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World Gone Mad -- Attorney Sanctioned For Cancelling Depo On "Pretext"

Oh man what is the world coming to?

Good thing this judge does not preside in South Florida, or business litigation in this town would grind to an immediate halt:

A Southern District magistrate judge has sanctioned a lawyer who refused to attend a scheduled deposition in what the magistrate judge said "can only be construed as an attempt to gain leverage with respect to unrelated discovery issues."

Holding that attorney M. Douglas Haywoode's explanation for canceling the deposition "does not withstand scrutiny," Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV invoked Rule 30(g) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to award costs, including attorney's fees, against Mr. Haywoode.

"An attempt to gain leverage with respect to unrelated discovery issues"? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what the art of deposition scheduling and cancelling is all about?

Here's the details:

On April 19, Mr. Haywoode notified one of the defendants' lawyers, Mr. Traub, that he would not attend because of "obstructions in the discovery process."

Mr. Haywoode further explained that he was objecting to the defendants' failure to provide documents that his litigation team had reviewed and found relevant.

Magistrate Judge Francis noted that Mr. Haywoode already had canceled and rescheduled the deposition at issue once before. And he observed that the attempt to cancel a second time was made "when it was impossible to seek court intervention."

Exactly -- nicely done!

Boy if gamesmanship in the discovery process were to be sanctionable, we might actually have to exchange documents and information -- some if it potentially harmful to our case. What fun is that?

Let me think of some things I have cancelled on pretextual grounds:

Depositions
Hearings
Trials
Meetings
Conference calls
Document production
Lunch dates with Steve Zack
Weddings

I'm sure there are others.....

Full post as published by South Florida Lawyers on May 11, 2009 (boomark / email).