Fast and Loose Doesn’t Look Good on You

Padron v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Society of N.Y., Inc., No. D070723 (D4d1 Nov. 9, 2017)

In a child sex abuse case against a Church, the Church is stonewalling about producing documents detailing other abuse incidents. In another, related case, it previously convinced the Court of Appeal that terminating sanctions weren’t appropriate, in lieu of a coercive monetary penalty that could exceed the propounding party’s costs of litigating the discovery issue. See Lopez v. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., 246 Cal. App. 4th 566 (2016). So when the Church kept stonewalling in this case, following Lopez, the trial court found a willful refusal to comply with its discovery orders to produce exactly the same documents and by fined it $4,000 per day of noncompliance. The Church appeals, again.

But this time it doesn’t end well.