Karlsson v. Ford Motor Company - filed June 27, 2006, Second District, Div. Eight
Trial court did not abuse discretion by imposing evidence and issue preclusion sanctions against party for engaging in a pattern of discovery violations in connection with deposition notices and document production requests, resulting in the loss of important evidence in products liability case, even though no court orders were violated. Any error in imposing evidence sanction was harmless in absence of showing that sanctioned party would likely have obtained a more favorable verdict if excluded evidence had been admitted. Special instruction telling jury that defendant had attempted to conceal evidence from being used at trial, and that the jury could consider that fact in determining what inferences to draw from the evidence as it related to the issue to which that evidence related, was proper where defendant acted intentionally and in bad faith. Because trial court imposed discovery sanctions after it had summarily adjudicated plaintiff’s punitive damages claims in defendant’s f
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