Hooboy! Judge Jeffrey Beaverstock of the Southern District of Alabama sure isn’t happy with Outokumpu Stainless USA, a steel mill, and their attorneys at Littler Mendelson PC. Outokumpu is the defendant in an hour-and-wage lawsuit and Judge Beaverstock has taken them to task for discovery abuses — more than just calling them out, he entered a default judgment on liability in favor of the plaintiffs, and over the course of a 94(!)-page order, he does not hold back.
I mean, he starts out strong from the jump:
This case is lamentable. Mercifully, it is rare. Here, the Court is compelled to protect not only plaintiffs but the Court itself from a defendant’s pervasive bad faith.
And what does “pervasive bad faith” even mean? Well, Judge Beaverstock is happy to detail the issues:
Time and pay records are of primary importance in FLSA actions. Defendant refused to produce complete and accurate records and misrepresented to the Court and Plaintiffs material facts surrounding its refusals. The Magistrate Judge entered orders and imposed sanctions against Defendant through the course of discovery, but Defendant was undeterred. Defendant persisted in its misconduct through the date set for final pre-trial conference, at which point Defendant still had not produced basic time and pay records. As a consequence, the Court was left with no choice but to cancel the pre-trial conference and, instead, conduct a general status conference. This was followed by show cause hearings to address...
A British science journalist-turned-attorney who initiated a lawsuit that saw a Harvard University-affiliated cancer centre pay $15 million (11 million) to settle claims of alleged data misreprese...