Justia Admiralty & Maritime Law Opinion Summaries

In 2006, the district court adopted a consent order to resolve Dispatch's suit for an accounting of the gold from the S.S. Central America shipwreck. The order required defendants to produce financial documents regarding the period starting January 1, 2000. The court later issued a contempt order, citing defendants’ failure to produce an inventory of the gold recovered and sold. Defendants then produce an inventory of gold that they sold to California Gold Group from February 15 to September 1, 2000. They did not produce any prior inventories, which would have provided a complete accounting of treasure recovered from the ship. At a 2007 contempt hearing, the parties argued about whether the defendants possessed any earlier inventories. The court issued another contempt order in 2009. Defendants continued to assert that they had no such inventories. In 2013, Dispatch obtained the appointment of a receiver that it had first sought in 2008 to take control of and wind down the defendants. The receiver recovered found numerous inventories created before the California Gold sale, in a duplex owned by defendants' attorney and leased to defendants. The court concluded that defendants’ attorney engaged in bad-faith conduct, rejected Dispatch’s request for $1,717,388 (its total litigation expenses) and limited sanctions to the cost of pursuing the motion for sanctions, plus the expenses to uncover the fraud and locate the inventories. Dispatch submitted bills for $249,359.85. The Sixth Circuit affirmed a reduced award of $224,580. View "Williamson v. Recovery Ltd. P'ship" on Justia Law