On May 13, 2025, the First Department issued a decision in Five Star Elec. Corp. v. Trustees of Columbia Univ., 2025 NY Slip Op. 02872, holding that a trial court did not err in striking a complaint as a sanction for delayed responses to discovery demands, explaining:
We give substantial deference to the motion court’s considerable discretion to impose penalties pursuant to CPLR 3126, and absent clear abuse, will not disturb such a penalty. Here, Supreme Court providently exercised its discretion in striking plaintiff’s complaint. The record shows that plaintiff exhibited a pattern of delay in responding to discovery, in that it not only failed to respond to interrogatory demands in June and April 2020, but also ignored the court’s order directing a response to the interrogatories within 30 days. Plaintiff ultimately provided responses on August 10, 2021, but the court deemed those responses insufficient and required a supplement. Three years later in 2024, plaintiff attached to its motion papers opposing the motion underlying this appeal supplemental responses to the interrogatories propounded by defendant Lend Lease (US) Construction. However, plaintiff did not submit supplemental responses to defendant Columbia University’s interrogatories. This pattern of years-long delay demonstrated that plaintiff’s noncompliance was willful and contumacious.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).