the seat jamming my head, neck and shoulder."


5
On November 1, 1985, Parker filed his original complaint, which named both Freightliner and National Seating as defendants, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.  After being served with a summons, National Seating removed the case to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.  But, although named as a defendant in the lawsuit, Freightliner was not served with a summons and did not become involved in the suit at that time.


6
Despite Freightliner's absence, National Seating and Parker proceeded with discovery pursuant to a district court order requiring all occurrence discovery to be completed by July 31, 1986.  The order also set the same date for a further status hearing.  Parker, however, ignoredthree sets of interrogatories which National Seating had filed for answer and discovery was not completed by the court-ordered date.  The plaintiff's disregard for the district court's orders did not end there.  In July, Parker's counsel failed to appear for the scheduled status hearing.  When informed of Parker's noncompliance with its previous order, the district court entered an order requiring Parker to answer National Seating's interrogatories by August 7, 1986, and set a further status conference for August 14, 1986.  The plaintiff appeared at this hearing, but again failed to provide signed answers to the interrogatories.  So, the district court entered yet another order requiring Parker to provide National Seating with signed answers by August 15, 1986, ordered all discovery completed by November