Litigation

More About The Smelly Bentley: Court of Appeal Finds Trial Court Was Required to Impose Terminating Sanction For Discovery Abuses

By Bruce Nye

    Earlier today, I posted about the Court of Appeals' decision in Doppes v. Bentley Motors, Inc. (June 8, 2009) ___Cal.App.4th___ (GO39922),
There, the Court held that the trial court had jurisdiction to award 7% pre-judgment interest in an action under California's Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, California Civil Code section 1790 and following.

    But when it issued this decision, the Court of Appeal also issued a decision in Doppes v. Bentley Motors, Inc. (June 8, 2009) ___Cal.App.4th___ (G037834).  In this case, the Court of Appeal took the remarkable step of reversing a judgment in favor of the plaintiff because the trial court judge's discovery sanction against the defendant had not been sufficiently severe.  

    More after the jump.

    The extent of a discovery sanction is almost always within the discretion of the trial judge, so this decision is highly unusual.  It's particularly unusual in a case that most people would consider a strong win for the plaintiff even if the trial judge was affirmed on all grounds -- $200,000 in compensatory damages, $100,000 more in pre-judgment interest, and more than $300,000 in attorneys' fees.

    But there was also a long history of discovery abuse on the part of Bentley.  The trial court had adopted a discovery referee's finding that Bentley had repeatedly either lied to the court and counsel about what documents it had and had looked for, or failed to diligently look for documents;  after multiple court orders, it seemed Bentley was withholding or not looking for a substantial number of other similar incident documents.

    The trial court had used monetary sanctions and an evidentiary sanctions -- telling the jury that they were to accept certain facts as established against Bentley.  But ultimately, said the court, Bentley's conduct was so over the line that the trial court should have entered a terminating sanction on the plaintiff' fraud cause of action, entered a default judgment and let the plaintiff seek damages (including, presumably, punitive damages) in a prove-up hearing.  And the Court of Appeal reversed, sending the case back to the trial court for just that purpose.

    We have much more on discovery and discovery sanctions in our discovery white paper, available here.

    Update:  Marc Alexander at California Attorney's Fees offers a good analysis of the attorneys' fees aspects of this case, which I didn't talk about. 

Full post as published by CalBizLit on June 09, 2009 (boomark / email).