Phelps

BACKGROUND

This is the third of three related suits Phelps has filed. In the first action (Phelps I), Phelps, represented by counsel, sued Harry Misthos over a real estate dispute. Terminating sanctions were imposed on Phelps for failing to respond to discovery. The trial court rejected Phelps’s claim that discovery defaults were excused by her ill health, finding “ ‘this claim is not adequately established by her medical evidence, and is also belied by the multiple motions and other documents she has filed after the court’s issuance of the order compelling responses.’ ” Division One of this Appellate District affirmed the trial court’s decision on the point, holding that the court “acted well within its discretion in rejecting Phelps’ medical excuses. . . . [I]t is indeed astounding that Phelps could devote energy to motion practice, and attend case events including the mediation one day before the hearing on Misthos’s initial motion to compel, yet, at the same time, could not muster any energy over the course of two years, despite a court order, to answer two sets of discovery.” (Phelps v. Misthos (Nov. 29, 2012, A129963) [nonpub. opn.], p. 8.) In Phelps II, Phelps in pro per…