Helget v. Hays, Kansas, City of et al
Filing
210
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER denying 161 Motion for Sanctions. Signed by Magistrate Judge Kenneth G. Gale on 3/4/15. (df)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
FIRMA HELGET,
Plaintiff,
vs.
CITY OF HAYS, et al.,
Defendants.
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Case No. 13-2228-KHV-KGG
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR SANCTIONS
Before the Court is Plaintiff’s motion (Doc. 162) to impose sanctions upon
on the Defendant and one of its attorneys pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 11 for alleged
misstatements of fact in the pleadings to this Court. Because the claimed
statements were not materially false, the motion is DENIED.
Plaintiff previously filed a motion for spoilation sanctions (Doc. 33) against
Defendants based on the destruction of a computer server upon which, Plaintiff
claimed, were records of internet usage by Plaintiff and other Defendant
employees. In response to that motion (Doc. 44), counsel for Defendants argued
that, based on information concerning how the server was utilized, the evidence did
not support Plaintiff’s contention that the relevant usage data was on the server
when it was destroyed. Counsel argued that the evidence demonstrated that
Defendant did not use the server to monitor employee internet usage.
The Court denied the motion for spoilation sanctions, in part because of
defense representations that the server was not used to monitor internet usage. The
Court found that Plaintiff could not establish that the server would have provided
usable information. Notwithstanding, the Court did order Defendants to provide
information concerning usage by key players and to submit a proposal to Plaintiff
to reconstruct certain data. (Doc. 112 , at 10.)
In later depositions of Defendant employees, Plaintiff learned, essentially,
that the usage data was not used for this purpose during the relevant time period,
although it had been previously. Because Defendants had stopped using the usage
monitoring component of the server, and because of limitations on system
capacity, running reports on usage was no longer possible. Defendants did not
know for certain whether or not the server continued to collect the data, but knew
that the data was not accessible by report.
It is this information which, Plaintiff claims, establishes that the statements
by counsel in the previous submissions were false. Plaintiff claims that a
deposition cross-examination question by defense counsel to a Defendant
employee that “you do not know one way or the other whether or not the data was
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actually on the server, correct?” somehow establishes the knowing falsity of the
previous arguments.
Rule 11 allows the Court to sanction counsel for factual representations in
pleadings which are made without evidentiary support. Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(b)(3),
c(1). Certainly, the rule allows sanctions if intentionally false statements are made
in a pleading.
The original motion for sanctions related to the computer server failed
because Plaintiff could not establish the relevant evidence was on the server when
it was destroyed. The new evidence proffered by Plaintiff from the depositions, if
known earlier, would not change that result. Further, this evidence does not prove
the falsity, and certainly not the intentional falsity, of defense counsel’s argument
that the evidence does not establish that the server contained the needed
information. In fact, this continues to be true. As such, Plaintiff’s Motion for
Sanctions (Doc. 161) is DENIED.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated at Wichita, Kansas, on this 4th day of March, 2015.
S/ KENNETH G. GALE
KENNETH G. GALE
United States Magistrate Judge
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