Ulrich v. O'Keefe
- Vyskocil
- 1:23-cv-00686
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Ulrich v. O'Keefe, Judge Vyskocil ordered defense counsel to pay $500 for late, noncompliant trial submissions.
Defense counsel must pay $500 to the Clerk of Court by May 23, 2025. The parties and counsel were warned that further noncompliance could lead to additional sanctions.
What happened
In Ulrich v. O'Keefe, the parties missed a court-ordered deadline for filing materials needed for their scheduled bench trial. The court had already postponed the trial several times and extended deadlines for preparing the materials.
The parties later filed incomplete materials. Defense counsel also submitted the defendant's direct testimony after the deadline, even though the court's rules required that testimony to be filed with the joint pretrial order. The court had twice warned that failures to follow its orders and rules could lead to sanctions, including limits on evidence.
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil imposed a $500 monetary sanction on defense counsel, payable to the court clerk by May 23, 2025, instead of barring the defendant's testimony. The court warned that additional violations could lead to more sanctions, including monetary penalties, limits on claims, defenses, or evidence, dismissal, or default judgment.
The detailed version
- Ulrich v. O'Keefe · No. 1:23-cv-00686
- Vyskocil
- May 13, 2025
Background
The case involved a bench trial scheduled to begin on May 28, 2025. After several trial adjournments and extensions for preparing pretrial materials, the court ordered the parties to file all materials required by the judge's Individual Rules of Practice by April 21, 2025. The parties did not meet that deadline.
On April 25, 2025, the court issued an order requiring the parties to explain why they should not be sanctioned. That order warned that failing to follow court orders and applicable rules could result in monetary sanctions or the exclusion of evidence. On May 1, 2025, after continued noncompliance, the court issued a second such order. It specifically warned the parties to review the court's rules because noncompliant pretrial materials would result in sanctions.
Noncompliant Submissions
On May 2, 2025, the parties filed incomplete pretrial materials. On May 7, defense counsel emailed the court and submitted the defendant's direct testimony, stating that he was doing so because he had learned that plaintiff's counsel had previously sent the plaintiff's direct testimony to the court.
The court explained that Rule 7(C) of its Individual Rules required copies of each trial witness's affidavits containing direct testimony to be submitted when the joint pretrial order was filed. The court found that defense counsel's submission was not merely precautionary, but was at best an untimely attempt to correct a failure to follow the court's rules. The court described that failure as inexcusable given the prior warnings.
Ruling and Sanction
The court stated that it had authority to bar the defendant's testimony because the parties had twice been warned that noncompliance could lead to evidence preclusion. Instead, because barring the testimony would be a harsh sanction, the court imposed the less severe remedy of a $500 monetary sanction on defense counsel. The payment was due to the Clerk of Court by May 23, 2025.
The court also warned that further failures to follow court orders and applicable rules, or to move the case toward resolution, could result in additional sanctions against counsel and the parties. The listed possible sanctions included monetary penalties, preclusion of claims, defenses, and evidence, dismissal, and default judgment.
Disposition
The court imposed a $500 monetary sanction on defense counsel. The opinion did not state that the case itself was dismissed or that default judgment was entered.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.