Steele

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff sued defendant for damages stemming from an alleged fraudulent conversion of insurance benefits totaling less than $22,000. The court set an FSC for November 22, 2024 with a jury trial scheduled for December 2, 2024. Bensamochan failed to appear for the FSC and did not notify the court or opposing counsel that he would miss the hearing. The court continued the FSC and trial date to December 3, 2024 and issued an order to show cause (OSC) regarding sanctions “for Plaintiff’s Counsel’s Failure to Appear on 11/22/2024 and Failure to File Trial Documents.” The OSC specified that “Sanctions may include dismissal.” Bensamochan submitted a declaration in response to the OSC. He explained that he failed to appear for the FSC because (a) his office was in “the midst of switching over from one practice management software to another” and the FSC date was inadvertently omitted from the office’s interim calendaring system during the migration; and (b) his “small office” had failed to catch and correct the calendaring oversight because “two major emergency filings” in the preceding two weeks had consumed an inordinate amount of the staff’s time. Bensamochan acknowledged…