Summary
affirming the dismissal "[i]n light of [Plaintiff's] serially contumacious conduct"
Summary of this case from Nelsoney v. Midway Oilfield Constructors, Inc.Opinion
No. 06-20220.
May 10, 2007.
Jon Daniel Brooks, Brooks LLP, Corpus Christi, TX, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR. R. 47.5.4.
R. Michael Moore, Law Office of R. Michael Moore, Houston, TX, for Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States district court for the Southern District of Texas, Case No. 4:04-CV-4188.
Before JONES, Chief Judge, and BENAVIDES and STEWART, Circuit Judges.
Chandrashekhar B. Thanedar appeals the dismissal with prejudice of this action brought against Time Warner Communications of Houston, LLP, and seventeen other corporate entities, under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Having considered the briefs and pertinent parts of the record, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by ordering dismissal in response to Thanedar's failure to comply with discovery orders, see FED.R.CIV.P. 37(d), and failure to prosecute his lawsuit. See FED.R.CIV.P. 41(b). In light of Thanedar's serially contumacious conduct, we like wise find no abuse of discretion in the district court's denial of Appellant's motions for continuance. Finally, Thanedar's due process claim that Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S.Ct. 893, 47 L.Ed.2d 18 (1976), entitled him to a predismissal hearing is frivolous. Mathews requires the articulation of due process standards; a federal court's procedures, specified in the Federal Rules, are clearly as certainable. When, as here, a party is shown to have been "deliberately proceeding in a dilatory fashion, "a district court may dismiss a case "without affording notice of its intention to do so or providing an adversary hearing before acting." Link v. Wabash R.R. Co., 370 U.S. 626, 633, 82 S.Ct. 1386, 1390, 8 L.Ed.2d 734 (1962); Price v. McGlatkery, 792 F.2d 472, 475-76 (5th Cir. 1986).