” Id. at 369 (cleaned up). The district court warned Quhshi three times that continued noncompliance could result in sanctions and, in its May 6 Order, expressly warned that those sanctions could include dismissal. Quhshi concedes that he was warned but argues that he did not act with “sustained and willful intransigence” in the face of those warnings. Appellant’s Br. at 23 (quoting Valentine v. Museum of Mod. Art, 29 F.3d 47, 50 (2d Cir. 1994)). That argument fails for the reasons discussed above. The district court thus did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the case. II. Attorney’s Fees When a party fails to obey a discovery order, the district court “must order the disobedient party, the attorney advising that party, or both to pay the reasonable expenses, including attorney’s fees, caused by the failure, unless the failure was substantially justified or other circumstances make an award of expenses unjust.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(b)(2)(C). Altman argues that the fee award is unjust because he complied with the district court’s orders. 1 As discussed above, that is not so. We thus affirm the imposition of attorney’s fees. * * * We have considered Quhshi’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the order of the district court is AFFIRMED. FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court 1 Although only Quhshi is named in the notice of appeal, the notice expressly challenges “the separate award of monetary sanctions … against the Plaintiff’s attorney.” Altman’s intent to appeal was thus “objectively clear,” and we may review the imposition of attorney’s fees. See Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(7); Agee v. Paramount Commc’ns Inc., 114 F.3d 395, 399 (2d Cir. 1997) (cleaned up).