District Court Opts for Sanctions Rather Than Entering Astronomical Default Judgment.
This one certainly caught our eye and illustrates how e-discovery sanction can involve steep reimbursement of significant attorney’s fees and costs.
In Kipperman v. Onex Corp. (Kipperman II), 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44457 (N.D. Ga. May 26, 2009), a district judge found that defendants had engaged in a “textbook case of discovery abuse” by stonewalling its production of “hot” emails and leading the plaintiffs to believe that they were not relevant. Hardly the case, with the defense unilateral decisions being nixed by the district judge after finding that many of the emails “certainly are hot.”
The district judge then addressed the nature of the sanction to be imposed on the defense for discovery abuse. If he had struck the defendants’ answer, it would have resulted in one of the largest default judgments in a case presenting novel issues. Instead of doing this, the district judge opted to order defendants to reimburse plaintiffs $1,022,700 in attorney’s fees and costs as a discovery sanction. This lesser sanction was imposed because the defense did eventually produce the documents and supplemental discovery follow-up could cure any prejudice.
“Broadaxe”. From Wikipedia article.