Jazwares, LLC v. Perez
- William Alsup
- 3:22-cv-00094
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Jazwares v. Perez, Judge Alsup held Perez in civil contempt and tentatively sanctioned him $3,633.61 for missing a court-ordered deposition.
Emmanuel Jose Perez was held in civil contempt and faced tentative monetary sanctions; Jazwares, LLC was tentatively awarded specified attorney’s fees and costs.
What happened
Jazwares, LLC sued Emmanuel Jose Perez in an intellectual-property and unfair-competition case involving his social-media posts about prototype and unreleased action figures. The court had ordered Perez to appear for a deposition on February 10, 2022, but he did not appear and did not explain why.
The court found that Perez violated the clear deposition order, that his failure was more than a technical violation, and that he did not act based on a reasonable, good-faith interpretation of the order. Although he later attended a deposition, that did not excuse the earlier failure. The court granted Jazwares’ contempt motion in part.
Judge Alsup held Perez in civil contempt and tentatively sanctioned him $3,633.61: $953.61 in costs and $2,680 in attorney’s fees. The court scheduled a later hearing to give Perez another opportunity to be heard before resolving the sanctions issues.
The detailed version
- Jazwares, LLC v. Perez · No. 3:22-cv-00094
- William Alsup
- Apr. 22, 2022
Background
Jazwares, LLC brought an intellectual-property and unfair-competition action concerning Emmanuel Jose Perez’s Instagram posts about prototype and pre-release action figures based on All Elite Wrestling figures. The court had previously granted Jazwares’ request for a temporary restraining order, ordered Perez to appear for an in-person deposition on February 10, 2022, and later entered a preliminary injunction.
Perez did not attend the February 10 deposition. He later sat for a deposition on March 29, 2022. Jazwares then asked the court to hold Perez in civil contempt and impose $7,413.61 in fees and costs incurred in preparing for the missed deposition.
Civil Contempt
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 allows a court to treat a failure to obey a discovery order as contempt. The court explained that civil contempt requires clear and convincing evidence that the person violated a specific and definite order, went beyond a technical violation, and did not rely on a good-faith and reasonable interpretation of the order.
The court found all three requirements met. The January 27 order clearly required Perez to appear for his deposition on February 10. Perez did not appear, did not explain his nonparticipation, and received both formal service and a courtesy copy by email. The court also found that appearing approximately seven weeks later did not turn the initial failure into a technical violation and that Perez had not reasonably or in good faith interpreted the order.
The court therefore held Emmanuel Jose Perez in civil contempt under Rule 37(b).
Tentative Fees and Costs
The court found Jazwares’ listed expenses reasonable in part. It tentatively awarded $953.61 in costs. For attorney’s fees, the court tentatively awarded $2,680, consisting of four hours of preparation by attorney John C. Ulin at $670 per hour and nine hours by associate attorney Eric Sefton at $420 per hour. The court concluded that any greater attorney-fee amount would be excessive.
The resulting tentative sanction was $3,633.61. Because the award was tentative, the court scheduled an in-person hearing on May 12, 2022, to give Perez a further opportunity to be heard. The order states that Jazwares’ motion was granted in part.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.