Rimkus Consulting Group, Inc. v. Cammarata

688 F. Supp. 2d 598 (S.D. Tex. 2010)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

In November 2006, P was sued in Louisiana state court by Ds who had just resigned P and begun a new company. Ds planned and did compete with P offering investigative and forensic engineering services primarily for insurance disputes and litigation. Ds sought a declaratory judgment that the forum-selection, choice-of-law, noncompetition, and nonsolicitation provisions in agreements they had signed with P were unenforceable. In January and February 2007, P sued Ds in Texas, alleging that they breached the noncompetition and nonsolicitation covenants in their written employment agreements and that they used P's trade secrets and proprietary information. The cases were consolidated. P has moved for sanctions against Ds and their counsel and asks that they be held in contempt alleging that Ds and their counsel 'conspiratorially engaged' in 'wholesale discovery abuse' by destroying evidence, failing to preserve evidence after a duty to do so had arisen, lying under oath, failing to comply with court orders, and significantly delaying or failing to produce requested discovery. P asks this court to strike Ds' pleadings and to enter a default judgment against them or give an adverse inference jury instruction. P seeks monetary sanctions in the form of the costs and attorneys' fees it incurred because of Ds' discovery abuses. Ds argue that P cannot show prejudice because the missing emails 'would be merely cumulative of the evidence already produced.'