Leor Exploration & Production LLC v. Aguiar is the name here given to a group of interrelated commercial litigation cases arising out of a multi-billion dollar oil and gas discovery. There were multiple claims and counter-claims, including fraud, breach of contract, and negligence. It also involved a bitter family rivalry. When Judges O’Sullivan and Seitz were shown clear and convincing evidence of what the individual defendant had done, they responded as they needed to do to protect the American legal system. They threw out his claims. Assuming this sanction order is upheld on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, it will stand as the largest e-discovery sanction case in history.”

E-Discovery Team – ”Win-At-All-Costs” Litigation Using Illegal e-Discovery Leads to Dismissal of a Billion Dollar Case

”Many courts have imposed monetary sanctions against outside counsel of record for their negligence in working with their clients to preserve evidence. See eg., Green v. McClendon, 2009 WL 2496275 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 13, 2009) (discussed before in Mathematical Formula for Justice Proves the Importance of ESI in Civil Litigation). But this decision goes a step further and reaches behind the curtain to impose sanctions against in-house counsel. This was not your typical in-house counsel situation either. It was not a remote in-house attorney representing a large corporation. The attorney sanctioned was the general counsel for a local governmental entity, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Department.

This District Court opinion has not been published yet, but I expect it will be soon. It is, as far as I know, the first in the country to impose a monetary sanction against an in-house counsel who was not an attorney of record and was not a named party. The amount of the sanction has not yet been determined by the District Court judge who entered the order, but it will be substantial. The plaintiff incurred costs and attorney fees in excess of $300,000 to bring and prove the sanctions motion.”

Read more – e-Discovery Team: In-House Counsel Sanctioned for Defendant’s Failure to Preserve Evidence