Federal Magistrate Judge Issues Such An Order, Finding It To Be Within the Ambit of Civil Contempt Discovery Sanctions.
Here is a very interesting e-discovery sanctions order fashioned by a federal magistrate who did more
than enter a default judgment as to a liability on a copyright infringement count against corporate defendant and its president Mark Pappas, who was found to have pervasively and willfully violated several court orders to preserve and produce electronically stored information.
U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Paul W. Grimm
, in Stanley v. Creative Pipe, Inc., 2010 WL 3530097 (D.Md. Sept. 9, 2010), took the unusual additional step of ordering that Mr. Pappas be imprisoned for 2 years unless he paid to Plaintiff the attorney’s fees and costs awarded as a result of ESI spoliation. Magistrate Judge Grimm found basis to levy this as a civil contempt sanction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(b)(2)(C).
The opinion has a very scholarly discussion of the different states of mind relating to ESI spoliation, the success of different sanctions in various courts, and the bases for spoliation sanctions.
BLOG FAVORITE QUOTE—In describing the paperwork that resulted from Plaintiff’s request to file the sanctions motion, the magistrate judge put it this way . . . “[it] resulted in filings and exhibits exceeding the Manhattan telephone directory in girth . . .”