Failing to comply with the rules of civil discovery can result in serious sanctions.  Washington’s Supreme Court recently emphasized just how serious when it upheld, in Magana v. Hyundai Motor America, an $8 million default judgment against Hyundai for violating the discovery rules.

The case arose out of a car accident in which the plaintiff was seriously injured while riding in a car manufactured by Hyundai.  The plaintiff sued the drivers involved.  He also sued Hyundai, claiming that the car’s seat design was faulty.  During pre-trial discovery, he sought from Hyundai information about all other complaints involving the seat design, including complaints involving other models with similar seats.  Hyundai told the plaintiff that no other claim involved this seat design and that only the model involved in the plaintiff’s accident had the seat design.  The case went to trial, and the jury returned an $8 million verdict.  Hyundai appealed, won on appeal, and the case was sent back for re-trial.  The plaintiff asked Hyundai to update the answers it had given earlier, and only then did Hyundai reveal that other models had similar seat designs and that other cases and complaints had centered on the seat design.  Finding that this information should have been disclosed in Hyundai’s initial discovery responses, the trial court entered default judgment for the plaintiff, reinstating the $8 million verdict.

The Washington Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s decision, finding that Hyundai’s actions were willful and harmed the plaintiff’s ability to prepare for trial and that Hyundai had used similarly evasive tactics in a different case in another state.  “This result,” said the Court, “hopefully educates and deters others so inclined.”

At least three things are worth noting about this decision. 

• First, the Court held that Hyundai was required to search more than just its legal department’s records for information responsive to the plaintiff’s discovery requests.  (In the trial court, Hyundai had tried to defend its limited initial search for responsive information on the ground that searching beyond the legal department “would have taken an extensive computer search.")  The trial court, in fact, held that, as “a sophisticated multinational corporation, experienced in litigation,” Hyundai "had the obligation not only to diligently and in good faith respond to discovery efforts, but to maintain a document retrieval system that would enable the corporation to respond to plaintiff's requests.” (Emphasis added.)
  
  
• Second, the Court held that Hyundai’s objections to the plaintiff’s discovery requests did not entitle Hyundai to respond only to the limited extent that the company did respond.  Instead, the Court held, Hyundai was required to ask the trial court for a protective order excusing the company from responding to the plaintiffs’ discovery requests as written.  The civil rules have required this step for some time, unless the parties have agreed to narrow the applicable discovery requests.  Magana shows that failing to comply with the requirement can have very serious consequences.
  
  
• Finally, a default judgment would not always be appropriate for failure to respond fully to discovery.  In upholding this extreme sanction in the Magana case, the Court referred to the “unique facts and circumstances” of the case, and two dissenting justices argued that even on these facts, a lesser sanction was more appropriate.  All of the justices agreed, however, that Hyundai’s conduct merited sanctions.  The decision thus serves as a dramatic reminder that trying to “game” the discovery process is a decidedly perilous undertaking in Washington.