Lawal v. Earth's Elements

Background

This website-accessibility case was in discovery. Rafia Lawal served interrogatories and document requests on Earth’s Elements in December 2022. Earth’s Elements did not respond on time. After Lawal notified the court in May 2023, the court issued two orders directing Earth’s Elements to respond to her letter. Earth’s Elements did not respond to those orders or provide the discovery responses. It also failed to appear at a June 27, 2023 discovery conference. Earth’s Elements eventually served its responses on July 4, 2023, and Lawal moved for sanctions three days later.

Analysis

The court stated that Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 16 and 37, along with the court’s inherent authority, allow it to impose an appropriate sanction for failing to comply with court orders. The court found that Earth’s Elements repeatedly failed to timely provide discovery and failed to attend the discovery conference. Earth’s Elements admitted that its responses were “extremely late” and that some sanction was warranted, but it and its counsel offered no good reason for disregarding the court’s directives.

The court found that a financial sanction was warranted because the delay required three interim orders and full briefing on the sanctions motion. But the court also found that Lawal contributed to the delay by waiting from December 6, 2022, until March 3, 2023, to ask Earth’s Elements’ counsel about the missing discovery. The court further noted that Lawal apparently had not yet provided Earth’s responses to her expert. Because of the general range of financial recovery in website-accessibility cases, the court concluded that ordering payment directly to Lawal would create a windfall.

Ruling

Judge Wang denied Lawal’s motion to strike ECF 10. She ordered Earth’s Elements to pay a $600 financial sanction to the Clerk of Court by January 30, 2024. The amount represented $100 for each month that the discovery responses were overdue. She also extended the expert-discovery deadline to January 30, 2024, so Lawal could confer with her expert if necessary.

The court stated that it would separately recommend that Judge Rearden enter a 21-day order in the case. According to the opinion, that period would allow the parties to decide whether and how to continue litigating or resolve the case. If Lawal intended to continue litigating, she would need to ask Judge Rearden to reopen the case before the period expired and submit a proposed trial or summary-judgment schedule. The Clerk was directed to close ECF 29.