Stewart v. Stewart
- Naomi Buchwald
- 1:19-cv-05960
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Stewart v. Stewart, Judge Buchwald denied contempt against nonparty William P. Stewart III but required an affidavit and electronic-device search.
The ruling directly affected nonparty William P. Stewart III and the parties involved in the subpoena dispute; the opinion does not identify the subpoenaing party in the text provided.
What happened
In Stewart v. Stewart, the court considered a motion to hold nonparty William P. Stewart III in contempt for issues involving a subpoena.
The court rejected the suggestion that failing to respond to a subpoena within 14 days alone justified contempt. It also found the claim of document destruction unsupported because the documents were destroyed before the lawsuit began. The court nevertheless directed William P. Stewart III to provide an affidavit about preserving and deleting electronic content and to search his devices for specified terms and produce related records about the jewelry's ownership.
Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald denied the contempt motion and directed the clerk to terminate it.
The detailed version
- Stewart v. Stewart · No. 1:19-cv-05960
- Naomi Buchwald
- Aug. 28, 2020
Background
The court addressed a motion to hold William P. Stewart III, a nonparty, in contempt in connection with a subpoena. The opinion does not identify the party who filed the motion in the text provided.
Court's reasoning
The court rejected the argument that a nonparty should be held in contempt merely for failing to respond to a subpoena within 14 days. It explained that courts in the district generally find nonparties in contempt for subpoena violations when they also violate a court order requiring compliance. The court also stated that it did not appear that Mr. Stewart had treated the subpoena with contempt.
The court rejected the suggestion that spoliation—the destruction or loss of potentially relevant evidence—had occurred, because the written record showed that the documents were destroyed before this lawsuit began. However, the court stated that the subpoenaing party did not have to accept an unsworn statement that electronic-device records had simply been deleted long ago.
Order
The motion to hold William P. Stewart III in contempt was denied. To resolve the subpoena issues, the court directed Mr. Stewart to: (1) submit an affidavit within two weeks describing his practices for preserving and deleting content on his electronic devices, including text messages and emails; and (2) search the contents of those devices using the keywords “Topaze,” “DGBF,” and “jewelry,” and produce search results related to ownership of the jewelry at issue. The clerk was directed to terminate the motion at ECF No. 66.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.