LORDA Wins a $27,605 Attorneys Fees Sanction for Client due to Opponent’s Obstruction of the Discovery Process
December 24, 2014
On Christmas Eve, U.S. Magistrate Judge David A. Horan issued a Memorandum Order awarding LORDA clients Peter Denton and Harvest Investors, LP $27,605 in attorney’s fees as a Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(a)(5) Sanction because of their opponent’s failure to produce documents in a complex international collection action emanating from a multi-million dollar Swiss Arbitration Award that was confirmed to a U.S. Judgment. The creditor, Rudolph Suter, has attempted to avoid payment of his debt by moving from Switzerland to Dallas where he is the CEO of an Optical Company and in so doing committed the discovery abuse leading to the Sanction. This effort was complicated by Suter filing for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, which stayed the District Court action for over ten months until Suter voluntarily waived his discharge in the face of Denton and Harvest Investors’ and the United States Trustee’s objections to his discharge based on Suter’s false statements under oath and other abuses of the bankruptcy process.